In Defence of Politics against Security?

Abstract

This chapter begins with the history of security as a form of ‘anti-politics’, from Hobbes to 20th century struggles to tame the ‘rogue elephant’ of the US intelligence services. It discusses the growth of security practices since 9/11 and reviews a range of key literature in security studies that perpetuates the ‘anti-politics’ idea. The chapter then explores the key concepts of the book including the meaning of ‘politics’, the stakes involved in defining what is and is not ‘political’, and the normative and analytical significance of the concept of ‘normal politics’ in relation to the ‘exceptional politics’ of security. It also discusses the ‘political game’ and ‘professional politics’ as the empirical focus of the book, framing this through works of Machiavelli, Weber, Foucault, and Bourdieu. The chapter closes by describing the overarching historical narrative and extended UK case study of the book: a four-decade shift from institutionalised forms of ‘exceptional’ security politics in 1980s to the current situation in which security is a ‘whole of government’ project that increasingly occupies the ‘normal’ activities of politics.