Security, the Environment and Emancipation
... The application of various methods of multidimensional statistical analysis gives a chance to implement the typology of differentiated territories, to construct matrices of strategic management, to identify factors that shape the ecological security of studied observation objects, to assess the level of differentiation of territories according to the level of environmental security and to determine the trends and patterns of its development. The spatial analysis is performed on the joint use of geostatistical methods, analysis of differentiation and methods of portfolio analysis (McDonald, 2012). The spatial grouping makes it possible to group objects based on object attributes and additional spatial/temporal constraints, as shown in Table 1. ...
... But when examining the implications of defining or approaching an issue as a security issue, we should be wary of assuming that 'securitization' will have specific effects. My argument here-building on earlier work (McDonald 2008(McDonald , 2012-is that what matters politically isn't whether security is invoked, but how security is understood. If security is understood and approached in terms of the nation-state and its preservation, then that has very different implications (for addressing an issue like climate change) than if security is understood in terms of international stability, human welfare or ecosystem resilience, for example (see Chap. 10). ...
The Anthropocene is something of a ‘game-changer’ for the way we can and should view international relations. It suggests the need to step back and reconsider some of the core assumptions we have about the way the world works. In the context of the Anthropocene, this means that the environment is no longer a background to geopolitics, but rather a dynamic force that impacts global politics. This chapter makes the case that the Anthropocene compels us to view and approach security not through the lens of how we might protect human collectives or institutions, but how we might protect ecosystems themselves. Consequentially, this points to a defence of ecosystems, in particular their functionality in the face of ongoing change. For doing so, the chapter outlines the contours of an ecological security discourse, emphasising its focus on the resilience of ecosystems and the rights and needs of the most vulnerable.
... On this front, the debates on whether to securitize or not to securitize, how to securitize and what constitutes a successful and/or positive securitization have occupied a prominent position in security studies (Dyer 2001;Floyd 2008;Trombetta 2011). Furthermore, critical security theorists use the concept of 'emancipation' (in construction of security)-'freedom from unacknowledged constraints, relations of domination, and conditions of distorted communication and understanding that deny humans the capacity to make their future through full will and consciousness'-in building linkages between security and environmental change (McDonald 2012). ...
Climate change is increasingly shaping security narratives, including military strategy. While considering climate change a security issue, the military’s role in this discourse and praxis becomes critical as a security actor. However, the interrelationships between climate change, security and the military are conceived and approached by different states diversely. Within different states, this triangular relationship is guided by processes with varied practical/policy implications. While ‘securitization’ has generally been used to explain climate security, other processes such as ‘climatization’ have assumed significance, wherein security practices are climatized. The Indian military too has been engaging with security implications of climate change, but by using approaches distinct from Western states, which have been the usual focus in such analyses. In this paper, the framework of climatization is used to analyse the triangular relationship, using the case study of the Indian military—by categorizing climatizing moves as symbolic, strategic, precautionary and transformative.
... humans as nature's dominant user and controller human-centric) or eclectic approach (Cherry 1995). Generally, an ecological security discourse should orient towards the resilience of ecosystems themselves, which enhances the protection of the most vulnerable across time, space and organisms (McDonald 2012). The nature-centric approach may encourage conflict scenarios stemming from the need to exploit environmental capital to keep up with the pace of human development and the need to be sustainable (Omole and Ndambuki 2014). ...
Sustainable development (SD) is a paradigm shift from the conventional pursuit of economic growth hinged on resource depletion and environmental degradation. This chapter examines the effects of urbanization and climate change on SD in Africa. Climate change poses a significant and unique challenge to Africa’s SD because of its agro-dependent economy. Urbanization in Africa is more “push” than “pull” driven. Therefore, to achieve SD, Africa needs to expand existing infrastructures, build resilient public institutions, reduce poverty, develop new industrial and agro-based technologies, create more employment through diversification, use renewable energies, and practice climate-smart agriculture. The development of a sound policy is also necessary to address the effects of urban population growth and climate change on SD in Africa.
... Shani (Shani, 2014: 73) warns of a focus on emancipation as being doubly dangerous because it not only risks greater 'securitisation of security' and therefore 'may […] help to reproduce the hegemony of conventional security'; it is also steeped in 'Eurocentrism and secular historicism of Frankfurt School-derived "Critical Theory"' (see also Barkawi and Laffey, 2006). Despite these and other concerns with emancipatory discourse (see McDonald, 2012;Peoples, 2011), some notion of progressive change, realized through transformative politics, still appears necessary to direct efforts to redefine security. Critical scholars wary of emancipation have, for instance, sought to explore normative benchmarks using the language of ethics, highlighting the need to move 'beyond first principles or universalized assumptions about security [and emancipation] to engage in nuanced, reflexive and context-specific analyses of the politics and ethics of security' (Browning and McDonald, 2011: 248). ...
