Securitization,history, and identity: some conceptual clarifications and examples from politics of Finnish war history

This article shows how we can use the securitization framework to study extreme history politics. Securitization refers to a speech act or discursive process in which an actor makes a claim that some referent object, deemed worthy of survival, is existentially threatened. If successful, securitization justifies the use of extraordinary measures to counter the threat. After introducing the concept of securitization in detail, the article presents three ways in which history and securitization can be connected: history can serve as a facilitating condition of securitization; history can be explicitly used to strengthen a securitizing move; or history, or a particular interpretation of it, can be the referent object of securitization. The second half of the article is devoted to a discussion on the role of history in the securitization of national identities. Historical myths are the standard building blocks of national identities; challenging these myths can be presented as threats to the survival of the nation. The article also discusses potential forms of resistance against securitization of history/national identities. Illustrative examples from the political use of WWII history in Finland will be used to show the practical consequences of various conceptual choices.     

(In)securitization and illiberal practices on the fringe of the EU

Illiberal practices of liberal regimes have been extensively studied by critical security studies. The literature on risk emphasises the idea of imminent dangers and the logic of worst-case scenarios, which eventually unsettle the balance between security and liberty by always favouring the former in its most coercive and exceptional forms. This paper, by drawing on (in)securitization theory, attempts to explain how particular illiberal practices with respect to the control and management of immigration on the fringe of the EU become normalised. It argues that (in)securitization of immigration and illiberal practices are effects of the very functioning of a transnational field of (in)security professionals that are produced through the structural competition between different actors of this field over the definition of security and the appropriate control and management of immigration. In this respect, it uses Greece as a case study and draws on material gathered through interviews with Greek security professionals in Athens, Lesvos, Orestiada, and Alexandroupoli, and analysis of their discourse in dissertations they prepared during their study in police academies.     

次贷危机与资产证券化信息披露制度的重构

资产证券化本身并非次贷危机的根源,我国应该继续推进资产证券化的进程。不过,次贷危机充分暴露了美国资产证券化信息披露的制度性缺陷：信息披露制度的长期缺失以及信息披露豁免滥用的可能性。对此,《多德一弗兰克华尔街改革和个人消费者保护法案》进行了校正。应该结合美国的经验教训以及我国的实践。对我国资产证券化信息披露制度进行重构。     

次贷危机与我国金融安全

随着美国次贷危机的蔓延,资产证券化的风险对金融安全的影响不容忽视。结合对美国次贷危机诱因及目前资产证券化风险的分析,提出防范风险的核心是建立一套与我国金融安全相适应的一系列机制。     

金融危机后我国房地产抵押贷款证券化监管研究

抵押贷款证券化对健全金融市场、改善银行资本结构、增加房地产业的流动性起到了重要作用。同时,由于监管不力,证券化过程中的违规操作促发了2007年以来的次贷危机。本文拟探讨在全球金融危机的背景下,根据我国现有金融监管体制和房地产市场的发展,如何建立完善的监管体系,在保证金融体系安全稳定的同时,促进抵押贷款证券市场的健康发展。     

Accounting for ideas: Bringing a knowledge economy into the picture

Abstract

Over the past 15–20 years, the margins of industrial classifications, corporate balance sheets and GDP have been altered to capture knowledge as a new category of value. This has resulted in the institutionalization of categories such as an information economy (1997), intangible assets (2001) and, most recently, a knowledge-adjusted GDP (2013) in these calculating technologies. By harnessing knowledge as a manageable and valuable object, these shifts are responding but also contributing to the concept of a knowledge economy. This paper investigates the conditions necessary to anchor these new categories of value. The analysis attends not only to the changing rules and regulations, but also to the rhetorics of visibility/invisibility, materiality/immateriality, and measurability/immeasurability used to make a case for these transformations.     

(Im)possible citizens: Canada's ‘citizenship bonanza’ and its boundaries

This article discusses a recent amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act, which retroactively restores or gives Canadian citizenship to ‘hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting foreigners, most of them Americans’ (P. Dvorak, 2009. Canada issues a wake-up call: you may be a citizen. The Wall Street Journal, 17 April. Available from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993183347727843.html) while also restricting the inheritance of Canadian citizenship to the first-generation born abroad. Aiming to redress past discriminations based on gender, marital status and dual citizenship while simultaneously curtailing modern citizenship's dubious ius sanguinis provision, the new law might be interpreted as perpetuating Canada's reputation as a world leader in interethnic relations and human rights. A contextual analysis of the new law, by contrast, shows that the opposite is the case: the boundaries that are being drawn by Canada's new citizenship regime follow the now common trend of re-ethnicization and securitization. Specifically, they conflate kinship and Whiteness, thereby leading, on the one hand, to the construction of possible citizens whose authenticity and loyalty to the nation are unquestioned. On the other hand, within the logic of the new laws and their surrounding discourses, non-White, non-Christian ‘impossible citizens’ emerge, whose lack of loyalty and instrumental use of their Canadian passport are said to be eroding the value of citizenship from within.     

Limits to a cyber-threat

This paper reveals the limits to representing cyberspace as a threat. In contrast to more conventional threats, the suggestion is that the not-immediately-apparent consequences of a cyber-attack make it largely reliant on official practices of representation. Exploring the implications of this reliance, the paper outlines how attributing meaning and culpability – always contested practices – are amplified in the potential absence of a readily apparent attack. Given these limits, does the cyber-threat then require a different lexicon of danger to both educate and engender a sense of caution? Examining the discursive construction of the cyber-threat, the paper demonstrates how this threat draws upon an established economy of danger – likening it to warfare and terrorism – but also suggests a limit to these representations. Specifically, by engaging post-structuralist literature the paper illustrates that these limits are best understood through an appreciation of the performative and the constitutive ‘lack’ in signification. It thus concludes that the value of the cyber-threat is not determined by transparently representing a cyber-attack. Rather, it is drawn from processes of hyper-securitization and through the establishment of institutions like the NATO Center of Excellence in Cooperative Cyber Defense that retroactively bring into existence the very object it purports to defend against.     

论我国《刑法》中的“内幕信息”

内幕信息是指对证券、期货交易活动具有重大影响且尚未公开的信息。内幕信息的特征和认定标准应当是两个,即未公开性和重要性。未公开性的认定应当采取形式公开为主、实质公开为辅的标准,根据"两高"最新出台的相关司法解释中的"内幕信息形成之时"和"内幕信息敏感期"认定公开时间和公开方式。重要性的认定应当由完全的"客观标准"向"主观标准"为主、"客观标准"为辅的主客观结合认定模式转变。"相关性"和"确定性"不是内幕信息的特征和判断标准,它们内在地被消解、融汇在重要性判断中。依循权力分工、制衡的法治精神,行政权和司法权的界分决定了在行政犯(罪)领域,行政监管机关对内幕信息内容和性质认定的行政性判断应当从属于司法机关的司法性判断,司法机关的司法性判断应当具有独立性和终局性。