aberystwyth, paris, copenhagen new 'schools' in security (2)

8/14/2019 Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen New 'Schools' in Security (2)

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Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen

New 'Schools' in Security Theory

and their Origins between Core and Periphery

Ole Wver

Professor of International Relations

Department of Political Science - University of Copenhagen

Rosenborggade 15, DK-1130 Copenhagen K, Denmark

Phone: +45 3532 3431 Fax: +45 3532 3399

e-mail: [email protected]/people/faculty/~Waever_Ole.htm

Paper presented at the annual meeting of theInternational Studies Association, Montreal, March 17-

20, 2004.

Panel: Geo-Cultural Epistemologies in IR: Thinking Security Differently

FD24 Friday 3:45 - 5:30 PM; Sponsor: Convention Theme

Abstract: Debates in security studies in the U.S. and Europe have drifted almost

completely apart. In Europe it is common to present the theoretical landscape in

terms of, say, critical security studies, the Copenhagen School, traditionalism and

feminism. In the U.S. it is more common to see the major debate within security

studies as being the one between offensive realism and defensive realism!

Previously, almost all theoretical inventions in IR were made in the U.S. Currently,

distinct theories are widely associated with places like Aberystwyth (Critical

Security Studies), Paris (Bigo's Bourdieu-inspired work) and Copenhagen

(securitization). The new European approaches differ not only from security studies

in the US, they also stand apart from most work done in other parts of the world. Arethese theories peculiarly 'European' and if so, why? The paper aims at explaining the

emergence of these European security theories. The explanation draws partly on the

political context in the different regions, and partly on features of the intellectual

fields, International Relations and Security Studies. The theories are also assessed

briefly as to their relevance and usefulness. To what extent are they bound to local,

European problems or relevant to the issues that are addressed elsewhere and vice-

versa for the theories that flourish in the U.S. and the periphery respectively? Can

they travel to the other parts of the world in a helpful role?


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Recently, a number of theories or research programmes often called schools have emerged

within European security studies. Although security studies is habitually seen as a sub-field within

International Relations (IR), these schools have not been sectorial manifestations of the main

theories as defined by the over-arching landscape or grand debates of the discipline at large. Nor

have they generally been copied from the US. In a discipline (IR) and a sub-discipline/field (security

studies) used to American leadership, this sudden fertility of European soil has been a surprise. Thedebate within and among and across these schools has regularly been characterised as particularly

fruitful. As noted by amongst other Mike Williams, it is with some surprise that the discipline

receives new impulses from security studies, a corner expected to represent the most reactionary and

policy obsessed (of a generally reactionary and policy obsessed discipline):

over the past decade, the field of security studies has become one of the most dynamic and

contested areas in International Relations. In particular, it has become perhaps the primary

forum in which broadly social constructivist approaches have challenged traditionallargely

Realist and nonRealist theories on their home turf, the are in which some of the most

vibrant new approaches to the analysis of international politics are being developed, and the

realm in which some of the most engaged theoretical debates are taking place.1

This has largely been a European debate. Important contributions are increasingly coming from both

non-Western and American scholars, but the emergence of these distinct theories is widely associated

with places like Aberystwyth (Critical Security Studies), Paris (Bigo's Bourdieu-inspired work) and

Copenhagen (securitisation). Why in Aberystwyth, Paris and Copenhagen why not in Amman,

Philadelphia or Calcutta?

Despite the above cited positive responses to these schools, the point of this paper is certainly not to

assume that there is something inherently good or preferable about this particular family of theories

and that therefore the causes found should be taken as guidance about what to do in order to emulate

this development. On the contrary, it is very likely that theoretical developments elsewhere are either

generally superior or locally more relevant. The intention is exactly to get a clearer sense of the

context-boundness of these European theories and schools.

Are these theories peculiarly 'European' and if so, why? The paper aims at explaining the emergence

of these European security theories. The explanation draws partly on the political context in different

regions, and partly on features of the intellectual fields, International Relations and Security Studies.

The theories are also assessed briefly as to their relevance and usefulness. To what extent are they

bound to local, European problems or relevant to the issues that are addressed elsewhere [and vice-

versa for the theories that flourish in the U.S. and the periphery respectively]? Can they travel to the

other parts of the world in a helpful role?

1Michael C. Williams, Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and World Politics, in International Studies Quarterly,

47(4), 511-531. For similar claims about the vitality and importance of these debates, see Johan Eriksson, Introduction in

Eriksson ed. Threat Politics: New perspectives on security, risk and crisis management, Aldershot: Ashgate 2001, pp. 1-18,

especially p. 18 (note 1); Jef Huysmans, "Revisiting Copenhagen: Or, On the Creative Development of a Security Studies

Agenda in Europe", European Journal of International Relations, 4:4 (1998) 479-506; Steve Smith, The IncreasingInsecurity of Security Studies: Conceptualizing Security in the Last Twenty Years in Stuart Croft & Terry Terriff (eds.)

Critical Reflections on Security and Change, London: Frank Cass 2000, pp. 72-101.


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majority of American scholars. (In this case, Canada is more European than American and partly

simply itself with its own literature on human security3, and therefore the main contrast is not

Europe vs. North America but Europe vs. the U.S.)

If you turn to the leading academic, American journals in security studies (or look at ph.d. theses

written in the US), these debates register only very marginally.4The leading debate is instead likely

to be seen as the intra-realist debate between offensive and defensive realism5(and other distinctionswithin realism) with numerous interventions refining the theoretical arguments and doing empirical

case studies usually through in-depth historical studies. Also there have been major debates over

particular hypotheses like the democratic peace6and increasingly a debate that looks more like the

European debates: the meta-theoretical debate between constructivists and rationalists.7However, the

latter is also the one that most clearly shows the differences, as it will be explained below.

3C. Thomas and P. Wilkin (eds.) Globalizaton, Human Security, and the African Experience, London: Lynne Rienner 1999;

Astri Suhrke, Human Security and the Interests of States, Security Dialogue, vol. 30:3, September 1999, pp. 265-276;Simon Dalby, Geopolitical Change and Contemporary Security Studies: Contextualizing the Human Security Agenda, The

University of British Columbia: Institute of International Relations, Working Paper No. 30, April 2000; Kanti Bajpai,

Human Security: Concept and Measurement, Kroc Institute Occasional Paper #19:OP:1, August 2000 (64pp); Edward

Newman, Human Security and Constructivism, International Studies Perspectives, 2001:2, pp. 239-252; William Bain,

The Tyranny of Benevolence? National Security, Human Security, and the Practice of Statecraft in Global Security, vol.

15:3, 2001, pp. 277-294; Roland Paris, Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?, International Security, vol. 26:2,

Fall 2001, pp. 87-102; Nicholas Thomas and William T. Tow, The Utility of Human Security: Sovereignty and

Humanitarian Intervention, Security Dialogue, vol. 33(2), June 2002, p. 177-192; Alex J. Bellamy and Matt McDonald,

The Utility of Human Security: Which Humans? What Security? A Reply to Thomas & Tow, Security Dialogue, vol.

33(3), September 2002, pp. 373-377; Thomas and Tow, Gaining Security by Trashing the State? A Reply to Bellamy &

McDonald, Security Dialogue, vol. 33(3), September 2002, pp. 379-382. See also Canadas Human Security Web Site:

www.humansecurity.gc.ca, Human Security Network: www.humansecuritynetwork.org, the Commission on Human

Security:http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/ and Harvards Program on Human Security:www.cbrss.harvard.edu/hs/ 4The divergence was maybe already signalled during the 1980s and early 1990s by the very different reception of BarryBuzans People States and Fear(1983, 1991). It never made a big impact in the US, while it became a cenral reference, a

standard textbook and a modern classic not only in the UK, but generally in Europe (and Canada?).5E.g. Sean Lynn-Jones & Steven Miller Preface, in Brown, Michael, Sean Lynn Jones, & Steven Miller (eds). 1995. The

Perils of Anarchy: Neo-realism and International Security. Cambridge: MIT Press 1995. Pp ix-xii; Jack Snyder, Myths of

Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition, Ithaca og London: Cornell University Press 1991; Zakaria [review-

essay]; Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power - The Unusual Origins of America's World Role, Princeton, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press 1998; John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: W. W. Norton &

Company 2001; Stephen G. Brooks, Dueling Realisms, International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 3, 1997, pp. 445-477;

Randall Schweller, Neorealisms Status Quo Bias: What Security Dilemma, Security Studies, Spring, 5(3), 1996, pp. 90-

121; Randall Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitlers Strategy of World Conquest, New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press 1998; Charles Glaser, The Security Dilemma Revisited; World Politics. October, 50 (1), 1997, pp. 171-

201; Jeffrey Taliaferro, "Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited," International Security, vol. 25,

Winter 2000/01, pp. 128-61; Gideon Rose, Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy, World Politics, Vol. 51,

1998, pp. 144-172; Sten Rynning og Stefano Guzzini (2001): Realism and Foreign Policy Analysis, Working Papers42/2001, Kbenhavn: Copenhagen Peace Research Institute: http://www.copri.dk/publications/WP/WP%202001/42-

2001.pdf;Stephen M. Walt, The Enduring Relevance of the Realist Tradition in Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (eds.)

