This article provides the first excavation of the foundational role of racist thought in securitization theory. We demonstrate that Copenhagen School securitization theory is structured not only by ...Eurocentrism but also by civilizationism, methodological whiteness, and antiblack racism. Classic securitization theory advances a conceptualization of ‘normal politics’ as reasoned, civilized dialogue, and securitization as a potential regression into a racially coded uncivilized ‘state of nature’. It justifies this through a civilizationist history of the world that privileges Europe as the apex of civilized ‘desecuritization’, sanitizing its violent (settler-) colonial projects and the racial violence of normal liberal politics. It then constructs a methodologically and normatively white framework that uses speech act theory to locate ‘progress’ towards normal politics and desecuritization in Europe, making becoming like Europe a moral imperative. Using ostensibly neutral terms, securitization theory prioritizes order over justice, positioning the securitization theorist as the defender of (white) ‘civilized politics’ against (racialized) ‘primal anarchy’. Antiblackness is a crucial building-block in this conceptual edifice: securitization theory finds ‘primal anarchy’ especially in ‘Africa’, casting it as an irrationally oversecuritized foil to ‘civilized politics’. We conclude by discussing whether the theory, or even just the concept of securitization, can be recuperated from these racist foundations.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to construct a Sino-centric transcontinental infrastructure network in Asia, Europe, Africa and beyond. Within this initiative, the China-Myanmar Economic ...Corridor (CMEC) is a vital strategic component.
Security studies, as a discipline, has had a limited history in and on North Macedonia. No assessment has been made as to the extent of security research conducted in or on North Macedonia. The ...assumption is that there has been limited research conducted, which in turn has negatively impacted the visibility of the country in academic research in this field. In order to help fill the void, this article, relying on a dataset designed for this purpose, first offers an analysis of randomly selected articles published by scholars from North Macedonia between 1991 and 2022. These studies appeared in academic journals designed for the publication of scholarly works prepared by experts in their fields. The articles outline the theories and methods applied by the scholars and their geographical areas of interest. The aim is to generate previously unexplored findings on the solidity and impact of relevant research. Secondly, the article offers an analysis of randomly selected articles published between 1991 and 2022 in academic journals by foreign authors that included North Macedonia as a case study. This section aims to identify the areas in which foreign security scholars work, and the theories and methods they apply when researching North Macedonia.
This book is an open access book. Many scholars have wondered if a non-Western theory of international politics founded on different premises, be it from Asia or from the “Global South,” could ...release international relations from the grip of a Western, “Westphalian” model. This book argues that a Buddhist approach to international relations could provide a genuine alternative. Because of its distinctive philosophical positions and its unique understanding of reality, human nature and political behavior, a Buddhist theory of IR offers a way out of this dilemma, a means for transcending the Westphalian predicament. The author explains this Buddhist IR model, beginning with its philosophical foundations up through its ideas about politics, economics and statecraft.
This Special Issue explores Latin America’s recent wave of militarism across countries, the militarization of the rule of law, and its consequences on everyday life. It draws on the region’s recent ...history of giving militarized responses to seemingly intractable social, political, and economical problems. We argue that the presence of military values, beliefs, and mentalities have permeated processes in which nations absorb and aspire to military practices, modes of organization, and martial discourses that require greater scholarly attention. The articles address a series of issues including various forms of militarism and the militarization of family, culture and education, diplomacy, policing, and public security in urban and rural settings. The contributions engage systematically with the roots of militarism and give evidence of militarization at the individual, national, and international levels, including a variety of case studies from across the Western Hemisphere.
Security studies is again reflecting on its origins and debating how best to study in/security. In this article, we interrogate the contemporary evolutionary narrative about (international) security ...studies. We unpack the myth's components and argue that it restricts the empirical focus of (international) security studies, limits its analytical insights, and constrains the sorts of interlocutors with whom it engages. We then argue that these limitations can at least partially be remedied by examining the performance of identities and in/securities in everyday life. In order initially to establish the important similarities between (international) security studies and the everyday, we trace elements of the evolutionary myth in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel – which both stand in for, and are, the everyday in our analysis. We then argue that the Buffyverse offers a complex understanding of (identities and) in/security as a terrain of everyday theorizing, negotiation and contestation – what we call the 'entanglement' of in/security discourses – that overcomes the shortcomings of (international) security studies and its myth, providing insights fruitful for the study of in/security. In conclusion, we briefly draw out the implications of our analysis for potential directions in (international) security studies scholarship and pedagogy.
Abstract
This article returns to the original forum question “What is Global Security Studies?,” looking at it in relation to the theme of inclusion and exclusion to point out that security studies ...scholars exclude feminist scholarship on (everyday) security at their own peril. Showcasing the increasing body of feminist security studies scholarship, the article then highlights not only what scholarship might be included in a truly global security studies, but also the important insights (e.g., about the continuum of violence that spans peace- and wartime) that are missed without it. The article ends with a reflection on the need to also include a wider range of approaches as eminently valuable to global security studies.
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