scholarly journals A feminist approach to security studies

2017 ◽  
pp. 179-190
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Gasztold
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
International Security ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Feminist Studies ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Starting Point

The main goal of this article is to present problems related to using a feminist approach in security studies. The starting point are some of the basic terms used in the internally diverse sphere of feminist theory and their application in the field of political science. An attempt is also made to define the objectives of selected feminist studies that can be used in the analysis of domestic and international security issues. The main thesis of the article is the assertion that security studies are dominated by assigned gender stereotypes and meanings embedded in the so-called male gaze.

scholarly journals Women and Conflict Studies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Best
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Conflict Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
National Office ◽  
Political Office ◽  
Attitudes Toward War

Traditionally, women have been viewed as having little agency in wars and conflicts. Women were thought neither to cause the wars nor to fight them. When women were considered at all by scholars of war, they were conceived of primarily as victims. As women gained the franchise and ultimately began to be elected into political office in advanced democracies, some scholars began to consider the foreign policy implications of this—that is, do women’s attitudes toward war and defense policy differ from those of men and do these views produce different outcomes at the ballot box? Furthermore, do women behave differently with regard to security issues once in national office? Does their presence change the way their male colleagues vote on these issues? In recent decades, scholarship emerging first from critical feminist theory and later from positivist political scientists has begun to look more explicitly for women’s roles, experiences, and influences on and in conflict. This work has led to the recognition that, even when victimized in war, women have agency, and to the parallel conclusion that men’s agency is not as complete as scholars, practitioners, and the public have often assumed. This bibliography provides an overview of the development of women and conflict literature as well as several prominent themes and questions within the literature. It is of necessity incomplete and interested scholars are encouraged to review related articles in Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations, such as “Feminist Security Studies” by Kristen P. Williams, and “Women and Peacemaking/Peacekeeping” by Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley.

A Discussion of Laura sjoberg's Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Meger
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
Theory Of War

Charge: War is a defining political experience, and the study of war—its causes, its dynamics, its consequences–is a central theme of political science. It is an organized activity that involves both men and women, as combatants and as civilians, as perpetrators and as victims. Laura Sjoberg's Gendering Global Conflict: Toward a Feminist Theory of War (Columbia University Press, 2013) is an important new book that argues that the fields of international relations and security studies are impoverished by an insufficient attention to the gendering of conflict, and that a “feminist theory of war” is therefore indispensable to an adequate understanding of the politics of war. This symposium brings together a range of prominent political science scholars, writing from a range of theoretical perspectives, to comment critically on Sjoberg's book and on the broader theme of the gendering of global conflict. —Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

The “Renaissance of Security” Languished until the Owl of Minerva Flew after 9/11

2019 ◽  
pp. 205-239
Author(s):  
Michael C. Desch
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
National Security ◽  
Political Science ◽  
General Public ◽  
International Security ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
Primary Focus

This chapter traces the development of political science after Vietnam, chronicling how the discipline continued to professionalize on the model of the natural sciences. The result was to privilege the refinement of method over practical relevance. It was disciplinary professionalism, as much as ideology, which widened the gap between the academic and policy worlds after Vietnam. Thus, a complete explanation for the decline of policy-relevant national security studies must also include the dynamics of academic normal social science combined with the changing international security environment. The chapter then suggests that political science is most useful to policymakers when it takes a problem-driven, rather than method-driven, approach to setting the scholarly agenda for academic security specialists. Important problems—defined in terms not just of internal disciplinary agendas but also the priorities of policymakers and the general public—ought to be the primary focus.

Statistics and International Security

2018 ◽  
pp. 132-151
Author(s):  
Adam M. Lauretig ◽  
Bear F. Braumoeller
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
International Security ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Scant Attention

There is a rich legacy of quantitative work in Security Studies, with scholars using regression to make a variety of discoveries about questions of interest. Unfortunately, much of this work pays scant attention to the differences among description, causation, and prediction. This chapter draws on existing work in political science, economics, and statistics to illustrate the distinctions among these approaches and the models and assumptions appropriate for each. The chapter closes with the hope that better quantitative research will lead to improvements in the field of international security and bring everyday methods more in line with the traditions of strong theorizing and effective data-gathering. It also provides resources for the reader to further explore the ideas presented in the chapter.

scholarly journals The Strategy Project: Teaching Strategic Thinking through Crisis Simulation

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (02) ◽  
pp. 513-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Hunzeker ◽  
Kristen A. Harkness
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
International Security ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Information Uncertainty ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Institutional Contexts

ABSTRACTIn an effort to teach strategic thinking, the Center for International Security Studies at Princeton University designed an adaptable model for crisis simulation that could be used in a variety of institutional contexts and with diverse content matter. Moreover, the simulation helped students to develop an understanding of several other important abstract concepts in political science: notably, information uncertainty, friction or “the fog of war,” and bureaucratic stove piping. This article describes the design, content, and implementation of our original simulation. It is based on a “loose-nukes” scenario resulting from the hypothetical collapse of the Pakistani state. We conclude by evaluating the benefits and limitations of the simulation and by suggesting ways in which it could be implemented in other institutional contexts.

