Order and justice in ontological security studies

Abstract

Order is a seemingly key concept in ontological security (OS). Yet work on “order” found in International Relations (IR) is often only treated tangentially (via anxiety, insecurity, and other more central referents) in ontological security studies (OSS). This article seeks to move the literature within OSS forward by taking on the challenge of acknowledging and speaking to its politics, and its ethics by centralizing the importance of order as a value. The article confronts criticisms against, and challenges of, OS by revisiting the pluralist versus solidarist debates in the “English School” of IR regarding order and justice. It then reads through recent work in OSS with these insights, examining the order versus justice tensions within several domains and topics in OSS. The article concludes that an ethics of OSS can confront and challenge inequalities and violence that follow from certain forms of order, and ordering, without concluding that one must resist all forms of order.