Grammar, Context and Power: Securitisation of 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade

In the wake of 2010 Belgrade Pride Parade, right wing extremists portrayed the event as a threat to public morals, while liberals framed homophobia as a threat to democracy. While these moves managed to polarise and mobilize the public, the government didn’t heed to their calls to adopt extraordinary measures. The Parade took place on October 10 and the extremists organised unchecked violent counter-demonstrations. By drawing on Securitisation Theory, we triangulate content and discourse analysis to understand why these securitising moves had a low success. Our analysis shows that although both moves followed the grammar of security, they were only partially embedded into the wider discursive context and were not enunciated by securitising actors with strong positional power.