ABSTRACT
Undoubtedly the most influential idea to emerge from the conceptual widening of Security Studies in the 1990s by the Copenhagen School was that of societal security. This concept seeks to encapsulate the fact that the process of securitizing issues could sometimes be witnessed when what is thought to be being threatened is neither the state nor individuals within it, but a particular kind of society. ‘Societal security concerns the ability of a society to persist in its essential character under changing conditions and possible or actual threats’ (Waever et al. 1993: 23). This security is threatened when ‘societies perceive a threat in identity terms’ (ibid.). Hence the heightened political prominence given to the issue of immigration in many Western European countries in the 1990s could be construed as a securitizing of that issue, by nationals fearful of threats to their traditional values and customs.
