Does 'Societal Security' Travel? A Comparison of German and South African Responses to Immigration

This paper examines whether European notions of securitization and societal security provide insights into immigration policies of non-European states, and if so, how changes in a state’s particular definition of societal security are connected to its policy reforms. The argument proceeds in two stages. First, we examine the securitization theory of the so-called Copenhagen School (and its critics), particularly the concept of societal security and its relationship to immigration. Second, through a most-similar comparison of four specific aspects of recent German and South African immigration policy reforms, we explore how well the societal security concept and the securitization framework ‘travel’ beyond the European context. We conclude that wider empirical application of securitization theory can both improve the framework’s general explanatory value and provide insights into non-European democracies. Yet we also caution that too much attention to unique aspects of the European Union context risks over-shadowing the analytical insights of the framework