South Asia has garnered much attention in international security scholarship and policymaking, not least due to the number of protracted armed conflicts in the region. Yet, the dominant discourse on regional security in South Asia fails to adequately capture the insecurities that undermine the everyday lives and livelihoods of a majority of South Asians. The article first interrogates this prevalent discourse to reveal the inadequacies of traditional state-centric regional security analysis in South Asia. Drawing on critical approaches to security, including concepts that have been developed in the region, it then offers a reconceptualization of regional security. A brief case study discussion on food insecurity is employed to develop, and demonstrate the relevance of, such an approach to identifying and addressing contemporary security imperatives in South Asia. In doing so, the article presents a critical approach to regional security that is deeply rooted in South Asian experiences.
... In the first, we outline the role of non-state actors as security agents in existing accounts of security in international relations, along with the notion of security contestation. This suggests the need to view security as a site of contestation between different actors putting forward alternative accounts of whose security is at stake, through what means security might be realized, which actors are capable of or responsible for providing security, and from what threats (McDonald, 2012). The second outlines the Indonesian security context in broad terms, with a particular focus on Bali, before the third and final section outlines the range of ways in which militia groups within Bali engage with the security 'space'. ...
The last decade in Indonesia has seen the emergence of localized militia groups. In Bali, these groups are now particularly prolific. Conventional wisdom in international relations thought is that these organizations constitute a threat to the authority of the state (its monopoly on the legitimate use of force) and may require national security measures to deal with them. Yet these organizations ultimately define their own role in terms of the provision of security, claiming that they act to preserve or advance core values of their communities. In this sense, their security role with reference to the state is ambiguous: they often enjoy legitimacy at the local level and perform important security functions for their local communities, even while constituting an alternative site of security practice and challenging the (exclusive) security role of the Indonesian state. Drawing on ethnographic research, this article examines these actors as security agents and employs a framework of security contestation to make sense of the manner in which they engage with and redefine the provision of security in Bali. In this context, the emergence and practices of Balinese militia groups challenge the way we view non-state actors in the security space and, more generally, the way we conceive security agency in international relations.
... First, it opens up the security analysis to infinite possibilities that focus on individual critical agency. Emancipatory security theory set out to pluralize the politics of security by integrating alternative notions of security (Browning and McDonald, 2013;McDonald, 2012). These alternative notions are to be found in resisting individuals' experiences, 'the bottom-up' (Hoogensen and Stuvøy, 2006). ...
... Here, contestation has focused on whether Australians, vulnerable outsiders and future generations need protection from longterm changes in rainfall patterns or severe weather events, for example, or whether Australians need protection from short term and unnecessary privations associated with climate mitigation action, action that will have limited effect on the pace or scope of global emissions. And if security can be understood as the preservation or advancement of a group's core values (see McDonald, 2012b), then we can in turn recognize that political actors are constantly engaged in attempts to define the composition of those values, the nature of threats to them, and the means through which they might most effectively be realized. ...
In 2007, Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister of Australia with the promise of pursuing strong action on global climate change. Less than 3 years later, he was deposed as leader of his party after walking away from proposed climate legislation. One important part of this puzzle concerns the nature of political debate in Australia about climate action, with this debate orienting around the economic costs of climate action. This can be read as a competition between discourses of security: one focused on securing Australia and vulnerable others from the long-term threat posed by climate change, the other on securing Australia and Australians from the short-term threat climate change action posed to continued economic growth. Over time, the latter came to dominate contestation over climate change. This article maps these competing discourses, reflecting on what this case tells us about the politics of climate change in Australia and beyond.
... The practical fulfilment of security as emancipation requires the freeing of individuals from arbitrary structures preventing them from living as they would otherwise wish (Booth 2007). Its principal characteristics are that it is radically cosmopolitan, predicated on the rights and needs of the most vulnerable, and that the means envisaged to achieve or preserve 'security' will not deprive others of it (McDonald 2012). This implies a shift of the referent object from the state to the individual. ...
The traditionally dominant discourse of The Great White North views Canada as a land of vast wilderness and abundant resources. However, this discourse excludes growing environmental risk and prevalent insecurity felt by vulnerable populations in Canadian society, namely indigenous groups whose livelihoods are deeply dependent upon their relationship with their environments. The effect of the relationship between the physical environment and conceptions of security can contribute to a deeper understanding of traditional and critical accounts of security. This article investigates traditional Canadian environmental security discourses and alternative environmental security discourses promoted by Arctic Inuit groups. It examines how these discourses impact the analytic and normative goals of critical security studies and interprets the way in which they affect the concept of emancipation. It argues that Canadian security is co-constituted with its understanding of the environment, and that the Canadian case compels an expansion of the notion of the referent object of security to include the environment – a change which throws it into contrast with other schools of critical security, whose visions of emancipation might not, as currently theorized, be equipped to overcome these phenomena.
