Securities markets and political securitization: The case of the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone

Abstract

Abstract What were the effects of securities markets’ dynamics on the issue of political securitization, in the sense of the Copenhagen School, in the context of the sovereign debt crisis in the European Monetary Union (EMU)? This article addresses that question in an attempt to bring together the theory of political securitization and the financial securitization of government bonds. In conceptual terms, the article argues that the intervention of securities markets into the securitization of the euro can be understood as a confrontation between two types of validity claims. Securitizing moves, and the response they elicit, together constitute symbolically a political collectivity; this provokes a struggle between the adequate representation of that collectivity and its security concerns. In contrast to this, market communications – in fact, price signals – neither invoke a political collectivity nor can they be semantically refuted. Because of this quality, market signals can amplify or weaken securitizing moves. In the case of the EMU sovereign debt crisis, market communications triggered a privileging of supranational securitizations while impairing national ones.

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