IR205 | W2 | Intro to Critical Security

Security = 'a powerful political tool in claiming attention for priority items in the competition for government attention. It also helps establish consciousness of the importance of the issues so labelled in the minds of the population of large

Strategic Studies

Problem Solving and policy embedded :

• Nuclear Anxiety

• Stability of bipolarity

• Conventional armed formed : doing war better

Critique of strategic studies

Analytic :

States definition illogical : security influenced by context

Security “common sense”

• Assumes conflictual relationship and antagonistic policy

• Empowers some political and academic actors over there

Normative:

Promotes organised armed violence as response to international conflict

Security dilemma : pathological self fulfilling prophecy

Ethnocentric

West cares ‘everything for peace and nothing for justice’ (Garnett 1975)

Initial Corrective

Deepening (Security Threat) :

“ An action or sequence of events that (1) threatens drastically and over a relatively brief period of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state or (2) threatens to significantly narrow the range of policy choices available to a state or to private, non governmental entities (persons, groups, corporations) within a state” (Ullman 1983)

Human Security

The concept of security must change [to]…people’s security, from security through armaments to security through human development, from territorial to food , employment and environmental security” (UNDP, 1993)

Securitisation (3 stages)

Securitising actor: Identifies an existential threat to a particular referent object

Previously apolitical/non political concern

Securitising move: Actor provides narrative connecting threat with object, and no other course of action

Audience : Relevant audience (e.g.public) accepts securitising move = threat is securitised

Exceptional measures authorised