Political Science: The State of the Discipline III, New York: W. W. Norton 2002.6 Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1993 + ref. to key debates in

International Securityand elsewhere.7Peter J. Katzenstein, Introduction: Alternative Perspectives on National Security in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture

of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press 1996, pp. 1-32; Ronald

L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein, Norms, Identity and Culture in National Security in Katzenstein

(ed.) The Culture, op.cit., pp. 33-75; Peter J. Katzenstein, Conclusion: National Security in a Changing World in

Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture, op.cit., pp. 498-537; Michael Desch, "Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in

Security Studies," International Security, vol. 23, Summer 1998, pp. 141-70 + debate in International Security, vol. 24:1,

Summer 1999, pp. 156-180; Ted Hopf, "The Promise of Constructivism in IR Theory." International Security, V.23,

Summer 1998, pp. 171-200; Dale Copeland, "The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism: A Review Essay,"

International Security, vol. 25, Fall 2000, pp. 187-212; Ido Oren, Is Culture Independent of National Security? HowAmericas National Security Concerns Shaped Political Culture Research, European Journal of International Relations,

vol. 6:4, 2000, pp. 543-573.
http://www.humansecurity.gc.ca/http://www.humansecurity.gc.ca/http://www.humansecuritynetwork.org/http://www.humansecuritynetwork.org/http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/hs/http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/hs/http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/hs/http://www.copri.dk/publications/WP/WP%202001/42-2001.pdfhttp://www.copri.dk/publications/WP/WP%202001/42-2001.pdfhttp://www.copri.dk/publications/WP/WP%202001/42-2001.pdfhttp://www.copri.dk/publications/WP/WP%202001/42-2001.pdfhttp://www.copri.dk/publications/WP/WP%202001/42-2001.pdfhttp://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/hs/http://www.humansecurity-chs.org/http://www.humansecuritynetwork.org/http://www.humansecurity.gc.ca/


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Schools of security theory in Europe

Traditionalism /

(common sense realism, policy realism

Critical Security Studies

Copenhagen School

Sociological work by Didier Bigo and

colleagues + risk society

Radical post-modernists, feminists, et al

Schools of security theory in the US

Offensive realism

Defensive realism

other realisms (post-classical, etc etc)

Constructivists coming from IR ingeneral

Power and Institutions in International

Order (not really anymore the classical IRliberalism debate over the role of institutions,

Possible avenues for explanation

Elsewhere, I have elaborated more complicated and extensive explanatory models for the

developments within IR theory in a particular region or country8. Others have made parallel

arguments or relevant criticisms of my model.9Much can be said for or against various suggestions

for a complete model (and the Breitenbauch/Wivel one is probably the most consistent andcomprehensive), but for the present purpose, I will simplify into an explanation from three factors:

Intellectual traditions; the dominance of e.g. positivism, historicism or other general orientations. The organisation of the field (in this case: security studies). Generally defined in the model as the

delineation of different social sciences, notably the relationship between law, administration,

sociology, history, the humanities and political science/international relations. In the present

case, much of the focus will be on the relationship between universities, think tanks (strategic

studies; foreign policy institutes), peace research and the public (including public intellectuals).

Practical usages: policy issues and the political agenda. This is not meant to re-import either thetraditional, semi-positivist view, that reality rests in itself and theories only mirror this, nor the

general IR externalist understanding of the discipline, according to which, the development ofIR can be understood as a reflection of the development in i.r. (real world international

relations). According to the latter, world war I explained the raise of idealism and somehow the

next world war II with equal necessity explained the victory of realism; icy cold war periods

caused realism and neo-realism, while dtente led to interdependence and Keohane. Iand Brian

Schmidt have explained elsewhere why this kind of explanation does not hold. The

interpretations and conclusions reached do not follow from events but can only be understood

through the discourse internal debates cf. the two world wars that cause opposite theoretical

orientations. However, the kind of issues a political community is faced with surely does

influence the nature of the debate. Therefore, the formulation about practical usages: IR and

(more so) security studies are surely used(in any sense of the term) and it is important to have a

sense of the challenges and debates a community is preoccupied with in order to understand thenature of the debates and thereby the kinds of research that appear relevant in a given place and

time.

First, however, a brief summary of these schools in Europe, before we turn to explanations:

Aberystwyth, Paris, Copenhagen and elsewhere

8 'The Sociology of a Not so International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations', in

International Organization, vol. 52:4, 1998, pp. 687-727, especially pp. 694-6.9Brian C. Schmidt, The Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International Relations , Albany NY:

State University of New York Press 1998 [+ handbook chapter] ; Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and

International Political Economy: The Continuing Story of a Death Foretold, Routledge 1998; Anders Wivel and HenrikBreitenbauch, Understanding National IR Disciplines Outside the United States: Political Culture and the Construction of

Internatinoal Relations in Denmark, draft March 10, 2004, G. Holdenseveral articles and papers; etc.


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This section is not meant to give an in-depth or innovative presentation and critical discussion of the

theories. They will be only briefly introduced and the choice of cities as metaphor justified

basically to the extent necessary for knowing what to explain, i.e. what is it that is characteristic of

these theories and the emergence of which therefore needs to be understood. To what extent the

theories are good, useful, scientifically satisfactory, progressive, etc, is a question for another or

rather many otherdays.Aberystwyth has been one of the most important sites for the development of so-called Critical

Security Studies.10

Among the three discussed, CSS is the school that has most clearly been a broad

movement emerging out of many sources and many places, in Europe and certainly beyond. In this

case, the metaphor of a town is therefore more problematic, but especially for the emancipatory

wing of CSS, the two main figures are located at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth Ken Booth

and Richard Wyn Jones. The defining work of the school, the anthology Critical Security Studies,

was edited by two post-Canadians Keith Krause (Geneva) and Mike Williams (then Portland, Maine),

but Mike Williams moved to Aberystwyth in 1998. The name Welsh School has occasionally been

used about this approach.11CSS has had non-Western participants involved in the development of the

theory, and as we will see below (last part of the paper), it is probably the one of the three that most

easily works in a non-Western context.CSS argues, that we as researchers should avoid seeing the world through the eyes of the state as

impliedby using the concept of national security as key category. The state is often the problem as

much as the solution, and the aim of research has to be defined in relation to human beings, not an

institution. The best way to conceptualise security in a way that ties it in with people instead of the

state is to define it in terms of emancipation.

By implication, the concept of security becomes used in a rather classical sense, but on a different

referent object: it is about real threats, only the real -real ones against real people and not the

allegedly real ones voiced by the state. In this respect, CSS sometimes comes to sound rather

objectivist in its concept of threats and security, and its political agenda comes close to classical

critical peace research of the 1970s Galtung-Senghaas brand that used to be strong in Northern

Europe (Scandinavia and Germany).

