Security after emancipation? Critical Theory, violence and resistance

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 1113-1135 ◽  
Author(s):  
COLUMBA PEOPLES
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Herbert Marcuse ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Current Configuration ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Normative Foundations

AbstractWithin the current configuration of Critical Security Studies (CSS) the concept of ‘emancipation’ is upheld as the keystone of a commitment to transformative change in world politics, but comparatively little is said on the status of violence and resistance within that commitment. As a means of highlighting this relative silence, this article examines the nature of the connection between CSS and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In particular it disinters the reflections of Herbert Marcuse on the connections between emancipatory change, violence and resistance as a means of interrogating and challenging the definition of ‘security as emancipation’. Doing so, it is argued, points towards some of the potential limitations of equating security and emancipation, and provides a provocation of contemporary CSS from within its own cited intellectual and normative foundations.

Engaging Adorno: Critical security studies after emancipation

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolin Kaltofen
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
Axel Honneth ◽  
Intellectual Legacy

Even though its focus on emancipation purposefully intends to build upon the intellectual legacy of the Frankfurt School, critical security studies has thus far only interpreted the Frankfurt tradition in a circumscribed manner. That is to say, it selectively drew on some concepts from critical theory that are most associated with Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. However, as a result of this emphasis, Booth and Wyn Jones – the original proponents of critical security studies – give too little attention to thinkers such as Theodor W. Adorno. This article demonstrates that a re-engagement with Adorno’s work not only provides a more complete appraisal of the Frankfurt School’s thought, but also might reinvigorate critical security studies as a ‘critical’ approach to security. It proposes that such a result can be achieved by employing Adorno’s ethics of resistance and through the development of the philosophical construct of a constellation of security.

Human Security

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Newman
Keyword(s):  
Security Policy ◽  
Security Analysis ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Negative Rights ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Individual

Human security suggests that security policy and security analysis, if they are to be effective and legitimate, must focus on the individual as the referent and primary beneficiary. In broad terms, human security is “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear:” positive and negative rights as they relate to threats to core individual needs. Human security is normative; it argues that there is an ethical responsibility to (re)orient security around the individual in line with internationally recognized standards of human rights and governance. Much human security scholarship is therefore explicitly or implicitly underpinned by a solidarist commitment to moral obligation, and some are cosmopolitan in ethical orientation. However, there is no uncontested definition of, or approach to, human security, though theorists generally start with human security challenges to orthodox neorealist conceptions of international security. Nontraditional and critical security studies (which are distinct from human security scholarship) also challenges the neorealist orthodoxy as a starting point, although generally from a more sophisticated theoretical standpoint than found in the human security literature. Critical security studies can be conceived broadly to embrace a number of different nontraditional approaches which challenge conventional (military, state-centric) approaches to security studies and security policy. Human security has generally not been treated seriously within these academic security studies debates, and it has not contributed much either.

scholarly journals Securitization of the unemployed and counter-conductive resistance in Tunisia

2020 ◽  
pp. 096701062092272
Author(s):  
Saerom Han
Keyword(s):  
Security Studies ◽  
The Self ◽  
Local News ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Right To Work ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
The Unemployed

While resistance has been increasingly studied in critical security studies, its role has been mainly understood as either a deconstructive or a reconstructive force in processes of securitization owing to the perceived externality of resistance to domination. By contributing to the governmentality approach to security with Foucault’s concept of counter-conduct, this article aims to explicate a particular mode of resistance in which the securitized subject resists, not by refusing the status of being securitized, but by counter-securitizing the self. In doing so, the article shows how dominating and resisting actors mutually construct a particular issue as security. The utility of the concept of counter-conduct is empirically examined via the case of Tunisia, where the unemployed have been securitized in the context of counter-terrorism since the 2011 uprising. By analysing the narratives of the ruling elites and unemployed protesters collected from local news, Facebook posts and semi-structured interviews conducted by the author between 2016 and 2017, the article illustrates how protesters actively participated in the securitization of the unemployed in order that they might be able to continue their socio-economic struggle and position their right to work as the most efficient way of fighting terrorism.

