Security Strategy And Critical Theory

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Pt. 1 Traditional and Critical Theory 1 Promise: Toward a Critical Theory of Society 9 2 Impasse: Emancipatory Politics After Auschwitz 29 3 Redemption: Renewing the Critical Project 53 Pt. 2 Traditional and Critical Security Studies 4 Theory: Reconceptualizing Security 93 5 Technology: Reconceptualizing Strategy 125 6 Emancipation: Reconceptualizing Practice 145 Epilogue 165 Bibliography 169 Index 187 About the Book 191.

This textbook introduces students to the sub-field of critical security studies through a detailed yet accessible survey of emerging theories and practices. This third edition contains two new chapters – on ‘Ontological security’ and ‘(In)Security and the everyday’ – and has been fully revised and updated. Written in an accessible and clear manner, Critical Security Studies: offers a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to critical security studies locates critical security studies within the broader context of social and political theory evaluates fundamental theoretical positions in critical security studies against a backdrop of new security challenges. The book is divided into two main parts. Part I, ‘Approaches’, surveys the newly extended and contested theoretical terrain of critical security studies: constructivist theories, Critical Theory, feminist and gender approaches, postcolonial perspectives, poststructuralism and International Political Sociology, Ontological security, and securitisation theory. Part II, ‘Issues’, examines how these various theoretical approaches have been put to work in critical considerations of environmental and planetary security; health, human security and development; information, technology and warfare; migration and border security; (in)security and the everyday; and terror, risk and resilience. The historical and geographical scope of the book is deliberately broad and each of the chapters in Part II concretely illustrates one or more of the approaches discussed in Part I, with clear internal referencing allowing the text to act as a holistic learning tool for students. This book is essential reading for upper level students of critical security studies, and an important resource for students of international/global security, political theory and international relations.

This book provides an assessment of the legacy, challenges and future directions of Critical Theory in the fields of International Relations and Security Studies. This book provides ‘first-hand’ interviews with some of the pioneers of Critical Theory in the fields of International Relations Theory and Security Studies. The interviews are combined innovatively with reflective essays to create an engaging and accessible discussion of the legacy and challenges of critical thinking. A unique forum that combines first-person discussion and secondary commentary on a variety of theoretical positions, the book explores in detail the interaction between different theories and approaches, including postcolonialism, feminism, and poststructuralism. Scholars from a variety of theoretical backgrounds reflect on the strengths and problems of critical theory, recasting the theoretical discussion about critical theory in the study of world politics and examining the future of the discipline. Both an introduction and an advanced engagement with theoretical developments over the past three decades, Critical Theory in International Relations and Security Studies will be of interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Security Studies and Philosophy.

This text brings together leading critical theorists of world politics to discuss both the promise and the pitfalls of their work. The contributors range broadly across the terrain of world politics, engaging with both theory and emancipatory practice. Critiques by two scholars from other IR traditions are also included. The result is a seminal statement of the critical theory approach to understanding world politics.

What is real? What can we know? How might we act? This book sets out to answer these fundamental philosophical questions in a radical and original theory of security for our times. Arguing that the concept of security in world politics has long been imprisoned by conservative thinking, Ken Booth explores security as a precious instrumental value which gives individuals and groups the opportunity to pursue the invention of humanity rather than live determined and diminished lives. Booth suggests that human society globally is facing a set of converging historical crises. He looks to critical social theory and radical international theory to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical challenges facing global business-as-usual and for planning to reconstruct a more cosmopolitan future. Theory of World Security is a challenge both to well-established ways of thinking about security and alternative approaches within critical security studies.

This book offers an examination of the role of emancipation in the study and practice of security, focusing on the issue of environmental change. The end of the Cold War created a context in which traditional approaches to security could be systematically questioned. This period also saw a concerted attempt in IR to argue that environmental change constituted a threat to security. This book argues that such a notion is problematic as it suggests that a universal definition of security is possible, which prevents a recognition of security as a site of contestation, in which a range of actors articulate alternative visions of who or what is in need of being secured. If security is understood and approached in traditional terms - as the territorial preservation of the nation-state from external threat - then it is indeed difficult to see how environmental issues would benefit from being placed on states’ security agenda. If, however, security is defined in terms of the emancipation of the most vulnerable individuals from contingent structural oppressions, then drawing a relationship between environmental change and security may be beneficial for redressing those environmental issues and prioritising the needs of those most at risk from the manifestations of global environmental change. This book takes the limitations of contemporary approaches to the relationship between the environment and security as its starting point, and seeks to do two things. First, it aims to illustrate the ways in which arguments over approaches to environmental issues can be viewed as contestation over the meaning of 'security‘ in particular political contexts. Central here is the composition and assumptions of the dominant security discourse to emerge regarding those issues: a framework of meaning for the most important forms of action on behalf of a particular group, defining the terms for meaningful contestation and negotiation about security itself within that group. As such, the book attempts to illustrate the dynamics of competition over the meaning of security with reference to environmental issues, particularly focusing on instances of political change in the dominant security discourse through which that issue is approached. In the process the author points to the central role of these dominant security discourses in underpinning the most practically significant actions regarding environmental issues such as deforestation and global climate change. The book employs methodological tools that enable a focus on how particular frameworks of meaning are constituted and become dominant; how they provide a lens through which various issues are approached; and how discourses most consistent with redressing environmental change and the suffering of the most vulnerable might come to provide the framework through which security is viewed in particular contexts. This book will be of much interest to students of Critical Security Studies, geography, sociology, IR and Political Science in general.

"The book analyzes the critical theories in international relations that have become increasingly popular in the post-Cold War era. The book will analyze critical theory, Frankfurt School, constructivism, post-colonialism, feminism, critical geopolitics, political economy, Copenhagen School, Aberystwyth School, Paris School and Ontological security"--