Contemporary Security Policy Research Articles

Conceptualising securitisation in the field of cyber security policy

ObjectivesThis article will attempt to analyse securitisation theory to explore the discursive features of cyber security, using a multi-actor approach that considers the role of state and non-state actors in the creation and management of cyber security discourses.Material and methodsThe paper aims to assess the contribution of securitization theory to the understanding of both traditional and contemporary security policy issues. More specifically, it is an attempt to reflect on the identification of the challenges facing the modern state.ResultsGrowing dependence on digital technology is inevitable, making the future more threatening than the present. Cyber technology is inherently vulnerable and thus impossible to fully secure. The call for "greater security" becomes justified because the more a country depends on cyber technology, the more inevitable cyber threats become. They are consistently treated by government circles as a security challenge, meaning that the problem is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying action beyond the normal bounds of political procedure.ConclusionsAs some conclusion and conclusion, it is worth reiterating observations about the multi-stakeholder nature of cyber security and observations about the co-creation of this security by a wide range of actors representing different and in some cases conflicting interests. It can be argued that there is no single discourse on cyber security or cyber threats, and it is simplistic to assume that there is even a single discourse that represents every securitization actor, be it government or the private sector. This diversity explains why the assumption and logic of securitization theory can only apply to some, but not all, cyber security discourses.

Still Lost in Space? Understanding China and India’s Anti-Satellite Tests through an Eclectic Approach

ABSTRACT One of the most notable aspects of contemporary security policy has been the growing interest in counterspace capabilities, including the testing of destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, by major space powers at a time when space is becoming an increasingly complex strategic domain. In this reconfigured context, the rise of China and India as space powers has a significant impact on overall space security activities and policies. As a result, China and India have assumed crucial importance in debates about space security and military uses of space. This article examines the ASAT tests of China and India that were carried out in 2007 and 2019, respectively, by offering a synthetic analysis that combines structural imperatives, domestic influences, and national identity. It argues that such an eclectic approach provides a more comprehensive understanding of the drivers behind the development and testing of their ASATs.

What is blurred? Legitimizing domestic military operations in contemporary Brazil

ABSTRACT The distinction between police and armed forces is traditionally accounted for through the division between the domestic and international realms. Grounded on this conception, scholars have claimed that contemporary security policies blurred these lines. The blurring argument, however, neglects cases in which military domestic deployment is not a historical exception. The present paper addresses this gap by focusing on the question of how a particular use of the armed forces becomes acceptable. It offers an analytical framework to empirically address the legitimation of military operations. This instrument of analysis is applied to the Brazilian case, mapping out the public debate on three major domestic military operations against crime – Operation Rio (1994–1995), Operation Arcanjo (2010–2012), and Operation Rio de Janeiro (2017–2018).

Understanding Contemporary Security: A Prolegomenon to the Interplay Between Technology, Innovation and Policy Responses

Contemporary security is shaped by a variety of factors which determine the changing dynamics of connections and interdependencies within and between social groups and political actors. The growing importance of technology and innovation for states and societies has been a critical factor in the infrastructural, organizational and decision-making dimensions. This article aims to integrate some aspects of contemporary security into current dynamics of technology and innovation as vehicles of rapid and substantial changes in security policies and actions. Designed as an essay based on qualitative method in social sciences, this paper raises theoretical and empirical questions concerning modernization and innovation as determinants of contemporary security structures and policies. The empirical dimension of technology, innovation and politics are presented in the microscale (local security), in the mesoscale (state security, national security, sectoral security) and in the macroscale (international security in regional and global dimensions), as well as from the cross-sectional (transversal) perspective.

