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Murphy 2020
Murphy 2020
Murphy 2020
Michael P. A. Murphy
To cite this article: Michael P. A. Murphy (2020): COVID-19 and emergency eLearning:
Consequences of the securitization of higher education for post-pandemic pedagogy,
Contemporary Security Policy, DOI: 10.1080/13523260.2020.1761749
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic quickly led to the closure of universities and colleges
around the world, in hopes that public health officials’ advice of social
distancing could help to flatten the infection curve and reduce total
fatalities from the disease. Drawing on Copenhagen school securitization
theory and analyzing 25 declarations of emergency eLearning at American
universities, I argue that in addition to COVID-19 being framed as a general
threat, face-to-face schooling was also presented as a threat through these
policies. A review of securitization theory—with particular attention to the
question of advocacy and the relationship of desecuritization to
emancipation—grounds the investigation theoretically. I argue that
securitization theory is an important tool for educators not only for
observing (and understanding) the phenomenon of emergency eLearning,
but also for advocating the desecuritization of schooling after the COVID-19
crisis passes.
Across the globe, the spread of novel coronavirus COVID-19 has led to
profound changes in social interaction and organization, and the education
sector has not been immune. While the primary student population (of
both K-12 and postsecondary education) appears to be at a lower mortality
risk category compared to older adults, pandemic precautions called “social
distancing” or “physical distancing” have attempted to reduce interpersonal
contact and thereby minimize the kind of community transmission that
could develop quickly in dense social networks like the university campus
(Weeden & Cornwell, 2020). Following the logic of the exception—that
extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures—one common trend
in education systems around the world has been to respond to the pan-
demic with “emergency eLearning” protocols, marking the rapid transition
of face-to-face classes to online learning systems.
While public health officials largely agree that the general threat of
COVID-19 is best fought with measures of social distancing, the specific
acts of instituting emergency eLearning protocols do not alter the pandemic
itself, but only indirectly by limiting face-to-face classroom interactions. To
this end, I argue that there is an important opportunity for Copenhagen
school securitization theory to inform our observation of and advocacy
within the education sector during this critical time. A pandemic response
that securitizes face-to-face instruction may well be appropriate as a
measure to support broader social distancing, but there is a cost to removing
face-to-face education from the realm of normal discourse. eLearning compa-
nies and political commentators in favor of mandatory eLearning programs as
a means of public austerity have already sought to normalize emergency
eLearning protocols (e.g., Katzman in Blumenstyk, 2020; Lilley, 2020). If we
are to have any hope for an emancipatory post-pandemic pedagogy, we
require an open discourse unfathomable under conditions of securitization.
As I will argue through this article, the desecuritization of face-to-face school-
ing is imperative for the future possibility of emancipatory pedagogy, whether
face-to-face or online.
The article proceeds in four sections. The first outlines the classic Copen-
hagen school approach to securitization theory and the place of desecuritiza-
tion within the framework. The second section turns to the emergent medical
literature on COVID-19 to provide a background on what we know about the
pandemic, and why measures of social distancing are advised by the public
health community. The third section frames the responses of emergency
eLearning as a securitization of face-to-face schooling by examining shared
characteristics in declarations of Emergency eLearning among a sample of
25 American universities, as well as more in-depth analysis of comments
made by the presidents of Harvard and Yale, while the conclusion discusses
post-pandemic pedagogy and considers the utility of securitization theory
in educational contexts.
it requires first the removal from security discourse but also a firm commit-
ment to advocacy for political amelioration toward an emancipatory future.
In the case of emergency eLearning and the COVID-19 pandemic, the
argument in terms of securitization is that face-to-face classes was justly
securitized, and that the theory of securitization helps us to observe the dis-
cursive dynamics at play. But for there to be any possibility of emancipatory
post-pandemic pedagogy, the first step must be a concerted effort toward the
desecuritization of face-to-face schooling—recalling that these efforts are not
guaranteed to be successful without collective action—once the pandemic has
passed.
theory as the securitizing actor has identified a threat to the community, and is
declaring the suspension of normal life, replaced swiftly with emergency con-
tingency measures. That the statement addresses a relevant audience is
clarified through Bacow’s insistence that the measures are necessary “to
protect the health of the community.” Face-to-face classes are framed by
the threat rhetoric of community transmission and the threat of COVID-
19, demanding a shift from the normal state of affairs to extraordinary
action. Bacow’s (2020) statement represents a clear securitizing move from
the outset, and the acceptance of emergency eLearning by the Harvard com-
munity suggests that the securitization was ultimately successful.
