The Art of Strategic Securitization: A Discursive Analysis of Climate Mobility in International Organizations

Why do states frame climate mobility as a security topic in international organizations? Climate mobility is often framed as an alarming security issue, demanding exigence from a policy standpoint. Despite this, it remains insufficiently governed at the international level. To address this puzzle, this thesis examines which state coalitions securitize climate mobility in international organizations and how they do so in differing ways, accounting for multiple flavors of securitization. This analysis builds on work by scholars Ingrid Boas and Sabrina Arias, who have studied the securitization of climate mobility and climate change, respectively, but come to different conclusions on why states choose to securitize. Through Structural Topic Model analysis on state speeches that discuss climate mobility in the United Nations General Assembly and Conference of the Parties forums, the research finds that states securitize climate mobility to promote their unique climate change agendas, more so than to achieve other strategic goals. This suggests that climate mobility is brought up discursively in international organizations to shape and motivate climate change policy, rather than to govern climate mobility itself. The revelation that states securitize climate mobility to influence climate change policy offers one explanation as to why there has been insufficient governance of climate mobility. This conclusion sheds light on the dangers of the climatization of topics like climate mobility, or principally discussing them to promote climate change policy, given that international protections and rights of people displaced by climate change remain unaddressed.