Energy Security in Security Studies: A Systematic Review of Twenty Years of Literature

Energy security has clear relationships with national security – historically, semantically, and practically. This exploratory study offers a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 43 academic articles focused on energy issues, published in five international security studies journals – International Security, Security Dialogue, Security Studies, Contemporary Security Policy and Survival – from 2001 to 2020. The study identifies the main energy themes covered in the articles and the authors’ demographics. The paper concludes that the coverage of energy issues has been quite sporadic and largely underexplored in security studies. The essence of the debates over energy issues has not changed much since the energy crises of the 1970s – it remains predominately state- and Western-centric with a primary focus on oil and nuclear power. The crude oil price surge because of supply disruptions from the Middle East is still viewed as a main threat to energy security. Similarly, international armed conflicts, domestic instability and nuclear proliferation are prioritised among the most critical outcomes of energy insecurity. The primary public policy responses to threats to energy security still focus on foreign policy, diversification of suppliers and energy sources, domestic energy efficiency and strategic energy stockpiles.

The Impact of the Russian-Ukrainian War on the Republic of Moldova Contemporary Security Policy

The article is devoted to the analysis of the security policy of the Republic of Moldova under the influence of the modern Russian-Ukrainian war. The Transnistrian factor is considered as a serious threat, as well as the role and place of Ukraine as an important tool for strengthening the national security of the Republic of Moldova. The author states that today the Republic of Moldova is faced with a choice between maintaining economic relations with the Russian Federation, which in fact make it dependent on Moscow, and the possibility of potential restoration and strengthening of national sovereignty and security with the help of a third constructive geopolitical power, which Ukraine can act in particular. Along with the potential resolution of the PMR issue, Moldova will acquire a powerful military ally, which is now rapidly strengthening its own forces not only in the Black Sea region, but also on the entire European continent. That is why the development and deepening of bilateral relations and the gradual formation of an adequate system of interaction, especially in the military sphere, is extremely important for the state sovereignty and security of the Republic of Moldova.

Source Criticism as a Technology of Government in the Swedish Psychological Defence: The Impact of Humanistic Knowledge on Contemporary Security Policy

“Source criticism” (källkritik) has become an essential part of the Swedish government’s activities against false information, deception campaigns, and propaganda, which are viewed as fundamentally destabilising forces that can potentially undermine the democratic system, the public debate, and political decision-making. The purpose of this article is to explore source criticism as a technology of government focusing on the Swedish Psychological Defence. I analyse the way in which source criticism is brought to bear on Swedish national security policy in the light of Foucauldian theories about modern governmentality and technologies of the self. Source criticism is seen as an example of a contemporary form of government that entails a redistribution of responsibility from the state to the individual, who is provided with certain “technologies of self” to master an unpredictable political environment. With this case study as empirical example, the aim of the article is to contribute to the research on the influence of humanistic knowledge in security and defence policy domains. This prompts further discussion about what happens with the democratic and critical potential of humanistic knowledge as it is enrolled in government operations.

The ‘Asia threat’ in the US–Australia relationship: then and now

AbstractFor almost a century before the formal alliance between the United States and Australia in 1941, a relationship was being formed around interrelated perceptions of shared identity and economic, political, and strategic interests. Perhaps the single most important factor in the recognition of shared interests lay in the mutually reinforcing fears of a multilayered ‘Asia threat’ that developed in parallel in both countries, originating as a demographic fear over Chinese migration during gold rushes of the 1850s, and progressing to focus on the growing military power of imperial Japan and geostrategic dominance of the Pacific. In recent years, the rise of China has been the central focus of US–Australia alliance, and, in many respects, the security architecture used to confront China is a legacy of the historical ‘Asia threat’. Understanding the historical context of the relationship is necessary for dispelling the anachronistic ‘Asia threat’ perceptions from the contemporary security policy.

The Importance of the Concept of Sustainable Development in the Formulation of the Assumptions of Contemporary European Public Security Policy