“Syria is the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time, a continuing cause of suffering for millions which should be garnering a groundswell of support around the world.” This is how Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) High Commissioner described the Syrian crisis (UNHCR, 2020). Although, the echoes of the strife in Syria is growing louder in Ukraine, with the same images of bombings, destructions and displacements, the Syrian crisis remains one of the worst humanitarian crises ever. Eleven years have already passed on this on-going war in Syria. What makes the picture even worse, till the time of writing this thesis in November 2023, there seems a little hope to end those refugees suffering and returning home safely to their homes.
Bangladesh is customarily presented as a poster child for climate change and conflict given its dense population and susceptibility to climate variability. This vulnerability exacerbates existing challenges such as food insecurity and conflict potential. Crises like pandemics and conflicts are external drivers stressing already compromised domestic governance, such as violent politics, poor rule of law, and corruption, further compounding the challenges of land and water resource management and affecting food (in)security in Bangladesh. While we will argue that Bangladesh's all-out ('securitised') efforts to achieve food security are largely successful and there is no evidence of climate conflict related to food, this does not obviate very real food security challenges in remote areas. However, these have not built up to the sense of frustration associated with food riots or community violence. Navigating the possible linkages between climate, food (in)security, and conflict requires debunking common myths and identifying unresolved research puzzles in Bangladesh's context. These myths promote the oversimplification of complex issues and may lead to misinformed policies and actions. Future research needs to be focused on understanding how climate factors interact with local economic , political, and social dynamics, including governance mechanisms, religious and ethnic tensions , economic inequality, grievances, and political exclusion.
Climate change and the ongoing destruction of the earth's ecosystems have increasingly been depicted as a security issue with the noble but not unproblematic goal engendering an urgent response. These climate and environmental security discourses have been extensively critiqued on both empirical and normative grounds. But is there an ethically defensible and even emancipatory alternative to envisioning the relationship between the environment and security? Matt McDonald in his new book-Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security-argues that there is and lays out comprehensive normative framework for doing so. To interrogate McDonald's case for what he calls "Ecological Security", this forum brings together four leading researchers from Anthropology, Geography, International Relations, and Peace and Sustainability Studies. While all contributors are broadly positive regarding goals of the book, each identifies weaknesses in the approach that move from suggestions on how refine the framework on the one hand to questioning whether the framework risks proving counter-productive on the other.
Much like in a myriad of other domains of the modern society, ‘security’ remains a highly contentious and debated area of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ football fan cultures. Against this starting point, this article critically examines how football fans respond to and contest key developments under the aegis of ‘securitization’ by employing relevant examples from elite English football. By subscribing to the contention that football fandom and its activism may be traced from fanzines to online digital media, this article draws from extant literature, fanzine archival material and digital sources to provide snapshots of two important examples that represent alternative forms of public communication and discourse – namely, (i) fanzines and (ii) digital media. The article’s main arguments are that (1) fans’ contestations of securitization have followed similar pathways as fans’ opposition to other elements of the game; (2) fans’ security contestations demonstrate both elements of continuity and responsiveness to emerging issues, and lastly, (3) English football’s field of security contestations, to be fully captured by scholars, should be approached in relation to both its offline and online manifestations.
The paper explores the politics of scale associated with the top-down planning of large hydraulic infrastructures in the Tigris–Euphrates basin. Against the backdrop of a worsening water crisis and the lack of cooperation between riparian countries, dams and reservoirs across the transboundary river system are sites of contestation between competing claims over dwindling and disputed resources. Drawing on post-structuralist insights from human geography on the politics of scale and the literature on megaprojects, it is argued here that hydraulic infrastructures are materially and discursively implicated in the construction of waterscapes at different scales to sustain broader political imaginaries. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and with a focus on the autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Iraq, the analysis juxtaposes the narratives deployed by state- and non-state actors to support or counter the development of additional dams. While, on the one hand, the Kurdistan Regional Government portrays hydraulic infrastructures as a vital source of security and well-being within the overarching nationalist narrative of Kurdish self-determination, on the other hand, transnational civil society groups under the umbrella of the Save the Tigris and Iraqi Marshes Campaign have mobilized against the adverse impact of megaprojects and appealed to the common Mesopotamian heritage in order to de-escalate political tensions within the transboundary river basin. In both cases, hydraulic infrastructures provide a framework for political action to secure recognition of rights and assert the appropriate scale of governance. Furthermore, bottom-up resistance is accompanied by the promotion of a participatory and inclusive approach to shared waters. From this perspective, the spatial politics of megaprojects intersect with issues of identity, equity, and sustainability.