This is the part of CSS that thinks of the meaning of Critical in terms of capital C-capital T,

Critical Theory, i.e. Frankfurt School, early Habermas inspired thinking with a drop of Gramsci and

maybe Kant. Others think of critical in a more inclusive sense where CT is only one possible

format, and CSS as a broad movement therefore includes also other forms of theory that is critical,

even if it is not Critical Theory, i.e. feminism, normative theory and post-structuralism. In practices,

the majority of these non CT ct writers are found somewhere on the IR continuum from

constructivism to post-structuralism, e.g. much work on the social construction of threats and self-

other relations.12

10 Ken Booth, "Security and Emancipation", Review of International Studies,17:4, (1991), pp.313-327; Keith Krause andMichael C. Williams (eds.) Critical Security Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1997; Keith Krause and

Michael C. Williams, Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods, Mershon International Studies

Review, vol. 40, supplement 2 (1996), pp. 229-254; Keith Krause "Critical Theory and Security Studies: The Research

Programme of 'Critical Security Studies'", Cooperation and Conflict, 33:3 (1998), pp.298-333; Richard Wyn Jones,

Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner 1999; Bradley Klein, "Politics by Design. Remapping

Security Landscapes", European Journal of International Relations,4:3 (1998), pp.327-346; Bradley S. Klein, Strategic

Studies and World Order: The Global Politics of Deterrence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Lene Hansen,

"A Case for Seduction? Evaluating the Poststructuralist Conceptualization of Security", Cooperation and Conflict, 32:4

(1997), pp.369-97.11 Steve Smith, The Increasing Insecurity; op.cit.; Alex J. Bellamy, Humanitarian responsibilities and interventionist

claims in international society,Review of International Studies, vol. 29:3, 2003, pp. 321-40.12 Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order, Cambrdige Univesity Press 1994.; Simon Dalby, Creating the

Second Cold War, Londno: Pinter 1990; Bradely Klein, Politics by Design. Remapping Security Landscapes, European

Journal of International Relations4 (3) (1998), 327-346; David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policyand the Politics of Identity, University of Minnesota Press 1992 and not least the epilogue to the second, revised edition

(1998, pp. 207-227); chapters in Krause/Williams by Dalby and Klein; articles by Jim George, etc etc etc.


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CSS in its broad sense shows no clear boundary towards the Copenhagen School. In some sense, it

is artificial to have Krause, Williams and Wver located in different schools 13, whereas the

difference between the approaches of Booth and Buzan is probably clear enough. Therefore, at the

cost of downplaying in this context some of the most interesting cross-cutting writings, focus will

when discussing schoolsbe on the most distinct versions and therefore on the Welsh school in its

emancipatory format. Writers like Williams, Huysmans, Krause and Hansen are however important tokeep in the picture not least as representatives of the broader debate around and across these schools.

The so-called Copenhagen School14

in security studies is built around three main ideas: 1)

securitisation, 2) sectors and 3) regional security complexes. In this brief presentation, I will focus on

the first, because securitisation is what defines most distinctly the school in a meta-theoretical sense.

However, it is worth remembering the other key ideas not least because the tensions and interactions

between these three explain much of the dynamics in the development of the theory.15

13 On a personal note, an element that I find particularly important and thought-provoking is one which RBJ Walker and

Mike Williams have in different ways contributed to: The traditional concept of security is not just a product of un-

imaginative, positivist mainstream scholars with too close relationships to state policy. Adopting a materialist ontology and a

positivist epistemology was an early modern security strategy, or in a sense a strategy of de-securitisation: the narrowconcept of security meant to restrict the resort to violence and defence to only the state and only in relation to physical

threats which was an important element of the order creating process of removing these instruments from diverse groups and

individuals in the feudal order and from religious and identity referents in the religious and civil wars of the 16 thand 17th

Century. That is: to limit violence and establish peaceful order, it was imperative to narrow the security logic to the

minimalist reference of state and war. Thus, the concept of security is not an isolated question and certainly not a purely

academic one of post-positivist progress, but a thoroughly political question tied in with the whole modern political

language of state, sovereignty, community and identity. To widen or in other ways redefine the concept of security is

therefore not an innocent matter of simple conceptual improvement, but a political move not to be carried out light-heartedly

but with full awareness of the implications of unpacking the Westphalian parcel of political concepts, peace and order. Cf. R

B J Walker, The Subject of Security, in Krause/Williams, pp. 61 -82; Michael Williams, "Comment on the 'Copenhagen

Controversy'", Review of International Studies,24:3 (1998), pp.435-441; Michael C. Williams, "Security and the Politics of

Identity",European Journal of International Relations, 4:2 (1998), pp. 204-225.14The name Copenhagen School was coined by Bill McSweeney in a critical review essay which turned into an exchange:

Bill McSweeney "Identity and security: Buzan and the Copenhagen school", in Review of International Studies22:1 (1996),pp.81-94; Barry Buzan and Ole Wver "Slippery? contradictory? sociologically unstable? The Copenhagen school replies",

in Review of International Studies 23:2 (1997), pp.143-52; Bill McSweeney "Durkheim and the Copenhagen school: a

response to Buzan and Wver", inReview of International Studies24:1 (1998), pp.137-140; Mike Williams "Comment on

the 'Copenhagen Controversy'", in Review of International Studies24:3 (1998), pp.435-441; Bill McSweeney, Security,

Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999.

The Copenhagen School is usually taken to refer first of all to the work done since 1985 by the European

Security research group at the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, notably its series of collective bo oks: Egbert Jahn,

Pierre Lemaitre, and Ole Wver Concepts of Security: Problems of Research on Non-Military Aspects, Copenhagen Papers

no. 1, Copenhagen: Center for Peace and Conflict Research 1987; Ole Wver, Pierre Lemaitre and Elzbieta Tromer (eds.)

European Polyphony: Perspectives beyond East-West Confrontation, London: Macmillan 1989; Barry Buzan, Morten

Kelstrup, Pierre Lemaitre, Elzbieta Tromer, and Ole Wver The European Security Order Recast: Scenarios for the Post-

Cold War Era, London: Pinter Publisher 1990; Ole Wver, Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup, and Pierre Lemaitre, Identity,

Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, London: Pinter Publichers 1993; Barry Buzan, Jaap de Wilde, and Ole

Wver, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner 1998; Buzan and Wver, Regions andPowers: The Structure of International Security, Cambridge University Press 2003. The most thorough review of the school

in this respect is Jef Huysmans "Revisiting Copenhagen: Or, On the Creative Development of a Security Studies Agenda in

Europe", in European Journal of International Relations4:4 (1998), pp.479-506. For important reflections on the origins

and context for the emergence of the school, see also several chapters (and especially the editors introduction to) Stefano

Guzzini and Dietrich Jung (eds.) Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research, Routledge 2004.

Especially in Scandinavia but increasingly beyond, a lot of applications have been done, but also many critical comments

and revisions have been published. See Johan Eriksson, Observers or Advocates? On the Political Role of Security

Analysts, i Cooperation and Conflict, 1999:3; Iver B. Neumann, "Identity and the Outbreak of War : Or Why the

Copenhagen School of Security Studies Should Include the Idea of 'Violisation' in Its Framework of Analysis", International

Journal of Peace Studies, 3:1 (January 1998), pp. 7-22; Hansen, Lene (2000) "The Little Mermaids Silent Security

Dilemma and the Absence of Gender in the Copenhagen School," Millennium, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 285-306; Albert, Mathias

(1998): Security as Boundary Function: Changing Identities and 'Securitization' in World Politics,International Journal of

Peace Studies3 (1): 23-46; Ceyhan, op cit.; Williams, Words, Images, op.cit.

15 Sectors and regional security complexes stem from Barry Buzan altough the main reference now is to collectiveCopenhagen School books (Security, A New Framework from 1998 and Regions and Powers in 2003, respectively).

Securitisation comes from Ole Wver but also here the main reference is now a collective book ( Security: A New


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Sectors refer to the distinction between political, economic, environmental, military and societal

security. The concept of security complexes points to the importance of the regional level in

security analysis and suggests an analytical scheme for structuring analysis of how security concerns

tie together in a regional formation.16

Part of the background for the Copenhagen School was the debate in politics and security studies in

the 1970s and especially 1980s over a wide versus a narrow concept of security. The everythingbecomes security worry of tradtionalists, was met by the argument that with a clearer sense of what

makes a security issue a security issue, it is possible to extend the net widely and look for security in

all sectors and with all possible referent objects. It is necessary to be able to discriminate and separate

security issues from non-security. Only by having a clear sense ofwhat is security, is it possible to

open up without being swept away.

