Abstract
This chapter examines the status of ‘truth’ and ‘speech’ in security politics. It explores the dilemmas and limitations of different political mechanisms for speaking out on security in the social context of the traditional silencing and marginalising effects of security politics. Specifically, it does this though Michel Foucault’s work on ‘parresia’, the ancient Greek practice of ‘truth-telling’ or ‘free-spokenness’. For Foucault, parresia is an act of freely speaking out, when a speaker steps out of the regular political game and puts themselves at risk to speak a truth. The chapter argues that this offers a different perspective to other approaches to security such as the Copenhagen and Paris Schools, defying their pathways of expected behaviour in the political field. It explores ‘parresia’ though the example of British Conservative MP David Davis, who resigned his parliamentary seat in protest at the Labour government’s security policies in June 2008.
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