<p>Koncepcja sustainable development została wprowadzona na forum międzynarodowe za sprawą raportu Brundtland w 1987 r. (Our Common Future). Jej pojawienie się z pewnością można uznać za przełom w dotychczasowym myśleniu o społeczeństwie i przyrodzie. Aby rozwój był samopodtrzymujący się lub trwały, musi łączyć ze sobą trzy elementy: utrzymywanie równości społecznej przy jednoczesnym wzroście gospodarczym oraz ochrona środowiska naturalnego z uwzględnieniem tak obecnych, jak i przyszłych pokoleń. Rozwój taki nie jest stanem statycznym, lecz procesem transformacji, który uwzględnia warunki społeczne, gospodarcze i środowiskowe. W dyskusjach nad kształtem koncepcji sustainable developement prowadzonych w ostatnich latach przeważa nastawienie europocentryczne, co jest wynikiem obecności tego rozwoju w strategiach gospodarczych państw uznawanych za rozwinięte pod względem cywilizacyjnym i o wysokiej ogólnospołecznej odpowiedzialności. Tymczasem początki dyskusji nad koncepcją rozwoju samopodtrzymującego się odnoszą się do problematyki państw słabo rozwiniętych. Wywodzą się one z lat 60. i mają niewiele wspólnego z zaawansowaniem społeczno-gospodarczym. Dzięki swoim środkom oraz doświadczeniu państwa rozwinięte mogą stać się „przekaźnikami” założeń koncepcji, zabezpieczając i stabilizując sytuację w państwach sąsiadujących z UE. Przykładem takiej polityki bezpieczeństwa UE jest współpraca z państwami rozwijającymi się w basenie Morza Śródziemnego (BMŚ), które są odbiorcami zarówno środków, jak i wiedzy z tą koncepcją związanych. Wzajemna współpraca w ustanawianiu ram do jej stosowania sprzyja bezpieczeństwu wspólnego regionu, jakim jest BMŚ. Celem tak określonego obszaru badań jest analiza koncepcji rozwoju samopodtrzymującego się w kontekście formułowania założeń współczesnej europejskiej polityki bezpieczeństwa i ochrony porządku publicznego, biorąc pod uwagę uwarunkowania tej polityki wynikające z bliskiego sąsiedztwa społeczeństw odmiennych kulturowo.</p>

Student voice in an age of ‘security’?

ABSTRACT As student voice has become popularised as a school reform strategy, it has been critiqued as another instrumental strategy that schools may use to govern students’ speech, bodies and subjectivities. What necessitates further analysis is the relation between student voice and regulatory modes of governance entwined with geopolitical attention to security in and beyond disciplinary institutions. In this article, ethnographic accounts from students at a comprehensive coeducational public secondary school where student voice was adopted as a school reform strategy are read with and through a policy context concerned with security (in particular, the Australian Government’s Schools Security Programme and the Living Safe Together policy strategy), and Foucault’s problematisations of ‘security’ in lectures published in Security, Territory, Population. It is argued that student voice is entwined with contemporary security policies and practices; securing the material borders of the school is inextricable from limits placed on the discursive articulation of feeling in and beyond school gates.

Death and security: a forum

In this forum, three scholars of resilience, biopolitics and memory come together to discuss themes raised in Death and Security: Memory and Mortality at the Bombsite (Heath-Kelly 2016 Heath-Kelly, C. 2016. Death and Security: Memory and Mortality at the Bombsite. Manchester: Manchester University Press. The book is a comparative study of the reconstruction and memorialisation of four bombsites in Europe, the US and Indonesia (the Norwegian case study involves both a bombsite and a shooting massacre). While disaster recovery is treated as a common-sense process within contemporary security policy in the US and UK, the book complicates this assumption. It asks how security policies identify threat as emanating from past events and bombsites, such that recovery procedures and memorialisation are now written into the security responsibilities of governments and responders. The retrospective construction of threat does not follow the same logics of anticipatory risk assessment or contingency planning. As such the book enquires into the management of destructive spectacles and their effacement. It explores disaster recovery and memorialisation as practices which attempt to efface mortality and to undo the disruption posed to political sovereignty by visceral scenes of destruction. Mortality is figured as an aporia within biopolitical sovereignty, and memorialisation at post-terrorist sites is the ritualised attempt to reconstitute that sovereignty.