Security has generally posed a challenge to those who have attempted to reach an ideal, comprehensive and encompassing definition of the concept. Orthodox perspectives have mainly focused on the state as a “harbinger” of security that defends its territory and citizens against external enemies through the acquisition of military grade weapons. Neorealist theorist, Stephen Walt defines security as “the study of threat, use, and control of military force” (1991, 212). Since security is a seemingly self-explanatory concept, it has also been rather underdeveloped to the point that International Relations theorist Barry Buzan argues that before the ‘80s, “conceptual literature on security” was rather neglected if not, a sorely absent field of inquiry (1983, 3-4). Buzan himself, along with Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, proposed a new research agenda for security as evidenced in the book: “Security: A New Framework for Analysis” (1997). These authors are regarded as the main representatives of what today we refer to as the Copenhagen School of Security Studies. The present article provides an analysis of the Copenhagen School’s “good practices” on security and securitization as speech acts (Mutimer 2016, 93) and intersubjective processes (de Graaf 2011, 11), in order to address the performative power behind the contemporaneous security architecture and the security practices of threat construction.
Forest conversion for agriculture is the most expansive signature of human occupation on the Earth’s surface. This paper develops a conceptual model of factors underlying frontier agricultural expansion—the predominant driver of deforestation worldwide—from the perspective of small farm households—the majority of farmers globally. The framework consists of four causal rubrics: demographic, socioeconomic, political–economic, and ecological. Following this approach, the article explores the current state of knowledge on tropical deforestation in tropical agricultural frontiers with a focus on Latin America, the region of greatest deforestation worldwide during recent decades. Neo-Malthusian arguments notwithstanding, in many tropical nations, deforestation has proceeded unabated in recent years despite declining rural populations. However, evidence from the global-to-household scale suggests that population size and composition are also related to farm forest conversion. Existing particularist or behaviorialist theories sometimes fail to capture key geographical and temporal dimensions, yet studies support the notion that certain cultural, individual, and household characteristics are crucial determinants of forest clearing. Conversely, while institutional arguments sometimes fail to emphasize that the ultimate land use change agents are local resource users, their livelihood decisions are shaped and constrained by policies governing economic subsidies, and market and infrastructure development. Further, although ecological change is usually modeled as an outcome in the deforestation literature, increasingly acute climate change and natural farm endowments form a dynamic tabula rasa on which household land use decisions are enabled. To more fully comprehend frontier forest conversion and to enhance protection and conservation while promoting vital local livelihoods, future research may fruitfully investigate the interaction of demographic, social, political, economic, and ecological factors across spatial scales and academic disciplines.
Examining the interplay between the oil economy and identity politics using the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a case study, this book tells the untold story of how extractivism in the Kurdish autonomous region is interwoven in a mosaic of territorial disputes, simmering ethnic tensions, dynastic rule, party allegiances, crony patronage, and divergent visions about nature.
Since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the de-facto borders of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have repeatedly changed, with energy interests playing a major role in such processes of territorialisation. However, relatively little research exists on the topic. This book provides a timely, empirical analysis of the intersections between extractive industries, oil imaginaries, and identity formation in one of the most coveted energy frontiers worldwide. It shines a light on relations between the global production networks of petro-capitalism and extractive localities. Besides the strained federal relationship with the Iraqi central government, the transformative effects the petroleum industry has had on Kurdish society are also explored in depth. Moreover, the book fills a gap in the literature on Kurdish Studies, which has devoted scant attention to energy-related issues in the re-imagination of Kurdish self-determination.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the extractive industries, energy studies, conflict studies, Middle Eastern politics, and political ecology.
(1) Background: Urban land ecological security is the basis and premise to ensure the sustainable utilization of urban land resources and regional sustainable development. However, urban land ecological security and its influencing factors have not been studied thoroughly. (2) Methods: An index system of urban land ecological security in Yunnan Province from 2010 to 2019 was constructed, and a comprehensive index of urban land ecological security was calculated by using analytic hierarchy process, entropy weight method, and comprehensive index method, and the LSDVC (Biased-corrected Least Square Dummy Variables) dynamic panel model was constructed from the economic, social and geographical dimensions to systematically analyze the influencing factors of urban land ecological security in Yunnan Province. (3) Results: The comprehensive index of urban land ecological security was significantly affected by the previous period, showing obvious inertia; with the improvement of urbanization level, the comprehensive index of urban land ecological security showed an inverted “U” shape, which first increased and then decreased; the decrease in comprehensive energy consumption per unit of industry and the improvement of fixed-asset investment level, science and technology level, and GDP will significantly promote the ecological security of urban land.
