Security: An Essentially Contested Concept? Week 2 - 4 October 2017 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

PSI 330 International Security Security: An Essentially Contested Concept? Week 2 - 4 October 2017

Security as an Academic Subject • Everything began after the Second World War in the Anglo-American World. • They study of Security was located within the International Relations (which also has its roots in the Western World - the United Kingdom) • National Security Studies (in US), Strategic Studies (in UK/later in US), War Studies (in KCL), Defense Studies • According to Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and Sean M. Lynn-Jones (1987) International Security is not a discipline, but a problem, developed around military capabilities and East-West issues (p.6) • The field is necessarily interdisciplinary.

Security as an Academic Subject • Main Concerns: Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Deterrence, Armed Forces (force structure, posture etc.), resource allocation and refining tools of crisis management • The Cold War environment defined the area (Golden Years of Security Studies: ‘50s and ‘60s - Lawrence Freedman) • The subject matter is shaped according to the what is perceived as imminent threat to the Global Power (in this case the United States)

Security as an Academic Subject • Based on four pillars: • State : inasmuch as they were considered (somewhat tautologically) to be both the most important agents and referents of security in international politics. • Strategy: inasmuch as the core intellectual and practical concerns revolved around devising the best means of employing the threat and use of military force. • Science (aspired to be): Inasmuch as to count as authentic, objective knowledge, as opposed to mere opinion, analysts were expected to adopt methods that aped the natural, harder sciences such as physics and chemistry. • The Status Quo: inasmuch as the great powers and the majority of academics who worked within them understood security policies as preventing radical and revolutionary change within international society. • Within the Cold War framework, critical perspectives did not make headway in the study of security

Security as an Academic Subject • The Crisis and Revival of the International Security Studies • Reasons: the end of the Vietnam War (doubts about the early work in the field, unfashionable in universities), Nuclear Détente, and reduction of the danger of nuclear war. • Realization that there are other threats to the security of states. While the prism of a single discipline is not enough to understand, conflict between the states are key to the many critical issues in the international security (Nye & Lynn-Jones, 1988, p.6). • New issues include international economy because US economy was threatened by the Oil Crisis (1973) and the realization that US economy is not independent. • Domestic politics, bureaucratic politics and psychological aspects have been introduced in the 1970s

Security as an Academic Subject • Traditional approaches had certain weaknesses: • Based solely on inter-state relations, while this is only one part of security in the contemporary world politics • IR, as a field, remained restricted and traditional ways are neither neutral nor natural, as Cox puts it “for someone and for some purpose” • Contemporary politics requires an inter-disciplinary and multi-faceted approach to the problems. • Ethnocentrism • More Problems: • Inadequate basic theoretical work – has become too much focused on policy-oriented works (Nye & Lynn-Jones, 1988, pp.12-3)

Security as an Academic Subject • Challenge: Barry Buzan’s Work 1983 (People, States and Fear) - Security Sectors (in the mid-1980s) • Military • Political • Economic • Societal • Environment • Widening and Deepening of Security after the Cold War • Cold War understanding of Security was not enough for the post-Cold War challenges.

Security as an Academic Subject • The Push Back: • Inclusion of non-military issues, such as pollution, child abuse, or economic recession, runs the risk of expanding “security studies” excessively. Defining the filed in this way would destroy its intellectual coherence and make it more difficult to devise solutions to any of these important problems (Walt, 1991, p. 213) • Security Studies should remain somewhere between political opportunism and academic irrelevance. Not like post-moderns, who do not really propose any solutions to the real-world problems (Walt, 1991, p.223) • Security becomes an Essentially Contested Concept

Essentially Contested Concepts Gallie, W.B. (1955) “Essentially Contested Concepts” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , New Series, Vol. 56, pp. 167- 198 • Seven Characteristics for an Essentially Contested Concept 1. The Concept must be appraisive (We can evaluate the concept) 2. The definition must be of an internally complex character. 3. There must be several factors/parts, which could be organized and ordered according to their perceived importance. 4. There must be considerable modification in the light of changing circumstances. 5. Parties should recognize that their definition is contested by others. 6. Acknowledgement of previous definitions. 7. Previous definition should be improved.

Essentially Contested Concepts Who is the Champion?

Fundamental Questions • What is Security? • Whose security? • What are the primary threats? • How the subject of security can be protected?

What is Security? • The basic definition: the protection of values we hold dear • As a concept: • Security = Survival • Security is based on acquiring power. (Security as Commodity) • Negative (freedom from): absence of threat • Security = Survival + • ‘the “plus” being some freedom from life-determining threats, and therefore some life choices’. (Booth 2007) • Security is about emancipation (concern with justice and the provision of human rights) • Positive (freedom to): enabling and making things possible

Whose Security? • Shift from people to state in traditional approaches. • State as referent object - International and/or domestic dimensions. • Reference to individual humans • Reference to society • Earth - Forget about the human societies? • Levels of Analysis Problem

What are the primary threats? • How do we define what poses as a threat? Who decides? • Related to the how we define the referent object. • Armed Conflict and threat of military use? • Issues that prevent people from pursuing their cherished values?

How the subject of security can be protected? • There is no absolute security – all human life involves insecurities and risks of one sort or another • The Question becomes: what level of threat are actors willing to tolerate before taking remedial action? • Which actors can provide security? State? NGOs? Private Security Contractors? Insurgents? Criminal Organizations?

Questions • Why is security an essentially contested concept? • Should security studies continue to be a part of International Relations? • Should security studies be limited to study of military, armed conflicts and threat perceptions of states?