Securitization Paradigm and Religion

The securitization paradigm developed by the Copenhagen School examines how political elites construct threats through speech acts. When, after 9/11, the paradigm began to be applied to situations involving religion, the emphasis on its focus on speech acts and liberal-democratic contexts left unanswered how religious behaviors or groups become sites of security governance and how religion itself participates in securitizing processes. This review article reconsiders the relationship between the securitization paradigm and religion by systematically mapping scholarship across Europe, the Global South, and transnational contexts. It differentiates between the securitization of religion, which is the framing of religious actors and symbols as threats, and religious securitization, which is the engagement of religious actors themselves in securitizing acts. The article advances a framework that integrates ontological security theory with historical sequencing to explain how identity anxieties, once activated, sediment into laws, bureaucratic routines, and cultural narratives over time. By shifting attention from isolated speech acts to identity-driven processes, the article demonstrates how securitization reshapes both political practices and religious discourse. It concludes by outlining a comparative research agenda that extends beyond Islam and beyond Western liberal settings.