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conflict theory global social
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conflict theory global social
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Why is ‘security’ such a contested concept?
The foreign, military and economic policies of states, the intersections of these policies in areas of change or dispute, and the general structure of relations which they create, are all analysed in terms of aspirations to achieve national and/or international security. Security is most commonly associated with the alleviation of threats to cherished values (Williams; 2008). However this is a definition that is undesirably vague and a reflection of the inherent nature of security as an ‘essentially contested concept’ (Gallie; 1962). Security in the modern day context has many key concepts associated with it: uncertainty, war, terrorism, genocide and mass killing, ethnic conflict, coercion, human security, poverty, environmental damage, health and of course the traditional notion of military security. Such concepts necessary generate unsolvable debates about their meaning and application because, as Richard Little points out, they ‘contain an ideological element which renders empirical evidence irrelevant as a means of resolving the dispute’. In this essay then I will attempt to explore the various contested concepts of security and explain how and why this contestation was derived.
Until the rise of economic and environmental concerns in the 1970s the concept of security was seldom addressed in terms other than the policy interests of particular actors, and right up to the end of the 1980s the discussion still had a heavy military emphasis. Arnold Wolfers, in his 1962 article, characterized security as an ‘ambiguous symbol’ – at one point he argues that it ‘may not have any precise meaning at all’ – is a reflection of the multi-dimensional complexities of the concept. There exists tod...
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... leverage over domestic affairs which can be obtained by invoking it, offers scope for power- maximizing strategies to political and military elites.
Works Cited
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HOFFMAN, Bruce: Inside Terrorism (Indigo; 1998) HOUGH, Peter: Understanding Global Security: Routledge; 2004)
KATZENSTEIN, Peter (eds.): The Culture of National Security – Normals and Identity in World Politics (Columbia; 1996)
KOLODZIEJ, Edward: Security and International Relations (Cambridge; 2005)
NOLAN, Janne: Global Engagement – Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century (Brookings Institution; 1994)
WILLIAMS, Paul: Security Studies: An Introduction (Routledge; 2008)
On the other hand, in The Slippery Slope to Preventive War, Neta Crawford questions the arguments put forward by the Bush administration and the National Security Strategy in regard to preemptive action and war. Crawford also criticizes the Bush administration as they have failed to define rogue states and terrorists as they have “blurred the distinction” between “the terrorists and those states in which they reside”. In Crawford’s point of view, taking the battle to the terrorists as self-defence of a preemptive nature along with the failure to distinguish between terrorist and rogue states is dangerous as “preventive war
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
Barnet, Richard J. “The Ideology of the National Security State”. The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 26, No. 4. 1985, pp. 483-500
Mingst, K. A. (2011). Essentials of international relations. (5th ed., p. 79). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Mingst, Karen A. Essentials of International Relations. New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2008.
Nolan, Janne E. 1999. An Elusive Consensus: Nuclear Weapons and American Security After the Cold War. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press.
- Nye, Joseph S. and Welch, David A., Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation: an introduction to theory and history, Ninth edition, PEARSON, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2013
Shiraev, Eric B., and Vladislav M. Zubok. International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
First, in the long run the negative effects of a military international intervention, even if against oppressive governments, could actually outweigh the positive ones. Moreover, coercive policy could, in fact, aggravate a conflict by providing grounds for long lasting hostility, aggression, or ev...
He extends Robert Jervis’s argument that offense-defense balance and distinguishably causes war. Jervis argues that technology and geography alter the balance between a military’s offensive and defensive capabilities. If a state has a more offensive than defensive posture, then it can be a sign that it is an aggressor. If there is no geography that aids a state in defense, then it is likely to take land as a buffer to protect itself. Offense-defense balance is a cause of the security dilemma because it is difficult for a state to determine the intentions and balance of another state. For example, a state has an incentive to keep military technologies a secret. Any state analyzing another state’s capabilities will then misinterpret its offense-defense balance. It is also hard for states to distinguish between a technology’s offensive or defensive use. A fort is easy to interpret as defensive, but a machine gun can be either used as an offensive or defensive weapon (Jervis 1978). Van Evera argues that military beliefs lead to heavy offensive weighted balances which cause the security dilemma. Great Powers believed in the superiority of offensive military strategies. This belief stemmed from past wars according to Van Evera. These doctrines held that offensive swift blows were the key to military victories. Van Evera concludes that if a state’s
Wendt, Alexander. “Constructing International Politics.” International Security. Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995. 71-81. Print.
Atzili, Boaz. (2007). When Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors: Fixed Borders, State Weakeness, and International Conflict. International Security. 31 (3), p139-173.
Parmar, Inderjeet, Linda B Miller, and Mark Ledwidge. New Directions in US Foreign Policy. Routledge, 2009.
The end of the Cold War created an environment for the emergence of Constructivist and post-modern approaches to the concept of security, which enabled to address issues that were previously ignored by Realists. However, Michael Williams has argued that identity has not been missing from theorising prior to the end of...
Whenever world politics is mentioned, the state that appears to be at the apex of affairs is the United States of America, although some will argue that it isn’t. It is paramount we know that the international system is shaped by certain defining events that has lead to some significant changes, particularly those connected with different chapters of violence. Certainly, the world wars of the twentieth century and the more recent war on terror must be included as defining moments. The warning of brute force on a potentially large scale also highlights the vigorousness of the cold war period, which dominated world politics within an interval of four decades. The practice of international relations (IR) was introduced out of a need to discuss the causes of war and the different conditions for calm in the wake of the first world war, and it is relevant we know that this has remained a crucial focus ever since. However, violence is not the only factor capable of causing interruption in the international system. Economic elements also have a remarkable impact. The great depression that happened in the 1920s, and the global financial crises of the contemporary period can be used as examples. Another concurrent problem concerns the environment, with the human climate being one among different number of important concerns for the continuing future of humankind and the planet in general.