The Morality of Security

On November 26, 2021, Dr. Rita Floyd, Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, presented on The Morality of Security at the 2021 CASIS West Coast Security Conference. Dr. Floyd’s presentation focused on securitization and its emergence within politics, with some primary concepts centering around security threats being politically and socially constructed and the criteria for when securitization is morally justifiable. Dr. Floyd’s presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period directed at a group of panelists allowing the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives to directly engage with the content of each speaker’s presentation

Environmental security and the case against rethinking criminology as 'security-ology'

In this article I argue against Clifford Shearing’s suggestion that in the age of the Anthropocene the discipline of criminology should be rethought as ‘security-ology’, where concerns of security as a state of being and practices of security (i.e. securitization) and not crime and criminalization dominate the agenda. My objection consists of three key points. First, contra Shearing, I argue that it is analytically weak to describe all political practices concerned with achieving greater justice and/or security as a state of being as security practices. At a minimum, I suggest, relevant actors must conceive of their own actions as security practices, for the latter to count as such. Second, by drawing on literature from Environmental Security Studies I show that elevating environmental issues to security problems does not necessarily produce a more secure environment for people. Instead the best successes – in terms of accomplishing environmental security as a state of being – have been achieved through collaborate efforts between states and key stake-holders. I suggest that Shearing’s work on New Environmental Governance can be understood in these terms as it can help to produce greater actual security. Third, the age of the Anthropocene gives renewed relevance to crime and criminalization. Not only does it necessitate the rethinking of the meaning of crime, but also criminalization can be used to achieve compliance with environmental legislation. </jats:p

Parallels with the hate speech debate::the pros and cons of criminalising harmful securitising requests

AbstractThis article argues that public expressions of Islamophobia are best understood assecuritising requests(that is, calls on powerful figures/bodies to treat an issue in security mode so that extraordinary measures can be used to combat it), especially in those cases where Muslims are feared and disliked because of the perception that Islamic people are prone to terrorism. This article argues that harmful and derogatory securitising requests targeting racial, ethnic, or religious minorities are on par with hate speech and it highlights the fact that many contemporary societies are now seeking legal protections against such security speech (expressed most notably in the desire to ban Islamophobia). It is from this perspective that this article poses an important research question: With a view to protecting those adversely affected, are legal protections against harmful and offensive securitising requests justified? The research question can be answered by drawing parallels to the existing hate speech debate in legal and political theory. The research reveals that, although the case against legal protections of harmful and defamatory security speech is ultimately more convincing, security speech alone can be so damaging that it should be informed by a number of ethical considerations. This article goes on to suggest three criteria for governing the ethics of requesting securitisation. As such this article fills a lacuna in the ‘positive/negative debate’ on the ethics of security that has engaged with securitisation, but that has failed to consider the ethics of speaking security.</jats:p

What is the evidence that scarcity and shocks in freshwater resources can cause conflict instead of promoting collaboration

Anthropogenic activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels, land-use change and intensive agriculture are increasingly influencing the Earth‘s climate and exerting pressure on ecosystems. These changes have amplified the risk of scarcity and shocks (discrete and sudden events) in natural renewable resource (henceforth, NRR) scarcity across the spectrum of spatial scales. The interplay between freshwater scarcity and conflict/collaboration is the most prominent and referenced of the environment-conflict issues in the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the IPCC. Discussions with the review user-group, confirmed that a systematic mapping of the literature in this particular field was a priority

The environmental security debate and its significance for climate change

Policymakers, military strategists and academics all increasingly hail climate change as a security issue. This article revisits the (comparatively) long-standing “environmental security debate” and asks what lessons that earlier debate holds for the push towards making climate change a security issue. Two important claims are made. First, the emerging climate security debate is in many ways a re-run of the earlier dispute. It features many of the same proponents and many of the same disagreements. These disagreements concern, amongst other things, the nature of the threat, the referent object of security and the appropriate policy responses. Second, given its many different interpretations, from an environmentalist perspective, securitisation of the climate is not necessarily a positive development

The challenges of the increasing institutionalization of climate security

A rapid and widespread institutionalization of climate security is underway, led by powerful states and international organizations. Recognition of the climate crisis by security actors as a serious threat to humanity is long overdue, but it is imperative that this institutionalization is critically scrutinized. This commentary highlights specific dangers that accompany the institutional mainstreaming of climate security, including a non-reflexive integration into traditional security paradigms, a growing geopolitical separation between discourses emerging from the Global South and North, and policymaking that tends to draw from a narrow view of the science. Science-based and actionable research informed by pluralistic understandings of climate security is needed to counter this trend