Brown Bag Seminar by Ece Tekbulut (Columbia University)

Abstract: Societies face exceptional circumstances, pandemics, financial collapse, military attacks, that are framed as existential security threats. In response, emergency powers are invoked, centralizing authority in the executive or expert committees. Decisions are shielded from public scrutiny, dissent is delegitimized, and democratic procedures are suspended. The prevailing logic holds that security precedes politics: the rules of democratic legitimacy apply only after security is restored. This paper challenges this paradigm by arguing that threat, risk, and security cannot be approached from a neutral, value-free standpoint. These concepts are inherently political, constructed through interpretive processes that reflect divergent normative commitments. Objective facts do not translate directly into threats; rather, threats emerge through evaluation shaped by our values and priorities. A pandemic, for instance, may be framed primarily as a threat to public health (requiring lockdowns), economic stability (prioritizing open businesses), or civil liberties (where restrictions themselves constitute the threat). Similarly, what counts as security varies radically: from border protection to the eradication of gendered violence. In pluralistic societies, where citizens hold conflicting conceptions of the good, responses to security threats are necessarily subject to contestation. Democratic deliberation and decision are uniquely suited to fairly settle these disagreements amid pervasive conflict about the good and the right.