The Securitization of Non-Traditional Security Issues : A study concerning the impacts of securitization efforts on the fight against HIV/AIDS

Sammanfattning: In their first meeting of the new millennium the UN Security Council put HIV/AIDS on the agenda as a security issue. This was the first time a non-traditional security issue was discussed in such a forum. Based upon the normative discussions raging within the field of securitization theory, this study seeks to analyse the empirical outcomes that the securitization effort, of putting HIV/AIDS on the Security Council agenda, might have had. While many studies argue the normative points of securitization when it comes to non-traditional security issues, this study turns to an empirical case. Based upon the resolution 1308, following the Security Council’s meeting, UNAIDS was chosen in order to uncover the possible outcomes of the securitization efforts. By using bureaucratic theory to develop a framework for the textual analysis of UNAIDS meeting documents from 1998-2005, this study uncovers undeniable changes to the nature and structure of the organization. The positive results yielded in the analysis of UNAIDS highlight that the use of securitization as a practical policy tool in to advance an issue at hand could well be a way forward with similar areas lacking sufficient attention and/or funding.