The real functions of the term, the powersof the concept, are found where it is employed in political

practice. Language users implicitly follow rules for what is seen as meaningful statements. This

approach does not entail conducting opinion polls and asking people what they think security means,

nor asking philosophers what would be the most logically consistent definition, but analysing actual

linguistic practices to see what regulates discourse. What do practitioners do intalking security?

In security discourse, an issue is presented as posing an existential threat to a designated referent

object (traditionally, but not necessarily the state).17 The designation of the threat as existential

justifies the use of extraordinary measures to handle it. The invocation of security has been the key to

legitimising the use of force, and more generally opening the way for the state to mobilise or to take

special powereg. using conscription, secrecy, and other means only legitimate when dealing with

security matters. Security is the result of a move that takes politics beyond the established rules of

the game and frames the issue as above normal politics.

To register the act of something being securitised, the task is not to assess some objective threats that

really endanger some object, rather it is to understand the processes of constructing a shared

understanding of what is to be considered and collectively responded to as a threat. The process of

securitisation is a speech act. It is not interesting as a sign referring to something more real: it is the

utterance itself that is the act. By saying the words, something is done (like giving a promise, betting,

naming a ship). It is by labelling something a security issue that it becomes one not that issues are

security issues in themselves and then afterwards possibly talked about in terms of security.18Thus

the exact definition and criteria of securitisation is the intersubjective establishment of an existential

threat with a saliency sufficient to have substantial political effects.

A characteristic feature of the CS is its scepticism towards security. It has often anti-democratic and

anti-creative implications. The usual critical strategy of widening security has a problem when it

accepts the underlying assumption of the mainstream approach that the more security the better and

extends this to still more areas. Securitising environment, identity and religion subsumes these areas

under a problematic rationality. In contrast, the CS sees security as a negative, as a failure to deal

with issues as normal politics. Ideally, politics should be able to unfold according to normal

Framework).16 The concept of regional security complex was introduced by Barry Buzan in People, States and Fear: The National

Security Problem in International Relations, Harvester Wheatsheaf 1983. The concept is at the centre of the most recent

book from the project group in Copenhagen: Buzan & Wver,Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security,

Cambridge University Press 2003.17 Barry Buzan, Jaap de Wilde, and Ole Wver, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner,

1998; Ole Wver, "Securitisation and Desecuritisation", in On Security, Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.), New York: Columbia

University Press 1995, pp. 46-86; Wver, Securitisation: Taking stock of a research programme in Security Studies, paper

presented to PIPES, Chicago, February 2003.18J L Austin,How to do things with words, 2nded. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 1975 (1962); John R.

Searle (Speech Acts: ...); Jrgen Habermas (Universal Pragmatics ...); Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc ....; Judith Butler,

Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, Routledge 1997; B. Honig, Declarations of independence: Arendt and

Derrida on the problem of founding a republic, American Political Science Review, vol. 85:1, 1991, pp. 97-113; JohnForrester, The Seductions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Lacan and Derrida, Cambridge University Press 1990, especially ch. 7.

Pierre Bourdieu,


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procedures without this extraordinary elevation of specific threats to a pre-political immediacy. De-

securitisation is the optimal long-range option, since it means not to have issues phrased as threats

against which we have countermeasures but to move them out of this threat-defence sequence and

into the ordinary public sphere (or the economy, or letting religion be religion19

, or what other

mechanisms it is then left to). In a conflict resolution perspective, the way forward is often de-

securitisation rather than the production of more security, cf. the case of European integration (theMonnet method).20

Parishas been the main site of a distinct theoretical development, mostly inspired by Bourdieu and

other sociologists, with a dose of Foucault and a thorough commitment to detailed, empirical

investigations of actual practices by various agencies practices that often reveal patterns and

processes different from those one find by studying official discourse. Didier Bigo is the main figure

in this development and his journal Cultures & Conflitshas published a number of important works

in relation to this research programme.21

Also Jef Huysmans who have written extensively on the

different new schools have clarified and elaborated important assumptions and implications of the

Paris approach.22

Empirically, Bigo has amongst other things shown how internal and external security merge as

agencies compete for the gradually de-territorialised tasks of traditional police, military and customs.Also they jointly produce a new threat image by constantly connecting immigration, organised crime

and terror. In-security is largely a product of security discourses and security policy. Bigo starts from

a conception of a field and its actors and ask what they do. If done simplistically, the actor-based

approach could easily become something close to conspiracy theory. But by now this work has

evolved into a very elaborate and unusually well documented mapping of practices notably also at the

micro level by the various agencies involved on the security field. An important advantage of this

approach is that it better than others includes routine practices and even deviation from official

policy, i.e. it is less oriented to discourse and more to all practices of agencies. It is obviously a quite

demanding task, if you have to penetrate these various agencies and agents from police and other

19

Carsten Bagge Laustsen and Ole Wver, In Defence of Religion: Sacred Referent Objects for Securitization",Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol.29 no. 3, 2000, 705-739.20Ole Wver, Inscurit, Identit : une dialectique sans fin in Entre Union et Nations: Ltat en Europe, ed. by Anne-Marie Le Gloannec, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po 1998, pp. 88-137. (English version as Identity and Insecurity Unlimited

as chapter 10 in Wver, Concepts of Security, University of Copenhagen 1997.) On the question of security dilemmas and

security systems in the societal sector, see also Wver, Identity, Integration and Security: Solving the Sovereignty Puzzle in

E.U. Studies, inJournal of International Affairs, vol. 48:2, Winter 1995, pp. 389-431, and European Security Identities in

Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 34:1, March 1996, pp. 103-32. See also: Paul Roe, "The Intrastate Security

Dilemma: Ethnic Conflict as a 'Tragedy'",Journal of Peace Research, vol. 36:2, 1999, s. 183-202; Paul Roe, Misperception

and ethnic conflict: Transylvanias societal security dilemma, Review of International Studies, vol. 28:1, 2002, pp. 57-74;

Pierre Hassner, Beyond Nationalism and Internationalism, Survival, 35:2 (1993); Gidon Gottlieb, Nations without States,

Foreign Affairs, 73:3 (1994); Ted Gurr, Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing World System,

International Studies Quarterly, 38:3 (1994); Kristian Gerner, From the Black Sea to the Adriatic: Ethnicity, Territoriality

and International Security, Security Dialogue, 24:1 (1993); Roxanne Lynn Doty, Immigration and National Identity:

constructing the nation,Review of International Studies, 22:3 (1996) 235-55.21Didier Bigo, Polices en rsaux, lexprience europenne, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po 1996; Bigo, LEurope de lascurit intrieure: penser autrement la scurit, in Anne-Marie Le Gloannec (ed.)Entre Union et Nations, Paris:Presses de

la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques 1998, pp. 55-90; Bigo, "Security(s): Internal and External, the mbius

ribbon", paper presented at the annual convention of ISA, Toronto March 199? (is published, but where?), Bigo, Security

and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease, Alternatives, vol. 27: supplement, Feb. 2002, pp.

63-92; Bigo, When two become one: internal and external securitisations in Morten Kelstrup and Michael C. Williams

(eds.) International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration, London: Routledge 2000, pp. 171-204;

Bigo, Didier (2002) To Reassure and Protect, After September 11 on web -page by the Social Science Research Council

after September 11, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/bigo.htm ; Ayse Ceyhan, Analyser la scurit: Dillon, Waever,

Williams et les autres, in Culture et Conflits no. 31-32, Automne-hiver 1998; Ayse Ceyhan and Anastassia Tsoukala, The

Securitization of Migration in Western Societies: Ambivalent Discourses and Policies in Alternatives, vol. 27: supplement,

Feb. 2002, pp. 21-40; Huysmans, Defining Social Constructivism, op.cit.; Claudia Aradau, Migration: The Spiral of

(In)Security, Rubikon e-journal, March 2001, http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia1.htm; Claudia Aradau,

Beyond Good and Evil: Ethics and Securitization /Desecuritization Techniques, Rubikon e-journal, Dec 2001:http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htm.22Jef Huysmans, in Cultures et Conflits + Defining Social Constructivism +
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/bigo.htmhttp://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/bigo.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia1.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia1.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia1.htmhttp://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/bigo.htm


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bureaucracies to private security companiesand their more or less hidden, transnational networks,

but it has the great advantage of being able to keep up with a society increasingly characterised by

professionalisation and technical rationalisation, where specific social positions are privileged in

relation to doing security.

