156 research outputs found
Re-imagining the Borders of US Security after 9/11: Securitisation, Risk, and the Creation of the Department of Homeland Security
The articulation of international and transnational terrorism as a key issue in US security policy, as a result of the 9/11 attacks, has not only led to a policy rethink, it has also included a bureaucratic shift within the US, showing a re-thinking of the role of borders within US security policy. Drawing substantively on the 'securitisation' approach to security studies, the article analyses the discourse of US security in order to examine the founding of the Department of Homeland Security, noting that its mission provides a new way of conceptualising 'borders' for US national security. The securitisation of terrorism is, therefore, not only represented by marking terrorism as a security issue, it is also solidified in the organisation of security policy-making within the US state. As such, the impact of a 'war on terror' provides an important moment for analysing the re-articulation of what security is in the US, and, in theoretical terms, for reaffirming the importance of a relationship between the production of threat and the institutionalisation of threat response. Š 2007 Taylor & Francis
The future of sovereignty in multilevel governance Europe: a constructivist reading
Multilevel governance presents a depiction of contemporary structures in EU Europe as consisting of overlapping authorities and competing competencies. By focusing on emerging non-anarchical structures in the international system, hence moving beyond the conventional hierarchy/anarchy dichotomy to distinguish domestic and international arenas, this seems a radical transformation of the familiar Westphalian system and to undermine state sovereignty. Paradoxically, however, the principle of sovereignty proves to be resilient despite its alleged empirical decline. This article argues that social constructivism can explain the paradox, by considering sovereign statehood as a process-dependent institutional fact, and by showing that multilevel governance can feed into this process
The European Union, Russia and the Eastern region: The analytics of government for sustainable cohabitation
This article applies the Foucauldian premise of governmentality and the analytics of government framework to demonstrate how exclusive modalities of power â of the European Union (EU) and Russia â and their competing rationalities relate, intersect and become, counter-intuitively, inextricable in their exercise of governance over the eastern neighbourhood. This particular approach focuses on power as a process to gauge the prospects for compatibility and cohabitation between the EU and Russia. Using original primary evidence, this article contends that cohabitation between these two exclusive power modalities is possible and even inevitable, if they were to legitimise their influence over the contested eastern region. It also exposes a fundamental flaw in the existing power systems, as demonstrated so vividly in the case of Ukraine â that is, a neglect for the essential value of freedom in fostering subjection to oneâs authority, and the role of âthe otherâ in shaping the EUâRussian power relations in the contested regio
Securitization outside of the West:conceptualizing the securitizationâneo-patrimonialism nexus in Africa
Recommended from our members
Threads and Boundaries: Rethinking the Intellectual History of International Relations
n/
Terror from behind the keyboard: conceptualising faceless detractors and guarantors of security in cyberspace
By reflecting on active public-domain government documents and statements, this article seeks to develop securitisation theoryâs articulation of the dichotomy between legitimate and illegitimate violence as it is reflected in British government policy. This dichotomy has (re)developed through a process wherein GCHQ and MI5 are portrayed as âfaceless guarantorsâ of security, in Manichean juxtaposition to the discursively-created phantom cyberterrorists, who are presented as âfaceless detractorsâ of security. It has previously been stated that the terrorism discourse associated with the present âWar on Terrorâ is attributed, in part, to mechanics of fantasy. I argue that, within the securitised discourse of cyberterrorism, the limits of fantasy possesses a murky nuance, which in turn, allows for a deeper - or at least more entrenched - securitisation. The official discourse surrounding the intelligence servicesâ online surveillance apparatus operates with a similar opaque quality, but this is upheld by securitising actors as a strength to be maintained
Interpol and the Emergence of Global Policing
This chapter examines global policing as it takes shape through the work of Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization. Global policing emerges in the legal, political and technological amalgam through which transnational police cooperation is carried out, and includes the police practices inflected and made possible by this phenomenon. Interpolâs role is predominantly in the circulation of information, through which it enters into relationships and provides services that affect aspects of governance, from the local to national, regional and global. The chapter describes this assemblage as a noteworthy experiment in developing what McKeon called a frame for common action. Drawing on Interpol publications, news stories, interviews with staff, and fieldwork at the General Secretariat in Lyon, France, the history, institutional structure, and daily practices are described. Three cases are analyzed, concerning Red Notices, national sovereignty, and terrorism, in order to explore some of the problems arising in Interpolâs political and technical operating arrangements. In conclusion, international and global policing are compared schematically, together with Interpolâs attempts to give institutional and procedural direction to the still-evolving form of global policing
Coping with a Crisis of Meaning: Televised Paranoia
Across all genres, television communicates a host of perceived dangers or risks to human survival as entertainment, responding and reproducing the victim and risk consciousness of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Terrorism has captured the imaginations of not only politicians but also producer/writers, and as a consequence of this, and the visual spectacle that war and terrorism provide, it has featured regularly and consistently in British and American television programming. This article presents the analysis of some British current affairs entertainment programming (film and documentary) broadcast by the BBC during the height of the misnamed âwar on terrorâ. Through the analysis of these programmes, I will demonstrate a psycho-cultural approach to textual analysis informed by early object relations psychoanalysis. Being aware of the degree to which political elites have shaped what is known about the âwar on terrorâ allows us to apply knowledge of the political and historical context of these elites to understanding why the dominant âwar on terrorâ perspective is paranoid in character. I will offer an explanation of why a paranoid style predominates in terrorism related programming in my conclusion
- âŚ