This document covers all 4 lectures of Integrative Seminar Security. The notes are detailed, covering various interdisciplinary approaches to security, including traditional state-centric views and human security concepts. Key topics include feminist security studies, climate refugees, internationa...
Lecture 1: Introduction to the Course, What is security, how do we
study it. Interdisciplinary approaches to security - State vs. Human
security
● Mapping the discipline
○ Key assumptions
■ Security is an “essentially contested concept” (Buzan, 1991)
■ The meaning of security is inherently a matter of dispute because no neutral
definition is possible
■ How, when, where, and why we talk security will always be contested
and inherently political
■ Things are always politically charged
■ Politics is pervasive - Rebecca Solnit
■ Security = free from anxiety
○ Walt, 1991: “Security studies remains an interdisciplinary enterprise” (study of security is
inherently interdisciplinary
■ “The boundaries of intellectual disciplines are permeable”
○ The distinction and separation of questions
around security and questions around
economics is arbitrary and reproduces serious
limitations in the production of knowledge
○ Various sub-field in security studies:
■ Human security, feminist security
studies, peace studies, strategic studies
○ Security studies along with international
political economy is a sub-field of international
relations
● Core questions
○ What is ‘security’ about and what does it
comprise of?
○ With which threats should security be concerned?
○ What does it mean to speak of security or to ‘securitize’ something?
○ And whose security should be protected and studied?
● (in)Security
○ The traditionalist approach to security, largely personified by the work of Walt. The
challenge (policy and conceptual) that came with the emergence of human security.
○ At the core of the debate is what should be considered ‘security’ (what things, objects,
people should be secure)?
○ Traditionalists vs. wideners and deepeners
■ Traditionalists
■ International relations: realist - no trust so
you have to secure yourself
■ State, military, realists, all about state
survival in anarchy
, ■ “Security studies is defined as the study of the threat, use and control of
military force” - main argument of Walt in his 1991 article
■ Traditionalists favor the maintenance of the Cold War conception of
security that uses a military and state-centric approach
■ Wideners and deepeners
■ Security isn’t only about state-centric (especially because states and
military are the cause of a lot of insecurity), etc. but also about
narratives, construction of security, race and gender and class function
with security
■ Started with peace studies in the 1970s + their critique of the
traditionalists
■ These ideas have been prompted in part by the contributions of critical
theorists (including feminists) who have questioned the assumptions and
political implications of security
■ Widening: moving beyond the state as the referent object of security
towards non-military concerns
■ Consideration of non-military security threats - e.g.
environmental, disease, overpopulation, refugee movements,
terrorism, etc.
■ Deepening: the discipline is now more willing to consider the security of
individuals and groups, rather than focusing narrowly on external threats
to states
● State security
○ Strategic studies: state as referent object of security
■ Emerged post WW2 - how to prevent future world wars
■ Traditionalists favor the conception of security defined by realists
■ Laws of humanitarian controlcs - business of states with other states
■ A lot of humanitarian law is built around the idea militaries associated
with states
■ Militaries are justifiable targets during war
■ States are the main player: main idea - more humanitarian law
■ But isn’t just about states - there are also non-state actors
■ Focus on external military threats to state
■ National security became synonymous with military security
■ Origins of security studies in the more traditional sense are located in the height
of the cold war, and the cold war came to be so much about the military
capabilities of enemies and self
■ Traditionalists ignore the aspects that influence and underpin militaries (money,
technology, energy, food, etc.)
● Human Security - critique on state centric, traditional approaches to security
○ Why just the state? What about humans? - human as referent object of security
○ Think beyond strategic approach - critique of narrow military defined security
○ Emerged in post-cold war era
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