Other participants to this debate are notably traditionalists to the one side and hard-core post-

modernists and feminists to the other. By hard-core post-modernists, I mean those who mostactively criticise security as such. By linking more directly to Nietzsche and Heidegger, they question

why at all we are concerned about security. Only the timid and unambitious strive for security

better is to live interestingly and less predictably. Also the point by Derrida and others about the

typically modern longing for fixity and predictability can be used here. Better would be to face the

Other and what is truly different as an exciting challenge.23

On the one hand, it is quite easy to ridicule this in the institutional setting of security studies, because

is obviously appears a rather academic approach. Try to tell policy makers: September 11?

Terrorism? How exciting! You should take this as an interesting chance to develop and change and

experience difference. Not very promising. On the other hand, exactly the post-911 debate shows the

relevance of this radical position, because ultimately an inescapable question in relation to terror is to

what extent we can learn to live with a very unwelcome danger like terror. Any strategy for erasingthe threat of terrorism and therefore any attempt to securitise terrorism as a totally unacceptable

risk which leaves us in mortal and intolerable danger until removedis deemed to drive us all into a

vicious circle of increased insecurity and counter-productive security strategies. Terror can only be

dealt with if not totalised as a threat, and thus ultimately any promising strategy has to have an

element of learning to tame ones own worries. Ironically, this approach therefore has some

immediate policy relevance, but at least in the short term, it has usually (maybe with the idiosyncratic

exception of James Der Derian) not been able to forge ties with policy research and has thus

remained a debate limited to high theory.

Feminists have done much work on security thinking.24

Often, the usual divisions within feminism

(standpoint, Marxist, liberal, post-modern, etc) show up in this work too, and accordingly different

parts line up close to some of the already mentioned schools, while other parts are more distinct.Quite a bit of the feminist work comes close to Booth type CSS (which is not surprising given the

strong influence of feminism on Booths thinking): individual security should be given priority, state

security is over-emphasised by traditional, masculinist scholarship, and sometimes it is also stressed

how the very forms of theory and study is male science.25

Other parts of feminist work is more post-

structuralist and stress the articulation of concepts of gender, nation and security (often inspired by

Elshtain)26

. This scholarship is an important part of the broader debate, but it is not easy to define a

distinct position at present and it is therefore treated as part of the larger debate, not as a school.

Finally, an emerging debate within these mostly European security circles is about risk society. The

literature that developed originally among mostly sociologists and primarily in relation to

environment and production systems, obviously meet at some point the concerns of security studies,

especially as security widens beyond the international into various domestic settings, and risksimultaneously spreads to becoming allegedly the predominant mode of societys self-reflection.

27

23James Der Derian, The Value of Security: Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, and Baudrillard i Ronnie D. Lipschutz, ed. On

Security,New York: Columbia University Press 1995, pp. 24-45; Michael Dillon, Politics of Security: Towards a Political

Philosophy of Continental Thought, London: Routledge 1996; Costas Constantinou, Poetics of Security,Alternatives, vol.

25:3, 2000, pp. 287-306; Anthony Burke, Aporias of Security, Alternatives, vol. 27:1 (2002), pp. 1-27; Andreas Behnke,

Postmodernizing Security, paper presented at ECPR Joint Session of Workshops, Mannheim, 26-31 March 1999.

24 J. Ann Tickner, Gender and International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving global Security , New York:

Columbia University Press 1992. Add many more ref.25Cf. Booth, Security and Self, op.cit.26 Lene Hansen, Rape/Bosnia article in Feminist Journal, several articles in special issue of Cooperation and Conflict

especially the Swedish one on conscription, etc etc.27Niklas Luhmann: Risiko und Gefahr in Soziologische Aufklrung 5. Konstruktivistische Perspektiven. Westdeutscher

Verlag, Obladen 1990, pp. 131 169; Ulrick Beck,Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity,London: Sage 1992; Mikkel


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How and where these two logics meet and what it implies is very much an open question and a debate

that has only just begun, but it should tie in relatively smoothly with some of the existing concerns in

the European security debate.

- - -

An aside onthe term schools

: The pattern is not totally consistent, and one can find the termapplied to e.g. realism (the realist school), but mostly the main theories that are seen as constituting

the core debates at the centre of the discipline (i.e. leading circles in the US) are not referred to as

schools. There is no constructivist school, Wendtian school or Yale-Chicago school. This is not

only because these (American born) theories are seen as too wide-spread i.e. going beyond any

localitybecause it is generally understood also that the English school is not about scholarship in

England, but a specific tradition of work referring to certain referent points (Wight, Bull, and the

whole British Committee); and the Copenhagen School keeps being used as a name despite the fact

that with growth in applications (and the governments closure of COPRI, the schools original

home), a decreasing fraction of its work comes out of Copenhagen. Nor, is the nature of the different

efforts distinct enough that one could claim that school gets used when something is not systematic

enough to be a theory or a research programme. Probably, the implicit linguistic rules here are that a

school is nota major competitor, i.e. it is not one of the parties to the main debate(s) that define thediscipline, but still of a certain independent and continuous existence (cf. the English School). Thus,

there is an element of repressive tolerance built into the term.

- - -

To sum up, what is characteristic of these European schools of security studies, the following can

be a first attempt28:

Shared:

Reflections on the concept of security as such, i.e. as interesting in itself and not only a matter ofdelineation or pre-analytical definition.

Concern with the issue of possible widening as contradictory and political. Security as practice. Self-reflection: ones own practice as security analyst is implicated in the politics of security, and

as such one face hard ethical dilemmas as security actor.

Aberystwyth:

widening emancipation social construction of threats; self/other relationsCopenhagen:

Vedby Rasmussen, Reflexive Security: NATO and International Risk Society in Millennium, vol. 30:2, 2001, pp. 285-309;

Shlomo Griner, Living in a World Risk Society: A Reply to Mikkel V. Rasmussen, in Millennium, vol. 31:1, 2002, pp.

149-160; MVR reply in Millennium ; Zygmunt Bauman, In Search of Politics, Cambridge: Polity Press 1999; Bauman,Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World, Cambridge Polity Press 2001; Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-

Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity Press 1991; Franois Ewald, Insurance and Risk in

The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality , Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller eds., Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press 1991, pp. 197-210; Franois Ewald, Two Infinities of Risk in Brian Massumi (ed.) The

Politics of Everyday Fear, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press 1991, pp. 221-8; Claudia Aradau,

Beyond Good and Evil: Ethics and Securitization /Desecuritization Techniques, Rubikon e-journal, Dec 2001:

http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htm; Ole Wver, Security: A Conceptual History for international

relations, paper presented at ISA and BISA 2003.28One could also sum up in terms of theorists. Maybe: Aberystwyth: Habermas, Gramsci, Cox. Copenhagen: Waltz, Schmitt,

Austin and Derrida. Paris: Bourdieu, Foucault, Weber.
http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htmhttp://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/forum/claudia2.htm


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securitisation: the political construction of security issues. desecuritisation: security is not good but at best a minor evil, while most often our aim should

be to limit the rhetoric of security and its accompanying politics of exceptions and emergencies.

distinguish between securitising actors and referent objects.Paris:

internal and external security merge. Security agencies. Praxis over discourseAnd now to the explanations of all that:

Philosophy, money and institutions

As presented above, this will be attempted in terms of three levels:

1. Intellectual traditions.2. The organisation of the field.3. Practical usages: policy issues and the political agenda.

The first level is almost too easy in this case. It is obvious, that the European debates are more

reflectivist or post-positivist than the American ones. The spectrum of meta-theoretical positions

probably does not differ much between the US and Europe (and many individuals move back and

forth), but the median point does. Therefore, the seemingly similar debates, that could be seen as

being about constructivism meets security studies on both sides, turn out very differently. In US

security studies, it is about a distinct type of mainstream constructivism that orients itself towards the

canons of science among rationalists, where much (but far from all) constructivism in Europe blends

in with more radical positions. Accordingly, the debate mostly inInternational Securityover the role

of constructivism in security studies29, turns out to be about assessing the importance of ideas in

security studies, i.e. ideas and identity conceived as variables and judged in strict causal terms. Also

the participants explicitly engage in laborious efforts to define a conventional constructivism as

distinct from a critical constructivism.30

This striking contrast in the elaboration of seemingly

similar impulses illustrates the difference in context and normality.