7. Critical Security Studies:

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Mutimer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Copenhagen School ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Framework ◽  
The Way

This chapter provides a partial history of the label ‘Critical Security Studies’ and the way it has developed and fragmented since the early 1990s. It considers the primary claims of the major divisions that have emerged within the literatures to which the label has been applied: constructivism, critical theory, and poststructuralism. It looks at the 1994 conference held at York University in Toronto entitled Strategies in Conflict: Critical Approaches to Security Studies, which spawned a book called Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (1997b), and Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1998), which was published to serve as a relatively comprehensive statement of ‘securitization studies’, or the Copenhagen School. The chapter argues that Critical Security Studies needs to foster an ‘ethos of critique’ in either the study or refusal of security. Finally, it examines Ken Booth’s views on poststructuralism as part of a broad Critical Security Studies.

Governmentality and Biopolitics

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Muller
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
World Politics ◽  
The Body ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
And Behavior

Governmentality and biopolitics has emerged as a chief source of scholarship and debate within contemporary international relations (IR), particularly among those involved in the sub-disciplines, Critical Security Studies and International Political Sociology. Governmentality, first and foremost, is a term coined by philosopher Michel Foucault, and refers to the way in which the state exercises control over, or governs, the body of its populace. Meanwhile, biopolitics, which was coined by Rudolf Kjellén, is an intersectional field between biology and politics. In contemporary US political science studies, usage of the term biopolitics is mostly divided between a poststructuralist group using the meaning assigned by Michel Foucault (denoting social and political power over life), and another group who uses it to denote studies relating biology and political science. The foci of literatures on governmentality and biopolitics are particularly agreeable to many scholars critical of traditional IR scholarship and its distinct articulation of “world politics.” The shifty nature of both concepts, as defined by Michel Foucault and the subsequent use by various scholars, presents challenges to setting any specific account of these terms; yet the blurriness of these concepts is what makes them productive, contrary to the zero-sum, rationalist accounts of power and behavior so central to much of conventional IR.

Critical Theory, Security, and Emancipation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.M. Fierke
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Identity And Difference

Critical theory in International Relations originated from the Marxist tradition which, during the mid- to late Cold War, formed the basis of dependency and world systems theory. In the years before and after the Cold War, critical theory became part of a larger post-positivist challenge to the discipline and to the development of critical security studies. At the heart of contestation within the broader arena of critical security is the concept of emancipation, developed by members of the Frankfurt School such as Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Several key debates have been at the center of critical security studies relating to the construction of threats, identity and difference, human security, and emancipation. In particular, critical security analysts have addressed the question of how, given the range of threats or risks that exist in the world, some threats come to have priority over others and become the focus of discourses of security. Also, some scholars have disputed the idea that identity is dependent on difference. The concept of human security shifts attention away from states to individuals, emphasizing human rights, safety from violence, and sustainable development. In the case of emancipation, critical theorists have expressed concern that the concept is too closely linked with modernity, meta-narratives, especially Marxism and liberalism, and the Enlightenment belief that humanity is progressing toward a more perfect future. What is needed is not to avoid emancipation per se, but to pay close attention to its underlying assumptions.

7. Critical Security Studies: A Schismatic History

2018 ◽  
pp. 91-110
Author(s):  
David Mutimer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Critical Security Studies ◽  
Copenhagen School ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Framework ◽  
The Way

This chapter provides a partial history of the label ‘Critical Security Studies’ and the way it has developed and fragmented since the early 1990s. It considers the primary claims of the major divisions that have emerged within the literatures to which the label has been applied: constructivism, critical theory, and poststructuralism. It looks at the 1994 conference held at York University in Toronto entitled Strategies in Conflict: Critical Approaches to Security Studies, which spawned a book called Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases (1997b), and Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1998), which was published to serve as a relatively comprehensive statement of ‘securitization studies’, or the Copenhagen School. The chapter argues that Critical Security Studies needs to foster an ‘ethos of critique’ in either the study or refusal of security. Finally, it examines Ken Booth’s views on poststructuralism as part of a broad Critical Security Studies.

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