Catching the flu: Syndromic surveillance, algorithmic governmentality and global health security

How do algorithms shape the imaginary and practice of security? Does their proliferation point to a shift in the political rationality of security? If so, what is the nature and extent of that shift? This article argues that efforts to strengthen global health security are major drivers in the development and proliferation of new algorithmic security technologies. In response to a seeming epidemic of potentially lethal infectious disease outbreaks – including HIV/AIDS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), pandemic flu, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Ebola and Zika – governments and international organizations are now using several next-generation syndromic surveillance systems to rapidly detect new outbreaks globally. This article analyses the origins, design and function of three such internet-based surveillance systems: (1) the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases, (2) the Global Public Health Intelligence Network and (3) HealthMap. The article shows how each newly introduced system became progressively more reliant upon algorithms to mine an ever-growing volume of indirect data sources for the earliest signs of a possible new outbreak – gradually propelling algorithms into the heart of global outbreak detection. That turn to the algorithm marks a significant shift in the underlying problem, nature and role of knowledge in contemporary security policy.

Problematising internal security: Crime, community and social exclusion

AbstractThis article examines the problematisation of crime, crime prevention and security in contemporary security policy programmes using three Finnish internal security programmes and theory-based content analysis. The study is based on the theory (the perspective) of an analytics of government. The findings highlight the central meaning of social exclusion and community as security practices wherein social exclusion is seen as a threat to security and a risk for crime. Indeed, community-based crime prevention plays a central role in the programmes along with the worry about serious crimes and the high level of homicides. A fluid governing policy without crime and accidents is the implicit goal of these programmes.

A New Field:History of Humanities

A New Field:<i>History of Humanities</i>

Punishment, protection, and precaution: ‘Project X’ riots and the attitudes towards risk and responsibility in late-modern society

In the aftermath of severe and unprecedented riots in a small Dutch town, local inhabitants express a broad and contradictory set of interpretations of what had happened and opinions on who should be held responsible. In order to understand this variety, we reinterpret Ewald’s theory on the transformations in the modern attitude towards risk and responsibility. Instead of distinct historical phases, the three attitudes identified by Ewald are simultaneously at play: punishment of delinquents, protection of victims, and precaution by the authorities. Only by taking all attitudes into account can we explain the variety of interpretations and the following, often contradictory, political responses. My findings also suggest that these three attitudes can be used as a model to make sense of contemporary security policies, which simultaneously emphasise punishment, protection, and precaution.

The dark(er) side of ‘state failure’: state formation and socio-political variation

Scholars concerned with the formation of states, specifically the relationship between state formation and war, hold one of two positions. Some agree with Charles Tilly’s historiological conclusion that war is decisive for the establishment of stateness and specify key concepts, in order to explain presumed discrepancies between past and present. Others point towards the international sphere in its current form and advocate a ‘war breaks states’ perspective. This paper argues that both standpoints neglect the ‘sub-national’ level. While proponents of the ‘war breaks states’ thesis are missing para-sovereign zones of rule, supporters of the ‘war makes states’ approach take a juridical view of statehood and focus on ‘state strength’. The failed states paradigm guiding contemporary security and development policy hinders an adequate analysis of the actual situation on the ground. Discussing the shortcomings of failed states approaches and state formation theorising, the paper proposes a conceptualisation in terms of socio-political variation instead of a mere dichotomisation of order. Some conclusive questions are raised, indicating future research directions linked to the historical sociology of state formation.

A select list of articles on Africa appearing in non–Africanist Periodicals

Badinella, C. and Chang, D. Contemporary Afro and two-sidedness: Black diaspora aesthetic practices and the art market. Culture and Organization 21, 2 (2015), pp. 97–125. Besley, T. and Reynal-Querol, M. The legacy of historical conflict: Evidence from Africa. American Political Science Review 109, 2 (2014), pp. 319–36. Chassot, J. ‘Voyage through death/to life upon these shores’: The living dead of the Middle Passage. Atlantic Studies 12, 1 (2015), pp. 90–108. Cheeseman, N. and Larmer, M. Ethnopopulism in Africa: Opposition mobilization in diverse and unequal societies. Democratization 22, 1 (2015), pp. 22–50. Fisk, K. Refugee geography and the diffusion of armed conflict in Africa. Civil Wars 16, 3 (2014), pp. 255–75. Fleming, P. J. and others. The role of relationship types on condom use among urban men with concurrent partners in Ghana and Tanzania. AIDS Care 27, 4 (2015), pp. 466–72. Grip, L. History never repeats? Imports, impact and control of small arms in Africa. Contemporary Security Policy 36, 1 (2015), pp. 79–103.