scholarly journals A contribution of Wendt's idealism to security studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Nevena Stanković
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Security Issues ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Security Research ◽  
Starting Point

One of the key novelties that constructivism introduces to International Relations theories is the term "ideas", as a starting point for understanding, as well as constructing social reality. Because of plenty variations in defining the term "ideas" by different social constructivists, the author in this article aims to analyze Alexander Wendt's approach, with a focus on its significance to security studies. By reviewing Wendt's basic presumptions about idealism, rump materialism (of human nature), material and identity needs, including distinction between materiality and objectivity, the author attempts to make conclusions on possibilities of implementation of these presumptions in researching security phenomena and processes, or, in other words, critically evaluate potential contribution, as well as flaws, for theorizing about security issues. In conclusion, the author suggests that there is undoubtedly significant contribution embedded, primarily, in constitutive versus traditionally dominate causative approach to material factors, especially interests and power, in regard to ideational factors, and measure in which ideas constitute material factors (constituting power by interests, and interests by ideas), as well as claims that ideational constructions can also be real and objective, and emotions such as fear, insecurity and aggression are essential to human nature, result of unfulfilled needs, and eventually, social constructions. Finally, applied to security issues, the most important Wendt's contribution is in the fact that accepting both material and ideational, not just causality, but also constitution, is the best approach for the security research field. Understood in this way, it leads to qualitatively different analyses of the security phenomena and processes, and at the same enables including various variables significant for understanding and, maybe, predicting security dynamics, those that were excluded from the analyses as a result of domination of materialistic approach. Moreover, majority of security phenomena, including risks and threats, and also factors that influence the behavior of security actors and security actions in general, are ideational constructions, which is what makes Wendt's approach vital for dealing with security issues, especially having in mind fact that it opens wide possibilities for practical implementation, potentially leading to new theoretical perspectives in security studies.

The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Empirical Record

What kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the United States need to defend itself and its allies? According to conventional wisdom, the answer to this question is straightforward: the United States needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and respond with a devastating nuclear counterattack. These arguments are logical and persuasive, but, when compared to the empirical record, they raise an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has consistently maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. How do we make sense of this contradiction? Scholarly deterrence theory, including Robert Jervis’s seminal book, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy, argues that the explanation is simple—policymakers are wrong. This book takes a different approach. Rather than dismiss it as illogical, it explains the logic of American nuclear strategy. It argues that military nuclear advantages above and beyond a secure, second-strike capability can contribute to a state’s national security goals. This is primarily because nuclear advantages reduce a state’s expected cost of nuclear war, increasing its resolve, providing it with coercive bargaining leverage, and enhancing nuclear deterrence. This book provides the first theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it resolves one of the most intractable puzzles in international security studies. The book also explains why, in a world of growing dangers, the United States must possess, as President Donald J. Trump declared, a nuclear arsenal “at the top of the pack.”

Historical Explanation and the Study of Politics

1969 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. Birch
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
Sociological Explanation

MY STARTING POINT IS THE RATHER PLATITUDINOUS PROPOSITION that political science is a branch of scholarship which can be defined in terms of the activity studied but not in terms of the method adopted, which is to say that it is not a discipline like history or physics. To say that these subjects are disciplines is to indicate that historians and physicists are committed both to a certain method of acquiring data and to a certain mode of explanation. Because political scientists are not so committed they are inevitably involved in controversies about method and explanation, and the view I propose to discuss here is the view that, although several modes of explanation are open to students of politics, only the historical mode, and on a different level the philosophical mode, are appropriate. Those who hold this view lean heavily on the writings of Professor Michael Oakeshott and I shall begin with a very brief reference to Oakeshott's account of the main modes of experience and explanation. Subsequent sections will discuss the relevance of this account to students of politics, the nature of historical explanation, and the possibility of alternatives such as sociological explanation.

THE FIRST MODERN REALIST: FELIX GILBERT'S MACHIAVELLI AND THE REALIST TRADITION IN INTERNATIONAL THOUGHT

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-711 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLAS GUILHOT
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Science ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Historical Scholarship ◽  
Global Power ◽  
The Us ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
International Thought

In the disciplines of political science and international relations, Machiavelli is unanimously considered to be “the first modern realist.” This essay argues that the idea of a realist tradition going from the Renaissance to postwar realism founders when one considers the disrepute of Machiavelli among early international relations theorists. It suggests that the transformation of Machiavelli into a realist thinker took place subsequently, when new historical scholarship, informed by strategic and political considerations related to the transformation of the US into a global power, generated a new picture of the Renaissance. Focusing on the work of Felix Gilbert, and in particular hisMachiavelli and Guicciardini, the essay shows how this new interpretation of Machiavelli was shaped by the crisis of the 1930s, the emergence of security studies, and the philanthropic sponsorship of international relations theory.

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