This meta-theoretical difference in turn is already well-explained by previous contributions to the

literature on sociology of IR and other writings on the social sciences. The explanation has many

layers including deep ones around the historical constitution of national identities, where Dorothy

Ross convincingly has argued that the American historical consciousness the way the American

nation is constructed in time, the millennial belief in American exceptionalism was served best by

naturalist social science and threatened by historicist approaches.31

Abstract and scientific social

science is therefore a repeated preference in US, even when this comes in new forms for each wave.

29Michael Desch, "Culture Clash: Assessing the Importance of Ideas in Security Studies," International Security, vol. 23,

Summer 1998, pp. 141-70 + debate in International Security, vol. 24:1, Summer 1999, pp. 156-180; Ted Hopf, "The

Promise of Constructivism in IR Theory." International Security, V.23, Summer 1998, pp. 171-200; Dale Copeland, "The

Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism: A Review Essay," International Security, vol. 25, Fall 2000, pp. 187-212;

Theo Farrell, 'Constructivist Security Studies: Portrait of a Research Program',International Studies Review, 4, 1, 2002, pp.

49-72.30 Here, it probably also plays a role, that the field of practiced policy research in the security field is more closely

disciplined and specialised in the US. Therefore there are few constructivists (very few radical constructivists), whereas it

is possible to be both a post-structuralist and a policy researcher (and government advisor) in some European countries

(partly because of a different game over the status of different disciplines, partly simply because of lessspecialisation/division of labour in smaller countries).31Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science, Cambridge University Press 1991.


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To this can then be added later inclinations related to the fascination with technology and progress

(Thorstein Veblen; Stanley Hoffmann). Positivist inclinations were supported also by level 2 factors

related to the formation and delineation of the different social sciences32

. Finally, the Cold War

period strengthened this pattern further due to the social role of IR and security studies in Cold War

policy and the ensuing funding. This blurs into the second level, but before we continue

systematically to this, it is necessary to pause a bit and complicate this simple and familiar storyabout positivist Americans versus post-Positivist Europeans:

The two sides differ not only in terms of meta-theory (positivism/post-positivism) but also about IR

theory (realism or not) and methodology (historical case studies or other methods). Also, it is

necessary to focus on how security studies differ from IR in general in the US and Europe

respectively. Realism remains much more central in U.S. security studies than it is in both general

American IR/IPE (IO as well as ISQ type)33

and than it is in European security studies. Within

American IR, security studies has its distinctstyle. In security studies (as represented primarily by the

journals International Security and Security Studies), the dominant form of research is more

historical, less oriented towards formal rational choice than in IO-style IR.34

This is not an instance of

traditionalism a la second debate (Hedley Bull) where judgment is seen as integral to research35

,

because a journal like International Security is at least as insistent as IO on strict causal andpositivist social science. This shows in the actual publishing record but maybe more revealin gly in

places like the instruction sheet for contributors. It asks a potential author to sum up (at least for

herself) her argument in an arrow diagram because if this is not possible, the argument is not clear

yet. This implies that an argument necessarily takes the form of propositions about cause-effect

relations among a few factors (and not e.g. writing structured history, deconstructive interventions or

normative IR).

The debate between offensive and defensive realism is illustrative of this: it is phrased in terms of

general IR theories, and of a kind where clear behavioral hypotheses can relatively easily be deduced,

and thus in-depth, historical case-studies is a fruitful method to evaluate the competing theoriesand

to refine them by modifications, complications and often combinations. The preference is -- in

contrast to IOfor not too abstract and arcane theories and a relatively clear discussion of what statebehaviour to expect. Usually, the immediate policy relevance is clearer and in recent years

especially: what should we expect of other great powers and major regional powers? When will they

turn aggressive and expansionist, and when will they be status quo powers? In principle, the

offensive/defensive realism debate could also be the basis of how to think about the current US

position, but interestingly this is relatively rare36

and US policy is more often linked to the debate

about the role of power (empire) vs. institutions (and soft power) in international order.

Generally, the preferred style is cause-effect knowledge about security relevant issues based on

historical case studies (or more rarely: large-n data).

It is not possible to explain patterns of security theory purely at the level of intellectual traditions. As

we have seen above, questions about organisation and usage have already started to creep into this

32See the work of John Gunnell and others a summary is found on pp. 713f of Wver, TheSociology, op.cit.33 As noted by several authors, (neo)realism has long been present in general IR (not-specifically-security-oriented)

discussions mostly as a ghost: Throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s, a very large part of theoretical arguments were

justified as critiques of neo-realism, but to actually find a self-defined neo-realist at an ISA meeting or in the pages of IO,

was not that easy. Obviously, this meant that neo-realism was influential in shaping debates but in a much more in-direct

way than within security studies, where it remained something like the orthodoxy.34Michael Brown, Steven E. Miller and Seam M. Lynn-Jones (eds.)Rational Choice and Security Studies: Stephen Walt and

His Critics, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. Cf. also the sta tistics in Wver, The Sociology of a Not so International

Discipline, especially figure 3 (p. 702) and Table A1 (p. 727). Unfortunately, these statistics include only IO and ISQ, not

IS and SS, but I think it is clear that the distribution between different meta- theories in the non-security journals differ

markedly from what one would find in the security journals.35Hedley Bull, 'International Theory: The Case for the Classical Approach', in World Politics, 3 (1966), 361-377. See also

the recent attempt to elaborate this methodological stance: Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant:Human Conduct in aWorld of States, Oxford, Clarendon Press 2000(?).36See some elements of this in Mearsheimer, The Tragedy, op.cit.


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first part of the discussion, and in order to get to grips with these layers, lets first zoom in a bit more

systematically at the differences in form between security theory in the two settings (i.e. condense the

results of the previous section) and from there try to distil out the elements of an explanation, because

to start from the explanatory factors, there are too many options for where to start funding patterns,

institutions, linguistic dividesand it is therefore more fruitful to work backwards from patterns that

get gradually clearer:

Contrast

The US

Concept of security not interesting

(only delineation)

General IR theories applied and

competing

Narrow military focus

Rationalist theories; but in soft

version often using historical case

studies

Instrumental knowledge to assist

in handling policy tasks

Europe

Concept of security as continued

centre of reflection

Specific theorising about security

Broad econ-political approach

Degrees of

reflectivism/constructivism

General reflection as part of

political process in society on

fundamental questions of self-

definition and self-shaping.

One major difference is that on the US side, reflections on the concept of security play no integrated

role in research. Such considerations are at most involved in delineating the field and thereby

locating the questions about which then to gain empirical, causal, historical and theoretical

knowledge.37

If an article is defined as security analysis, this will typically mean that at most the

reflection on this status consists in defining security studies as being about e.g. the study of the

threat, use and control of military force38

and therefore a theoretical-empirical study of causes of

37This is particularly clear in The Culture of National Security, where Katzenstein (Introduction, op.cit, pp. 7-11) argues

the strategic rationale of employing a narrow concept of security in combination with the new approaches, because again

if you can beat the traditionalists in their home field, it is evidently easy later to transfer this gain to the new fields that arealready home turf for the new approaches. Implicitly, the question of concepts of security is here reduced to a question of

issues, whereas the meta-criticism raised by Critical Security Studies, the Copenhagen School and others does not register.

This is the approach to the concept that frames the book (it returns on pp. 523-528). Almost as an aside, Jepperson et al

(Norms, Identity, op.cit) reflect (pp. 72-75) on the possibility that different theories reflect external developments and

suddenly the discussion employs a logic very close to securitisation/desecuritisation when it explains why various issues

have been defined as on or off the security agenda as the result of political processes.

