Reconceptualizing the Actor-Audience Dichotomy in Securitization Theory

Abstract

Using the theoretical framework of securitization, this thesis analyzes the multifaceted ways in which policymaking actors in both the executive and legislative branches of government contributed to the maintenance and expansion of immigration detention in the US after 9/11. By adopting an assemblage approach to securitization, this thesis breaks with the conventional actor-audience dichotomy posited by traditional securitization scholars and instead argues that securitization in the context of US immigration detention policy is an incremental, contentious and multidirectional process in which it is often difficult to distinguish “securitizing actors” from “securitizing audiences” since many of the individuals, groups and organizations that make up the immigration detention network have taken on different roles at various times. While previous theories of securitization have tended to strictly separate the declaratory and persuasive role of the securitizing actor from the assenting and enabling role of the audience, this thesis employs the three streams model of policymaking to demonstrate that securitization is an interactive process of collaborative meaning making. By moving beyond the reductionist tendencies of the actor-audience dichotomy of securitization theory, an actor-oriented assemblage approach to securitization allows us to better conceptualize the role of executive-legislative cooperation in the expansion of the immigration detention regime.