The original announcement at Yale (Salovey, 2020a) framed the issue in a
somewhat lighter tone, referencing “the challenges posed by COVID-19”
rather than Harvard’s life-altering framing of the pandemic. Peter Salovey
(2020a) similarly invokes “scientific and medical evidence” as well as
“expert advice of dedicated faculty and medical professionals” in justifying
the decision-making process leading to emergency eLearning. But four days
later, after a Yale student had received a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis,
the tone changed. In Salovey’s (2020b) subsequent statement, the rhetoric
of securitization is clearly present—and in a particular way the Schmittian
logic of the exception that Williams (2003) argues is always inherent in the
securitizing move:
I write to inform you of important decisions regarding the remainder of the
spring semester and remind you of measures we must take in the interest of
the health and safety of our community …
With regret, and in consultation with Yale’s medical and public-health experts
and other university leaders, I have concluded that an early return to the class-
room is not possible. The clearest relevant lesson we have drawn from our best-
informed, wisest sources is this: pandemics are defeated by bold measures that
blunt the curve of the rate of infection through dramatic reduction of intense
human contact.
eLearning at a larger scale (Lilley, 2020). With increased pressures from both
for-profit educational technology corporations and governments seeking to
implement eLearning as a means of slashing education budgets, there is a
sense of inevitability of efforts to normalize emergency eLearning. It would
be more surprising if these efforts weren’t made.
First, the sharp binary in securitization theory between “normal politics” and
the discourse of “security” obscures in this case the multiple inequalities and
barriers that exist in the imperfect “normal” situation. Similar to prior cri-
tiques of desecuritization as insufficient, one must ask what inequalities and
barriers are reified when emergencies lead to nostalgia for the prior normal
condition. Second, the securitized state of affairs may preclude the enactment
of outcomes of open debate, the many commentaries on emergency eLearning
seems to suggest that minor interventions—what we might call a form of
policy tinkering—do appear to be possible within the securitized framework.
Though insufficient for emancipatory change, how does tinkering within a
securitized situation alter that suboptimal form-of-life? Perhaps the continued
response to emergency eLearning can offer future empirical material to puzzle
out these questions.
Notes
1. For the logic of the exception, see Schmitt (2005); for the definition of politics as
friend/enemy, see Schmitt (2007). However, it is important to recall that the
shared examination of exceptional politics does not mean that securitization
and emergency exceptionalism are the same phenomenon—on this point, see
Murphy (2019).
2. The name “COVID-19” officially replaced “2019-nCoV” one month earlier, on
11 February (Guarner, 2020, p. 420).
3. The case fatality rate is a moving average highly sensitive to the number of the
poor identification of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic individuals. Fauci
et al. (2020) note that because of this uncertainty “the case fatality rate may be
considerably less than 1%” (p. 1).
4. Johnson et al. (2006) share the story of Delgado Community College, where 20
of 25 buildings had significant water damage.
5. E.g., “I write this letter,” “I ask you to take care of yourselves,” and similar.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editor and reviewers of Contemporary Security Policy for
their most insightful comments shared in the process of revising the article. An
earlier version of the argument received helpful comments from Veronica Kitchen,
Heather Smith, and Tanya Irwin from the WIIS-Toronto Twitter Conference, as
well as Andrew Heffernan.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. The views and
opinions expressed in this article are the work of the author and do not necessarily
reflect an official position of the Algonquin & Lakeshore CDSB.
12 M. P. MURPHY
Funding
The author would like to acknowledge the support of the Social Science and Huma-
nities Research Council of Canada.
Notes on contributor
Michael P. A. Murphy is a SSHRC doctoral fellow in International Relations and Pol-
itical Theory at the University of Ottawa, and an associate member of the University
of Ottawa Research Unit in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. He serves as an
elected school board trustee, Editorial Assistant at Security Dialogue, and member-at-
large for ISA’s Active Learning in International Affairs Section. He has published over
a dozen articles on International Relations theory, political theory, and pedagogy,
appearing in International Relations, the Journal of International Political Theory,
Critical Studies on Security, the Journal of Political Science Education, and elsewhere.
His work can be found at: http://bit.ly/37NJMkZ
ORCID
Michael P. A. Murphy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9523-4402
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