The post cold war period is marked by a new multi-dimensional strategic environment giving new focus to international relations and security of small states. Though the US is the only superpower, the world surely is moving towards multi-polarity and interdependence where regional powers and international systems have an increasingly powerful role. In such an environment small states are finding themselves even more vulnerable. The world dynamics is changing very quickly and with it security dimensions are also changing which brings security as well as insecurity to the smaller states like Nepal. The Nepali security dynamics cannot remain separate from the world changes and there are internal as well as external changes which are taking place in the country. More importantly with the recent dramatic changes and adaptation of a new constitution an optimistic political tendencies have emerged but with it the emerging internal crisis have emerged. This paper analyzes the new emerging security challenges Nepal is facing in the evolving new world order and at the same time suggests some authenticate credible and viable security options for it. It analyzes the special characteristics of Nepal and its vulnerability to both traditional and new forms of threats. The paper is divided into five sub-headings which include introduction, theoretical understanding, major security challenges, security options for Nepal and conclusion.
Australia is often described as a ‘good international citizen’ (GIC), which is intertwined to its status of ‘quintessential’ middle power. However, a number of elements might undermine both notions. This research reviews the concept of GIC and contributes to this niche of IR theory by providing a dedicated definitional framework, which consists of: i) the respect of the international law; ii) multilateralism; iii) the pursuing of humanitarian and idealist objectives; iv) an active support for the rules-based order; and v) a congruous identity matched by consistent domestic policies. After assessing the country’s foreign and domestic policies against this, it finds that Australia has damaged its GIC credentials due to a number of reasons, including: the hard-line policies against seaborne asylum seekers; the participation in missions that are not sanctioned by the UN; the transformation of its global multilateralism into a selective regionalism; the budget cuts to foreign aid; a controversial attitude towards climate change mitigation; and a preference for the US-led global order over a rules-based international society. Far from criticising the country’s foreign policy in its entirety, it argues that in the 21st century Australia behaves as a ‘neutral international citizen’, and a traditional but not ‘quintessential’ middle power.
The current volume (8, issue 2 of 2016) of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice / The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies (RRSBN) publishes mostly the papers presented at the Seventh International Conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania, Good governance in Romania and the Nordic and Baltic countries, hosted by the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies and Nicolae Iorga Institute of History of the Romanian Academy, București, 24-25 November, 2016, with the support of the embassies of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Norway, the Consulate of Latvia to Bucharest and sponsored by Niro Investment Group.
The meeting focused on good governance in Romania and the Nordic and Baltic countries as seen from a variety of angles and from the perspective of various disciplines, institutions and practices related to accountability, transparency, the rule of law, responsibility, equity, inclusiveness, participation, efficiency, human rights protection, tangible, intangible and natural heritage conservation, etc. The conference tackled concepts, issues and good practices in terms of good governance, accountability, welfare, efficiency, gender equality in the public and private sectors in Scandinavia, the Baltic States and Romania as well as the institutions called upon to fight against corruption in these countries. Historical examples of good versus bad governance were also brought forth.
In this issue we included two articles looking at good governance from a historical perspective. Costel Coroban investigates a key source of High Medieval Iceland, the Íslendingabók, in order to capture the images that mirror the ideology of power. The author contrasts the Icelandic and Norwegian sources and finds out that in Iceland the rulers customarily tried to legitimate their power position or to illustrate their weak situation in competition with larger and stronger neighbors. Much had changed in the intermediate six centuries separating the Icelandic stories and the Estonian ones, but the situation of a weaker fellow subdued by a stronger nation remained. Kari Alenius brings a fresh air in the debate concerning good governance by showing that even during foreign occupations and dramatic historical events such as world wars people still need to enjoy some kind of welfare, attention to their needs, competence. Alenius discovers from the primary sources he uses that leadership cannot be offered without cultivating mutual trust and communication between the governing and the governed.
Peace and security have been chosen to illustrate the conceptual approaches of Nordic states and their contribution to global stability, which is, of course, still more of a desire than a state of affairs. Security, stability, peace are, naturally, core aspects of good governance and safety of human being. Luiza-Maria Filimon tackles the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory, its conceptual strengths and applications while Mihai Sebastian Chihaia blends peace and security to the Nordic states’ endeavor to develop the security environment at European level and beyond.
The situation of minorities in a given country offers a hint to the level of democracy and welfare that state grants to its citizens. The capacity to integrate people of various personal histories, cultures, languages, religions, preferences who are locals or incomers cultivates openness and enlarges the prospects of development and general welfare. Adél Furu tackles this issue in a comparative study of Finland’s policy towards the Sami population and Turkey’s policy with regard to the Kurdish minority.
