Legitimizing Permanent Security

• In Event: Peace, War, and Social Conflict Panel Session: War

Abstract

Permanent security denotes a mode of governing insecurity oriented toward the pursuit of invulnerability through preventive and preemptive violence. Building on Dirk Moses’s formulation, it refers to an aspiration to eliminate not only immediate threats but also potential future ones, thereby closing the gap between perceived insecurity and absolute safety. While Moses analyzed the essence of permanent security, he did not examine how its pursuit is legitimized, a challenge that is especially acute in liberal societies, and is central to the production of violence. This paper partly fills that gap. I argue that permanent security is not only a strategic orientation but also a political legitimation project. It is sustained through apocalyptic threat narratives, from which multiple mechanisms emerge, including rhetorical coercion, dehumanization, victimhood, and identity politics, alongside the weakening of ordinary politics, the curtailment of deliberation, and social mechanisms of denial. These mechanisms are instrumental in containing moral and political contestation and, in turn, in legitimizing the pursuit of permanent security. The analysis draws on the case of the Gaza War, which exemplifies Israel’s aspiration for permanent security.

Author

• Yagil Levy, Open University of Israel