1, Security studies: A brief history

Apart from providing information on the course itself, this introductory class aims to familiarize students with the history of the discipline of security studies. It starts with discussing its origins in the early years of the Cold War and continues with its development during this period. The class then focuses on the repercussions of the end of the biopolarity on the scholarship concerned with (international) security.

Required readings:

Buzan, Barry and Lene Hansen (2009) The Evolution of International Security Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chap. 4.

Bourbeau, Philippe – Balzacq, Thierry – Dun Cavelty, Myriam (2015) ‘International Relations: Celebrating eclectic dynamism in security studies’, in Bourbeau, Philippe (ed.): Security: Dialogue Across Disciplines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2, Critical theory in Security Studies and beyond

What is the critical theory (broadly understood) and how it manifested itself in Security Studies and International Relations? These are the two core questions this class seeks to tackle. It first briefly engages philosophical, scientific and political assumptions of critical, post-positivist scholarship, dealing with issues pertaining to how do we study the world around us, and what are the aims of social sciences. These debates are then related directly to the discipline of Security Studies as we discuss the “critical turn” in the discipline in the 1990s and beyond.

Required readings:

Yanow, Dvora (2014) ‘Thinking interpretively: Philosophical presuppositions and the human sciences’, in Yanow, Dvora and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea (eds.) Interpretation and method: Empirical research methods and the interpretive turn. Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe: 5-26.

Cox, Robert C. (1981) ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’, Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 10 (2): 126-155 (READ ONLY pp. 126-130).

Jackson, Richard (2012) `How I was radicalized; or, the effects of opening your eyes`, richardjacksonterrorismblog, available at https://richardjacksonterrorismblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/how-i-was-radicalized-or-the-effects-of-opening-your-eyes.

Hynek Nik - David Chandler (2013) ‘No emancipatory alternative, no critical security studies’, Critical Studies on Security, 1 (1): 46-63.

3, Security as discourse

First notions that started to challenge the dominance of rationalist approaches in the field of security studies were those that highlighted the importance of security policies' discursive dimension. These works argued that language matters even in the realm which traditional scholars portray as driven by material factors and interests. The seminar demonstrates the continuing salience of this way of thinking and familiarizes students with various approaches concerned with the linguistic construction of security threats.

Required readings:

Buzan, Barry, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde (1998) Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Boulder, Colo.; London: Lynne Rienner Publishers: ch. 1 and 2.

McInnes, Colin and Simon Rushton (2013) ‘HIV/AIDS and Securitization Theory’, European Journal of International Relations, 19 (1): 115-138.

Jackson, Richard (2007) ‘Constructing Enemies: “Islamic Terrorism” in Political and Academic Discourse’, Government and Opposition, 42 (3): 394–426.

Recommended readings:

Balzacq, Thierry (2010) Securitization Theory: How Security Problems Emerge and Dissolve. London and New York: Routledge.

Dillon, Michael and Julien Reid (2009) The Liberal Way of War: Killing to Make Life Live. London and New York: Routledge.

Stritzel, Holger (2007) ‘Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and Beyond’, European Journal of International Relations, 13 (3): 357-383.

Hansen, Lene (2006) Security as Practice. London and New York: Routledge.

4, Security as practice and materiality

Elite decision-makers are not the only ones shaping security politics. Arguing that the ways security is practiced “on the ground” matters as well, this seminar shifts the attention from high-level politicians to policemen, military, customs officers, and other security experts and bureaucrats and from political speeches to seemingly insignificant routines of security professionals and technologies they are using. The seminar introduces sociological approaches to security studies and outlines analytical tools for studying security as practice. In its second part, it also introduces the role that materiality play in everyday (in)securing of people and places.

Required readings:

Neumann, Iver B. (2002) ‘Returning Practice to the Linguistic Turn: The Case of Diplomacy’, Millennium-Journal of International Studies, 31 (3): 627-651.

Balzacq, Thierry, Tugba Basaran, Didier Bigo, Emmanuel-Pierre Guitter and Christian Olsson (2010) ‘Security Practices’, International Studies Encyclopaedia, Oxford: Blackwell.

Koddebrock, Kai – Schouten, Peer (2015): ‘Intervention as ontological politics: security, pathologisation, and the failed state effect in Goma’ in Bachmann, Jan - Bell, Colleen and Caroline Holmqvist (eds.): War, police and assemblages of intervention. London, New York: Routledge.

Recommended readings:

Acuto, Michele and Simon Curtis (eds.) (2014) Reassembling International Theory: Assemblage Thinking and International Relations. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Bigo, Didier (2008) ‘Globalized (in)security: the field and the ban-opticon’, in Bigo, Didier and Anastassia Tsoukala (eds.) Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11. Oxon and New York: Routledge: 10-48.

Bueger, Christian (2014) ‘Pathways to practice: praxiography and international politics’, European Political Science Review, 6 (3): 383-406.

5, Security: plurality, marginalization and resistance

“Security” is not a unitary concept that has a transcendental and universal meaning. To the contrary, security is experienced differently by different people, depending on their race, class, gender and sexuality. This class thus explores issues of plurality and marginalization which are integral to the study of security, as well as seemingly mundane, everyday dimensions of security. It especially attends to notions derived from post-colonial and gender scholarship as it focuses on limits of Western liberal concepts with regards to post-colonial setting as well as on gender biases of mainstream security studies.

Required readings:

Wibben, Annick (2016) ‘Introduction: Feminists Study War’ in Wibben, Annick (ed.) Researching War. Feminist Methods, Ethics and Politics. London and New York: Routledge: 1-16.

Honke, Jana, and Michael-Markus Muller (2012) ‘Governing (in)security in a Postcolonial World: Transnational Entanglements and the Worldliness of ‘Local’ Practice’, Security Dialogue, 43 (5): 383–401.

Ochs, Juliana (2011) Security and Suspicion. An Ethnography of Everyday Life in Israel. Philadelphia and Oxford: University of Pennsylvania Press: chap. 4.

Recommended readings:

Sabaratnam, Meera (2013) ‘Avatars of Eurocentrism in the critique of the liberal peace’, Security Dialogue, 44 (3): 259–278.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000) Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wibben, Annick (2011) Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach. London and New York: Routledge.

Hansen, Lene (2000): ‘The Little Mermaid's Silent Security Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School’, Millennium - Journal of International Studies, 29 (2): 285-306.

6, So what? Normative dilemmas and practical challenges

What perspectives on security do critical security studies offer? What practical problems and normative dilemmas related to contemporary security politics do they highlight? And how can this critique be used to improve our research, advisory or policy work?

Required readings:

Elkus, Adam (2015) ‘The Problem of Bridging the Gap’, Medium.com, available at https://medium.com/@Aelkus/the-problem-of-bridging-the-gap-5498d5f25581.

Godehardt, Nadine (2015) It’s not about Facts, It’s about Meaning: How Do Poststructuralists Advise Policymakers in questions of International Politics and Security?. Working Paper of SWP Asia Research Unit, 2015/Nr. 1, March 2015.

Wiebe, Sarah M. (2013) ‘Affective Terrain: Approaching the Field in Aamjiwnaang’. In Salte