The journal ends with a speech of Former Ambassador of Lithuania to Bucharest, who recollects the time of Russian withdrawal of occupational troops from Lithuania and the responsibility of the Russian Federation as the heir of the Soviet state in respect to the occupation regime imposed upon Lithuania in 1940 and 1944. Historical memory is the arch which governs the architecture of Vladimir Jarmolenko’s essay.
The journal will continue to integrate aspects of good governance in its future issues, as it is a need, a desire, a right and an obligation of our modern world to grant and guarantee that it is offered and spread.
Die vorliegende publikationsbasierte Dissertationsschrift beschäftigt sich mit dem Phänomen der „Sicherheitsbedrohungen“ aus europäischer und US-amerikanischer Perspektive. Sie bewegt sich damit auf dem Gebiet der Security Studies. Dabei geht die Arbeit von einem erweiterten Verständnis von Sicherheit aus, das über das traditionell militärische Sicherheitsverständnis hinausgeht. Bedrohungen können demzufolge aus verschiedensten Situationen hervorgehen – unter anderem aus Finanzkrisen oder transnationalem Terrorismus. Nichtsdestotrotz stehen auch für die New Security Studies (mit ihrem so verstandenen erweiterten Sicherheitsbegriff) ebenso jene Bedrohungsszenarien im Fokus, die aus zwischenstaatlichen Konflikten resultieren, wie beispielsweise aus dem Ukraine-Russland Konflikt der vergangenen Jahre. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden die folgenden, zentralen Forschungsziele verfolgt: das Gewinnen von theoretisch-fundierten empirischen Erkenntnissen mit Blick auf ausgewählte Problemfelder der europäischen und US-amerikanischen Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik und mit Blick auf die transatlantischen Beziehungen (1) sowie die Erweiterung und Vertiefung der Securitization-Theorie und ihrer Anwendungsfelder in der Internationalen Politik (2).
The concerns about the results of climate change have been increasing as new scientific proofs emerge and people witness its direct effects in environmental catastrophes. There also have been different efforts to frame climate change as a security issue. This study aims to analyze different security approaches to climate change with a particular framework. The framework divides these approaches into two: opponents and proponents of the securitization of climate change. It also analyzes different approaches and logics within both camps. Finally, the study examines and evaluates the emerging literature on the “climatization of security” which focuses on the impacts of climate change on the understanding of security in the discipline of International Relations.
This article analyzes the implications of the Anthropocene for the governance of security. Drawing on environmental law, green criminology, and international relations, the article examines the development of environmental security scholarship over recent decades and shows similarities and differences in perspectives across the three disciplines. It demonstrates that the Anthropocene represents a significant challenge for thinking about and responding to security and the environment. It argues a rethinking is needed, and this can benefit from reaching across the disciplinary divide in three key areas that have become a shared focus of attention and debate regarding security in the Anthropocene. These are, first, examining the implications of the Anthropocene for our understanding of the environment and security; second, addressing and resolving contests between environmental securities; and third, developing new governance responses that mix polycentric and state-backed regulation to bring safety and security to the planet.
Climate change is increasingly characterized as a security issue. Yet we see nothing approaching consensus about the nature of the climate change–security relationship. Indeed existing depictions in policy statements and academic debate illustrate radically different conceptions of the nature of the threat posed, to whom and what constitute appropriate policy responses. These different climate security discourses encourage practices as varied as national adaptation and globally oriented mitigation action. Given the increasing prominence of climate security representations and the different implications of these discourses, it is important to consider whether we can identify progressive discourses of climate security: approaches to this relationship underpinned by defensible ethical assumptions and encouraging effective responses to climate change. Here I make a case for an ecological security discourse. Such a discourse orients towards ecosystem resilience and the rights and needs of the most vulnerable across space (populations of developing worlds), time (future generations), and species (other living beings). This paper points to the limits of existing accounts of climate security before outlining the contours of an ‘ecological security discourse’ regarding climate change. It concludes by reflecting on the challenges and opportunities for such discourse in genuinely informing how political communities approach the climate change–security relationship.
The article examines the roles of NGOs in banning cluster munitions that resulted in the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and the campaign against landmines in the 1990s. It argues that NGOs have managed to move questions about the use of force from the closed decision-making sphere of military commanders and arms control diplomats into open public debate. Thus NGOs have simultaneously desecuritised the use of force by states, securitised certain weapons technologies, and made human beings the referent object of security. This has marked a shift from state security and strategic disarmament to human security and humanitarian disarmament, without fundamentally challenging the laws of war. However, in contrast to realist views that only militarily useless weapons ever get banned and radical critical perspectives that see new legal regimes as legitimating war and US hegemony, I argue that NGOs have engaged in immanent critique of military arguments and practices based on prevailing principles of international humanitarian law. The resulting weapon ban treaties have both restrained US policy and undermined its legitimacy. The article explores the discursive choices that underpinned the remaking of the security agenda by NGOs and their role as de/securitising actors and emancipatory agents of change.
