The COVID-19 virus has now spread to 168 countries, with well-over 400,000 confirmed cases and nearly 20,000 deaths. Not surprisingly, policy responses to the global pandemic increasingly reflect the politics of security — or, rather, securitization. The process of securitization follows a familiar logic: an issue is framed as an existential threat to some referent object, which justifies extraordinary measures for protection. According to Buzan, Waever, and de Wilde,
Security is the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue… as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure.
The global response to COVID-19 contains all the critical elements of securitization: referent object(s), threat, audiences, securitizing acts and actors, and emergency measures. However, the politics of securitization is neither simple nor unproblematic. The analysis here points to three political dilemmas behind the securitization of COVID-19, which involve the referent object(s), securitizing acts, and emergency measures.