Similary, Steven E. Miller, ("International Security at Twenty-five: From One World to Another", International

Security, Vol. 26, No. 1 (201), pp.--) show in a grand overview of 25 years of International Security, how at best the

widening debate register as a question of a re-drawing of the boundary of the issue area and meta-theoretical pluralism is

proven by articles on the causal impact of norms, i.e. as a question of what variables to include as independent variable.38Stephen M. Walt The Renaissance of Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, 35, (1991), p. 212. The debate

on wide vs. narrow concept had much American participation in the early phase, but it is widely seen as dealt with by now.

Jessica Mathews, 'Redefining Security',Foreign Affairs, 68:2 (1989); Richard Ullman, "Redefining Security", International

Security 8, 1 (1983):129-153. Famous anti-wideners include Stephen Walt "The Renaissance op.cit. and through a mostlydifferent route Daniel Deudney, "The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security,"

Millennium, 1990, Vol. 19: 461-476.


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war is relevant or the strategic use of sanctions might with a little more difficulty be justified too; the

concept of security is not present in the analysisas such. In the European debates, questions about the

concept of security became the launching pad for a general attention to the self-reflective nature of

the discipline, i.e. that the discipline not only studied security, but it also had its own concepts of

security and thereby its own security practices. Doing security therefore implied to reflect on the

practice of speaking in the name of this concept. This pointed towards a general attention to the closeconnections between (sub-)discipline, theory, concept and the studied object (all called something

like or with security).

A partly related, second difference is that in Europe, a particular debate emerged that was organised

at first within and because of the particular questions related to security , but which increasingly

influences more general IR debates. In the US, influences clearly went the opposite way: the

theoretical positions within security studies derive from general IR debates. This is probably most

easily seen in the case of the debate on constructivism. The main salvo from the constructivists, the

Katzenstein volume39, was launched explicitly as a move in a general IR debate where constructivists

found that it was time to prove their worth on the home ground of realism: security. Most of the

contributors were not primarily working in fields or institutions traditionally seen as security. In

contrast to earlier periods such as the golden age of security studies in the 1950s and 1960s, it istoday not particular challenges, needs or debates within security studies that motivate theory

development.40

In the context of American IR, this change is valued. It is generally assumed to be a

sign of maturity to get away from particular theories and debates in sub-fields and instead develop

general theories that are in turn applied to different fields like European integration, international

security or trade disputes.41

The new European theories developed in relation to public discussions about security and attempts to

develop specific theorising for this purpose. Thus, these theoretical developments were the product of

complicated, personal processes of political and theoretical choices and settling or coming to terms

with ones role in-between academia, expertise and citizen/public intellectual.42It is often stated that

IR research in the US is more closely connected to policy than in Europe43

, but this is only partly

true: Relevant research is more systematically promoted through various channels in the US, andquite large sub-systems (primarily think-tanks) are very directly linked to policy. Also academic

journals like International Security have a more implicit policy orientation expressed by frequent

discussions in terms of what we (the US) should do, where equivalents are much more rarely found

in any European academic journal. However, the disconnectbetween large parts of academic IR and

policy circles is also very significant in the US, and European research typically has a broader

concept of politics, not only as policy advice. These represent different understandings of

relevance.

The bottom-line on this point is that the European theories developed as an integral part of struggling

with security issues, the American ones much more detached as part of academic debates between

various explanatory theories. This in turn is in the American optic the most policy relevant, because

the role of the analyst is to provide the relevant knowledge of cause-effect relations that enable theoptimal policy decision. Politics and knowledge are not seen as that separate in the European context,

where the researcher as participant in the process thinks more in terms of ethics, dilemmas and

choices.

39Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics , New York: Columbia

University Press 1996.40The golden age is presented by David Baldwin as the 2 ndof 4 phases of security studies, see: David Baldwin, Security

Studies and the End of the Cold War, World Politics, vol 48, Oct 1995, pp. 117-141.41 In relation to European integration studies, this argument is made forcefully by Andrew Moravcsik, The Choice for

Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht, , NY: Cornell University Press1998, pp. ##.42Ken Booth, Security and Self, op.cit.; Jef Huysmans, 'Defining social constructivism, op.cit.43Notably, Stanley Hoffmann, International Relations, An American Social ScienceDdalus, vol. 106, 1977, pp. 41-60.


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As we have now zoomed in on the relevant form of knowledge in the two situations and the

relationship between researcher and policy-makers as two important intermediate variables, it

becomes possible to think more systematically about plausible explanations of the present pattern.

Follow the money, is often a good advice, and funding patterns are probably an important part of the

story. Another major part is the structure in which research is organised along the spectrum from

policy oriented think tanks to ivory tower academe.

The US seems to be marked by [what seems to me to be] a relatively strong division of labour

between universities and think tanks.44

Theoretical research is the task of university researchers, of

which some try to be policy relevant, also do policy pieces and direct their research towards those

questions that are meaningful for key policy questions. Think tanks, on the other hand, seem to be

under a heavy pressure for doing extremely practical, straight-forward research and researchers there

usually do not stray too much into theorising, not even in the application/utilisation sense. This

pattern does not create the distance/interaction tension which in the European case has often been the

room for innovation, i.e. beyond the grip of the discipline and its constant grand debate repetitions

and yet enough in contact to engage and influence. This is closely linked to patterns of funding,

where in the US relatively much is distributed via competitive grants. The individual researcher is

therefore mainly exposed to the pressure of a large market and weaker direct social presencepressure from smaller institutions. I.e. researchers from all over compete in relation to general criteria

for what is relevant and interesting, whereas this kind of research at the inter-face of theory and

security policy relevance is less located in small and medium sized (maybe ad hoc) institutions,

where in Europe the balance is more towards the latter. [I do not have data on this, and I have to

investigate it in more detail to see if this actually holdsso far it is quite impressionistic.]

In Europe, there seems to be much more of a continuum of academically oriented research institutes

that are nevertheless not part of a university. Places like the Max Planck Institute in Germany and

CERI in France, but maybe in the present context, most importantly the role of peace research45

. It

was clearly more than influential in relation to Copenhagen and especially relevant for Ken Booth in

Aberystwyth, but much less so in Paris. Here, however, the French tradition for public intellectuals

plus the very different relationship between IR and other disciplines, i.e. the closeness to sociology,explains a lot instead.

Institutes such as the peace research institutes were in-between in the sense of being policy oriented

but not a-theoretical. It is of course a long story how peace research changed with different

intellectual and policy frames over the decades and its strengths and weaknesses were different in

different periods,46

but especially in relation to the 1980s and early 1990s, it is interesting how

scholars who were clearly relating to IR as their discipline, worked differently when relating also to

peace research either because employed there or because active e.g. in movements like Pugwash.

More than peace research as a grand project, this probably has to do with the sociological micro-

mechanisms, the social conventions within peace research institutes roughly what kind of argument

you can use towards each other where questions of relevance and political implications are a

legitimate part of the game in a way which is not common within a political science/IR department,while on the other hand theory is part of the picture in a way that differs from establishment think

44 An expression of this is, that relatively few scholars move back and forth, or at least it is hard to think of that many

leading scholars in academic IR who have spent a major part of their career in think tanks or similar policy oriented research

institutions. Most of the important counter examples are probably about either figures who have dual affiliations (Charles

Kupchan, e.g.), or about units within established universities that are designated to policy orientation and manage to attract

money of the policy kind for research within universities and drawing on faculty for that purpose (e.g. Harvard).45Ole Wver, The Strange Successes of Scandinavian Peace Research: Why the inter-twined disciplines of Peace Research

and International Relations develop differently in the US, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, Presentation at the

conference In Search of Peace in the Twenty-First Century in Seoul, January 25, 2000, organised by the Korean Peace

Research Association the Korean National Commission for UNESCO; Stefano Guzzini, The Cold War is what we make of

it: when peace research meets constructivism in International Relations and Guzzini/Jung Copenhagen Peace Research

(as well as other chapters) in Guzzini and Jung (eds), Contemporary Security Analysis and Copenhagen Peace Research,London: Routledge 2004.46Wver, The Strange Successes, op.cit.


