ABSTRACT
The post-positivist constructivist framework of analysis suggests that an actor's behaviour and hence security policy are not driven by objective interests and circumstances, but derive from an actor's reading of itself and its others. This chapter demonstrates the limits of current reading of securitization/desecuritization, weak/strong states and the internal/external security nexus. It examines the way in which these particular labels were appropriated and articulated by the Russian authorities in the construction of Russia state priorities, and with what effect in relation to its security agenda and position towards particular security policies such as Chechnya. The securitization and then desecuritzation of Chechnya is therefore an illustrative and interesting case study in understanding how desecuritized issues function within such generalized securitized political contexts. A major feature of politics in many non-Western contexts is that it is not centred on an open and deliberative democratic political process, but rather on the rule of a single political regime.
