Secondary national security: A case study of Greenland

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between sovereignty and national security by questioning the assumption that they depend on one another. This paper aims to conceptualize secondary national security within the broader theoretical framework of Security Studies associated with the Copenhagen School and Stephen Krasner’s understanding of sovereignty, and to apply this concept as an analytical framework in a qualitative case study of Greenland. The analysis demonstrates that national security can exist in the absence of full sovereignty through a configuration in which security provision is externalized, while security perception and the political articulation of security remain internalized. Greenland illustrates how political entities lacking independent military capabilities nevertheless develop autonomous security perceptions and security priorities. The findings indicate that security perception and provision can be institutionally separated yet politically interconnected. The paper concludes that national security is not a fixed, inherent attribute of a sovereign state, but rather a variable, context-dependent phenomenon. For this reason, the concept of secondary national security provides a useful analytical framework for studying security practices under conditions of limited statehood.