LECTURE NOTES :
Global Security
IRO - Leiden University
Dr. Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl
6442HGST
2022-2023
Cyprien VENOT
,Lecture 1 - What is Global Security
The International Crisis Group’s 10 conflicts to watch in 2023:
→ Ukraine - Armenia/Azerbaijan - Iran - Yemen - Ethiopia - DemRep of Congo - Sahel -
Haiti - Pakistan - Taiwan
I. Defining security
“Security, in an objective sense, measured the absence of threats to acquired values, in
subjective sense, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked” Wolfers (1962)
Security: A ‘Contested Concept’
→ Which values need protection?
→ What counts as a threat to these values?
→ Is security absolute?
- “An essentially contested concept” (Buzan) that creates “disputes about its proper
use” (Gallie)
→ Different concepts of security: Narrow vs. broad definitions ?
- Survival (freedom from life-determining threats)?
- Or, survival-plus (freedom to have life choices)?
→ Referent object → what is it that needs to be made secure?
- State, national interest?
- Individual, ethnic group, society as a whole, the environment, the planet?
- Not necessarily independent of one another
Key Dimensions of Security (Buzan 1991)
→ Military - offensive/defensive capabilities and consequences)
→ Political - stability of states, their systems of government
→ Economic - resources and welfare
→ Social sustainability - maintenance of traditions and customs
→ Environmental sustainability - maintenance of the local and planetary biosphere
Issues & Threats
→ “Global Attitudes Survey”
- Nationally representative surveys of adults in 19 economically advanced states
- US, Can, Bel, Fr, Ger, Gre, Hungary, Italy, Neth, Pol, Spa, Swd, UK, Isr, Aus, Sin, SK
At the beginning of 2023
→ Increasing perceptions of political polarisation w/in countries
→ Increasing perceptions of threats to democracy w/in countries and int’ally
Matrix of Security Studies (Paris, 2001)
, II. How can security be achieved
“The search for perfect security…defeats its own ends. Playing for safety is the most
dangerous way to live” (Lindsay)
III. Security studies as a field of inquiry
The Golden Age, 1950-1960
→ First and Second World Wars
- Civilian contributions to the study of strategy
- Long-term strategy to avoid war
→ The national interest
- Security rather than welfare
→ The nuclear revolution
- Seminal research on deterrence, containment, coercion, escalation, arms control
- Belief in deductive, rational thinking
The End of the Golden Age, 1960-1970
→ Limits to traditional approaches
- Not applicable to peasant war in Vietnam
- Limited view of politics (only military balances, not beliefs and perceptions)
- Assumes perfect information and constant ability to rationality calculate
→ Public disinterest in “national security”
- Critique of Vietnam War made security studies an unfashionable subject at unis
→ Focus on int’ political economy
The Renaissance of Security Studies, 1970-1990
→ New Data
- More systematic use of historical analysis; more access to archives
→ New methods
- Structures-focused case comparisons; more diverse social scientific approaches to
explain historic events
, → New realities
- End of Cold War détente; Iranian and Nicaraguan revolution; Soviet interventions
in African states and Afghanistan
Changes Due to the End of the Cold War?
→ In the character of warfare, for civil wars, “new wars” (Kaldor)
- Civilians as targets (as opposed to well-ordered battles btw soldiers in uniforms)
- Criminalization of violence (as opposed to state-building enterprises)
- Identity-based wars (as opposed to forward-looking transformative ideological
agendas)
→ For international wars, hybrid wars? Grey-zone warfare?
→ There are strong disagreements among researchers about whether there have in fact
been changes
Changes after 9/11
→ “Global war on terror”
→ Greater int’ interventionism/Conflicts more complex, multi-layered? Growth in
multi-party conflicts? Possible challenges to the post-Cold War unipolar balance of
power?
Approaches can shape what we pay attention to
Problem-solving vs. Critical Theory
→ Problem-solving theory
- “Takes the world as it finds it, the prevailing social and power relationships and
the institutions into which they are organized as the given framework for action”
→ Critical theory
- “Does not take institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls
them into question. Critical theory is directed to the social and political complex
as a whole rather than to the separate parts”