This article analyses the implications of the Anthropocene for the governance of security. Drawing on environmental law, green criminology and international relations the article analyses the development of environment and security scholarship over recent decades and shown similarities and differences in perspectives across the disciplines. It demonstrates that the Anthropocene represents a significant challenge for thinking about and responding to security and the environment. It argues a rethinking is needed and can benefit from reaching across the disciplinary divide in three key areas that have become a shared focus of attention and debate regarding security in the Anthropocene. These are first, examining the implications of the Anthropocene for our understanding of environment and security; second, addressing and resolving contest across environmental securities through more holistic and integrated thinking and practice; and third, developing new governance responses that mix polycentric and state backed regulation to bring safety and security to the planet.
This paper examines discourses and practices of security in Indonesia. It does so in order to explore tensions between ethnographically generated accounts of security spaces and the broader security focus of international relations scholars. Looking at securitisation theory in relation to Indonesian security dynamics, it suggests that a model of security contestation better explains the ways in which political communities are constituted through the politicisation of security in Indonesia. The paper argues that there is a need to engage with and understand complex security dynamics on their own terms. It outlines a possible approach to achieving this aim by aggregating the reflexive inclinations of both the practice of ethnography in anthropology and critical security approaches to securitisation in international relations. It then shows how this approach can be utilised to engage critically with processes of contestation implicit to Indonesian security dynamics. In conclusion, it proposes ethnographic engagement as the basis for political critique central to securitisation as an interventionist project.
Using a critical feminist security studies approach, this article explores the emancipatory possibilities of translating the United Nations’ Women, Peace and Security agenda to countries in the Asia Pacific through the development of national and regional level policy frameworks. It asks whether the common pitfalls of emancipation can be overcome in efforts by stakeholders to encourage a more inclusive, grounded and gender aware approach to security in the region. The paper engages the very real political dangers and constraints to pursuing emancipatory politics in this field but ultimately identifies the opportunities for emancipatory action.
The concerns about the results of climate change have been increasing as new scientific proofs emerge and people witness its direct effects in environmental catastrophes. There also have been different efforts to frame climate change as a security issue. This study aims to analyze different security approaches to climate change with a particular framework. The framework divides these approaches into two: opponents and proponents of the securitization of climate change. It also analyzes different approaches and logics within both camps. Finally, the study examines and evaluates the emerging literature on the “climatization of security” which focuses on the impacts of climate change on the understanding of security in the discipline of International Relations.
Central to the ‘liberal political tradition’ is the legitimacy of violence enacted by the state. While, since the Cold War, the horizons of security have broadened beyond the national boundaries of states, the sovereign state acting as the principal security agent remains the central tenet of the modern world order. Yet in much of the contemporary world, if the provision of security were ever the sole preserve of states this is no longer the case. This article, and the others gathered here that it acts as a preamble to, argue that there is a pressing need for greater comprehension of the complexities and dynamics of power relations through which security and justice are enacted. It briefly considers other conceptual and theoretical frameworks better suited to model these relations in ways that do not proceed simply from normative, global assumptions as to the forms that these relations should take. It concludes by stressing the necessity for grounded, empirical study of the everyday practices of s...
Building on Buzan’s suggestion that, when conceived as an analytical tool, the English school’s concept of solidarism simply describes those norms and values that majorities can agree upon, this paper argues – contra most English school solidarists, who tend to be normative theorists – that solidarist institutions have no intrinsic moral value. It is argued that, if the English school’s contribution to normative theorising is to be useful widely, we need a standard for the moral evaluation of solidarist institutions: one that examines their value in instrumental terms. Specifically, this paper suggests that solidarist institutions need to be assessed in terms of their ability to meet basic human needs. This standard for moral evaluation is then applied to the solidarist institutions prevalent at the contemporary core of international society. It is demonstrated that at least the first three of the four solidarist institutions found there – human rights, liberal democracy, environmental responsibility and market capitalism – foster two basic human needs (i.e. autonomy and physical health) and, as such, they are instrumentally valuable.
Review of International Studies
has seen a debate over the
value
of security. At its heart this is a debate about ethics: concerning the extent to which security is a ‘good’ and whether or not security politics produces the kind of world we want. More recent contributions focus on the extent to which security is ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. However, this article argues that the existing debate is limited and confusing: key authors use the terms ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ in different, and, at times, contradictory ways. The article clarifies the roots of the existing debate, and then draws out two different uses of the terms positive and negative: an analytic frame and a normative frame. In response, it proposes a pragmatist frame that synthesises the existing uses, drawing on pragmatism and practice-centred approaches to analyse the value of security in context. The contribution of the article is thus twofold: it both clarifies the existing debate and suggests a solution. This is key because the debate over the value of security is crucial to thinking about how we want to live.
