Table Of ContentContents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Introduction
Politics and security
Further reading
Notes
PART I CONTEXT
1 Definitions and Redefinitions
Realism and the Cold War
The methodological debate
Return to the military definition?
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
2 The Proliferation of Concepts
Essentially contested concepts
An ethnocentric concept
Proliferation of concepts
Conclusion
Further reading
2
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
PART II METHODOLOGY
3 Change
Human nature and social
construction
Structures and agents
Immanent critique
Resistance
Conclusion
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
4 Identity
Aspects of identity
Identity and discourse analysis
Identity and the ‘clash of civilizations’
Conclusion
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
PART III PRACTICE
5 Danger
3
The representation of danger
The politics of danger
The production of insecurity
What is at stake?
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
6 Fear and Trauma
The securitization of fear
The medicalization of trauma
The politicization of fear and trauma
Conclusion
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
7 Human Insecurity
Human security
Development and security
The critical response
Conclusion
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
8 Emancipation
4
Emancipation
Dialogue
Care
Further reading
Classroom exercise
Questions
Notes
References
Index
End User License Agreement
5
Critical Approaches
to International
Security
Second Edition
K. M. FIERKE
polity
6
Copyright © K.M. Fierke 2015
The right of K.M. Fierke to be identified as Author of
this Work has been asserted in accordance with the
UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First edition published in 2007 by Polity Press
This edition published in 2015 by Polity Press
Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
350 Main Street
Malden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short
passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-0167-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fierke, K. M. (Karin M.)
Critical approaches to international security/Karin
Fierke. -- Second edition.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-7456-7053-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) --
7
ISBN0-7456-7053-9(hardcover:alk.paper)--ISBN
978-0-7456-7054-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN
0-7456-7054-7 (pbk.) 1. Security, International. I.
Title.
JZ5588.F54 2015
355’.033--dc23
2014022499
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thattheURLsforexternalwebsitesreferredtointhis
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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright
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edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website:
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8
Preface
A huge amount has been published on topics
related to Critical Security Studies since 2007
when the first edition of Critical Approaches to
International Security appeared. It has been a
challenge, although a rewarding one, to read,
assimilate and find some kind of synthesis of
this literature in and of itself and in relation to
the argument of the first edition. My own
position towards the content of the book has
changed in the process. While the central task
of the first edition was to map the broad
contours of a field, the second has been far
more concerned with mapping a change in
these contours. My own work, while critical,
does not fit neatly within any one genre of
theory explored in the book, given my primary
interest in meaning in use and changes in
meaning rather than theory per se. As a result, I
have avoided positioning myself in relation to
the central questions at the heart of current
debates, and not least that of whether security
should be rethought or abandoned altogether,
or whether liberal governance should be less
top down, taking more local views into account
or is, in itself, fundamentally problematic.
While I have tried to be true to these debates as
reflectedintheliterature,myownpositioningis
somewhere in between, that is, while the
normative and institutional structures of
9
security or liberal governance are infused with
power and privilege, and often end up
reproducing the problems they set out address,
considerable effort has gone into constructing
these normative and institutional structures
over the last century and they have opened a
space for a more global engagement that is not
purely military. There is, however, a critical
imperative, at this historical juncture, to nudge
existing global structures and forums toward a
critical rethinking and a more global
conversation over the meaning of security or
protection from harm in a changing global
space.
In order to facilitate this kind of conversation in
the classroom, an exercise has been added at
the end of each chapter, which I hope will help
students to think through the implications,
policy or otherwise, of the book and the
different perspectives represented within it.
Critical security studies, like critical theory
more broadly, has often been accused of being
overly abstract and detached from the very
praxis that it claims is inseparable from theory.
One of the most frequent comments on the first
edition was its accessibility to those who do not
have extensive background in the larger
philosophical traditions to which the themes
explored here connect. A second comment has
been the usefulness of the book for teaching
purposes, which is another
10