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tanks. It is not that peace research in itself and with its own rules and self-understandings ensure ideal

conditions for intellectual innovation, often the contrary. But the location of individuals at the

interface of peace research and IR is often productive. When people with a disciplinary IR reference

develop new ideas while located in peace research or some other inter-disciplinary context, IR

scholars are inclined to credit this to IR and see the alternative affiliation as coincidence. But when it

becomes common that a considerable part of the new ideas come from people in odd locations, itbecomes unconvincing to write this off as coincidence, and the mechanism might have more to do

with the way disciplinary mechanisms work within IR as a discipline and therefore a need for

distance. Totally trans-disciplinary institutes that refuse all relationship to the old disciplines and

insist on only the subject matter easily become too instrumental and without a basis for self-

reflection, but the situation with dual disciplinary definitions can be helpful in both stimulating new

thinking and delivering a disciplinary self-reference within which to express these ideas.

The third level of an explanation then is about the kinds of policy challenge that the different

research environments are exposed to. One can not fully and solely explain from there. The first and

second level have carried much of the long-term effects, whereas the third is more time-bound, but it

is a more recent re-enforcement of patterns, and it is worth a thought to what extent even these

critical European approaches are helped along by being politically useful and relevant.

The geopolitics of Western security theories

At least in relation to future developments, it will help to have a look at the policy challenges that

face Americans and Europeans respectively. The relevant questions are not at the level of the short

term political situation or a specific political administration or government it should be larger

patterns. This will here be attempted through a world politics analysis derived fromRegional Security

Complex Theory(RSCT).47

A regional security complex was originally defined by Barry Buzan as A group of states whose

security problems are so closely intertwined that they can not meaningfully be understood

independently of each other.48

More recently, it has been reformulated in securitisation terminologyas A set of units whose major processes of securitisation, desecuritis ation, or both are so interlinked

that their security problems cannot reasonably be analysed or resolved apart from one another.49The

basic idea is to look at the regional level formations that are often the level which mediates global

and domestic level factors. The security of the world so to say falls in chunks.

This is clearly a non-American theory, because the US as the global level actor par excellence is

prone to see unified global interpretations of the world after the Cold War comes the Clash of

Civilisations, unipolarity, the war on terror or globalization. However, such neat summaries of

world politics will increasingly fail as the world becomes more diversified there will be no

alternative to taking the detour around the different stories from different regions where security

increasingly unfolds in different forms in terms of the dominant units, the main sectors and the nature

of security issues. Seen from all other places than the US and to some extent a few other globalpowersthe main security issues will be regional. After all, it is not so surprising that most often the

main threats come from neighbours or other local forces, because most threats travel more easily over

short than over long distances, and only great powers transcend this logic to some extent, and even

they have to grasp the regional dynamics because otherwise they do not know how to engage other

actors who are tied to this logic. A major claim of the theory is that the interaction between global

47Thus it is an explanation based on a Copenhagen School interpretation of the world, which implies a certain element of

circularity or maybe a fractal format, where a pattern re-appears at different levels. The different theories with special

attention to US-European differences are partly explained by a security analysis carried out by one of the European

theories, a theory which is not only European in origin, but where the European (or at least the non-Americanness) can be

clearly discerned in the theory itself. Some might see this element in the structure of the paper as problematic, others as

unavoidable and some maybe even as a merit.48Buzan,People, States and Fear, 49Buzan et al, Security: A New Framework, p. -- and Buzan & Wver,Regions and Powers, op.cit., p. --


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and regional actors happens on terms set by the regional actors to a much larger extent than expected

by IR theories that usually privilege the top-down perspective. In contrast to the emphasis on global

powers in understanding e.g. Middle East politics, it is usually the lines of conflict generated by

actors in the region that open the possibility of penetration by external actors and then typically

along lines defined by indigenous conflicts.

The different RSCs differ along various important dimensions. The basic pattern is relatively stable.There are a limited number of - therefore significant - external changes of RSCs (boundaries)which

is quite fortunate, because the theory would be less informative if the RSCs where constantly

mutating, or for that matter is they were totally static. Regarding internal order, it is striking that quite

a lot of RSCs are more or less centred, rather than accord with the common IR expectation of

balancing systems of sovereign equality. Crucial developments are not parallel: the regions become

increasingly regional in terms of form, i.e. security is about different things, have different actors,

etc. In most regions the analysis point to one or a few open questionsthat will determine their future

course. Charting the total security maphas to cover three areas: global level, regional level, global-

regional interplay.

However, even such an analysis has to have some conception of the global level. According to RSCT,

the global structure is 11++44++rreeggiioonnss. The debate on global structure has become constricted by asimplistic conception of polarity that stems from the failure to distinguish regional from global that

derive from the Eurocentric period when the global powers were also the dominant powers of one

region, the European. A regional balance of power was also the global, and polarity was seemingly a

simple concept. The discipline did not reflect systematically on the meaning of the shift of

terminology from great power to super power was it just normal inflation, or just a bigger great

power? and the implications of a shift to global level polarity were not worked out. Therefore,

today, we have a tendency to discuss polarity as either multipolar or unipolar and everyone excluded

from that level are regional powers, but surely that will not do. The US is not dominant enough to

constitute unipolarity, and especially not, if that is to imply that e.g. China and the EU are purely

regional powers. Nor is multipolar very appropriate when one power is so much more equal than

everyone else. It is necessary to distinguish between super powers and great powers.50

A super power

has global reach and power in all sectors and there is only one such today, the US. But there are

four great powers, China, Russia, EU, Japan. They are contemplated as potential (or recent) super

powers, they have influence beyond their own region even if not in all others, and first of all the

defining criteria they are included in considerations about global power by other powers (e.g. in

terms of possible coalitions). The structure among these two kinds of powers make up the global

power structure, and therefore it is today 1+4 (and the most likely alternative is probably neither bi-

nor multipolarity but 0+x, a non-superpower structure coming about most likely by US abdication

50Buzan and Wver,Regions and Powers, chapter 2 and in more developed in Buzan, The United States and the Great

Powers, forthcoming Polity Press.

Super powers: 1(USA):

Has global reach and all-round power

Great powers: 4 (China, Russia, EU, Japan)

Potential super power.

Included in considerations about global power (possible coalitions).

Has influence beyond its own region.

Regionswith regional powers: currently 11.

The powers in each region constitutive of regional polarity are regional powers.


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from a global role).51

Finally, regional powers are all those who define the polarity structure of a

RSC, be that as thecentral power in a centred complex or as the two or more in a bi- or multipolar

region.

The US position is clearly unique and it defines a quite particular agenda. The US is not a memberof

other regions than North America, but as aswing powerit willpretendto be member of other regions

like Europe and East Asia. It generally resists narrow regionalisation that excludes it from regionsand tries to counter this with thinner hyper-regionalism (FTAA against South American regionalism,

APEC against exclusive Asianism, and increasingly usage of NATO and other trans-atlantic attempts

to weaken the EU). Similarly, a global agenda serves to maintain the pre-eminence of the US and

avoid the gradual strengthening of other centres of power. Equally, it serves to maintain US

mobilisation of global involvement, which is no simple thing given the deep-seated domestic

suspicion against foreign involvements and strong stateness. Intensive securitisation of some global

level threat is therefore a natural US attraction.

From EU-Europe, the security problem looks much different. The EU is the centre of its own RSC.

This RSC is structured and stabilised by European integration, and thus a political-economic strategy

has proven remarkably successful in creating a security community.52Thus, it is understandableas

pointed out with a negative twist by Kagan53that Europeans tend to favour in this respect a broadconcept of security, i.e. look for political-economic means and regional formats for security when

thinking about e.g. ways to deal with violence in and from the Middle East. Simultaneously,

Europeans are often security sceptical when faced with the American agenda about a global war on

terror. The European constellation of security issues is among the most non-conventional of the

worlds region: many different issues are on the agenda from environmental over ethnic identity to

integration as either problem or solution, but the one that is almost totally missing is classical state-

threatens-state security issues. Therefore, Europeans are on the one hand involved in complicated

security issues within the broad agenda, and on the other hand used to having to select and judge

among issues that are controversial as to their securityness. Thus, a debate about what are security

issues and what are not has become an open and active part of the security order itself.

Beyond Europe, the EU as a great power has unavoidably effects on neighbouring regions in terms ofpower spill-over. Therefore it has to decide how to administer this not whetherto have effects. It

further has to decide whether and what gl

aberystwyth, paris, copenhagen new 'schools' in security (2)

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