The security agenda is going global. Key threats such as weapons proliferation, disease, terrorism and climate change cannot be addressed unilaterally by states, and require a global perspective to both understand and respond effectively to them. There are therefore powerful pragmatic reasons for embracing a global security perspective. This article, however, suggests that a compelling moral case also exists for viewing security in global terms. National and international security discourses are at odds with the realities of world politics and orient towards the preservation of a status quo that is failing much of the world's population, now and into the future. In this context, this article makes a case for cosmopolitan ethical principles underpinning a global security perspective. Only an ethics that does not discriminate between groups is defensible as a general set of principles. A global security perspective should be underpinned by three cosmopolitan ethical principles which dictate, firstly, that all security actors have responsibility (albeit differentiated) to create security for all; secondly, they should act with consideration of the future implications of their actions in mind; and, thirdly, they should proceed as if their actions will become global over time and space. While not without challenges and dilemmas, such a perspective is urgently needed in contemporary global politics.
It has become common to speak of health security, but the meaning of the latter is often taken for granted. Existing engagements with this notion have been constrained by an excessive focus on national security and on the securitising efforts of elites. This has led to an increasingly sceptical outlook on the potentialities of security for making sense of, and helping to tackle, health problems. Inspired by the idea of security as emancipation, this article reconsiders the notion of health security. It takes as its starting point the concrete insecurities experienced by individuals, and engages with them by way of an analytical framework centred on the notion of domination. Domination deepens analysis by connecting individual experiences of insecurity, the social interactions through which these are given meaning, and the structures that make them possible. Domination also broadens the remit of analysis, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of insecurity. The analytical benefits of this framework are demonstrated by two examples: HIV/AIDS; and water and sanitation. The lens of domination is also shown to bring benefits for the political engagement with global health problems.
The objective of emancipatory security theory is to examine the insecurities of individuals and social groups that stem from oppressive power processes, relations, and structures. However, the image of power in emancipatory security studies does not correspond to such a normative and analytical motivation. This renders the theory susceptible to substantial criticism on the grounds of inadequate analysis of resisting individuals as agents of security in their own localities. To address this issue, the present article conceptualizes ‘emancipatory power’. In this exercise, Hannah Arendt’s understanding of power, enriched by Judith Butler’s concept of performativity and feminist insights, will be used as the theoretical foundation to tailor collective power based on trust in a ‘moment’ of emancipation. Collective power will be illustrated by references to the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011.
This article develops contextually grounded accounts of emancipation in general and notions of collective rights based emancipation in particular by identifying a form of emancipatory politics in which collectives demand rights for themselves. The article develops the idea of collective, rights based emancipation by focusing on the practices of two related social movements, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and la Via Campesina. The MST and Via Campesina seek to replace existing rights to ‘food security’ with a human right to ‘food sovereignty’. While food security agendas emphasise the role of international governance agencies in providing food on behalf of others, food sovereignty is secured by peasant social movements themselves. Furthermore, practices of active citizenship and democratic organisational structures, built through the grassroots and transnational struggles through which peasants raise their demand for human rights, are vital in enacting rights to food sovereignty. In instances where victims are not entirely silenced and powerless, this combination of a demand for human rights and the development of practices of citizenship that enable people to demand and secure rights for themselves provides a contextually grounded emancipatory alternative to interventionist politics that, however well intentioned, risk reinforcing the dependence of purportedly powerless victims.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first National Security Statement in 2008 identified climate change as a ‘fundamental’ threat to national security. Two years later, Rudd was deposed with little to show for climate activism beyond the largely symbolic ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Australians largely accepted Rudd's claim that climate change constituted a threat, yet relatively mainstream climate-policy measures were subjected to significant, and ultimately effective, political opposition. This has important implications for climate politics in Australia. This paper, however, focuses on implications for the securitization framework. Specifically, the author argues that this case raises serious questions about the capacity of the framework to account for the mobilising power of security or the dynamics of its construction.
The critical security studies literature has been marked by a shared commitment towards the politicization of security – that is, the analysis of its assumptions, implications and the practices through which it is (re)produced. In recent years, however, politicization has been accompanied by a tendency to conceive security as connected with a logic of exclusion, totalization and even violence. This has resulted in an imbalanced politicization that weakens critique. Seeking to tackle this situation, the present article engages with contributions that have advanced emancipatory versions of security. Starting with, but going beyond, the so-called Aberystwyth School of security studies, the argument reconsiders the meaning of security as emancipation by making the case for a systematic engagement with the notions of reality and power. This revised version of security as emancipation strengthens critique by addressing political dimensions that have been underplayed in the critical security literature.
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