The Case against Megacities

ABSTRACT: Certain kinds of urban areas may become increasingly common for armed conflict in 21st century. However, current notions that megacity will emerge as a primary battlespace for advanced armies is an unproven hypothesis. US strategists need to avoid rushing to replace population-centric counterinsurgency with a paradigm of population-centric megacity operations. A preferable path is to develop a long-term and systematic interdisciplinary urban warfare lens based on careful research and analysis that is both historically informed and future-oriented. ********** It has generally proved easier to demonstrate that defense has played an important role in many aspects of city than to show that city has played a role in military science. G. J. Ashworth, War and City (1991) One of major weaknesses of recent American strategy is its relative neglect of an urban imperative. The study of urban warfare continues to remain little more than a sub-field of strategic studies with a literature largely unrelated to world of contemporary security policy. (1) For these reasons, it is a great pity publication of US Army's June 2014, Megacities and United States Army: Preparing for a Complex and Uncertain Future is such a disappointing attempt to invigorate relationship between strategy and city. (2) The report's central premise that megacities--defined as cities with populations over ten million--now represent the epicenters of human activity on planet and, as such, they will generate most of friction which compels future military intervention is a selective interpretation of highly complex process of 21st century global urbanization. Moreover, suggestion that scale of megacities defies military's ability to apply historical methods and therefore is fundamentally a new operating environment to which Army must shape itself and discover new approaches is exaggerated. Such a view overlooks continuing value of a body of post-Cold War military research, some of which was, ironically, commissioned by US Army itself. A final flaw in Megacities and United States Army is its typology, which by focusing mainly on a systems-analysis methodology illuminates document's neglect of relevant research material on cities emanating from long-established field of urban studies. (3) In light of above weaknesses, this article argues US Army would be ill-served to concentrate overly on megacities as a primary strategic environment for three further reasons. First, megacities are not necessarily principal urban areas in which American forces may be called upon to fight in future. Rather, middleweight and smaller cities remain just as likely to provide important operational environments in years ahead. Second, megacities are not suigeneris', they do not represent a novel military phenomenon. The military processes of operating in any city are drawn from fundamentals of urban warfare tried and tested by land forces since at least middle of twentieth century. Future technological developments notwithstanding, most fundamentals of urban warfare are likely to remain relevant for general-purpose forces even in a conglomeration on scale of a megacity. Third, US Army needs to embed study of megacities into a rigorous program of long-term urban war research that is both interdisciplinary in theory and interagency in practice. Such a program must systematically integrate military concerns with relevant aspects of municipal management, urban geography, and city planning. Cities as Strategic Sites: The Growing Importance of Middleweight City In terms of demographic disposition, greatest revolutionary shift of first quarter of twenty-first century is movement of people from countryside to city. In 2007, half world passed benchmark of fifty percent of its population being located in urban areas while urban demography now grows at some 65 million every year--a breakneck rate of speed equivalent to creation of seven new Chicagos annually. …

The British National Security Strategy: Security after Representation

Research Highlights and Abstract This article Contributes to the debate on British Foreign and Security Policy; Contributes to the literature on the British National Security Strategy; Links international relations literature with domestic policy formation literature; Introduces the concept of ‘legitimacy’ to foreign and security policy analysis. The publication of the Britain's first National Security Strategy (NSS) in 2008 marked a formal shift away from the secret state of the Cold War to the highly public protective state of today. This article is interested in the question of why the NSS and related framework have taken this particular public and explicit form. Both mainstream and critically minded academics have argued that contemporary security discourses and policies are techniques of power and governance and that the public nature of the policies is vital to this function. In this article, I argue that there has been a transformation in the nature of the British state from a representative state in which the state's authority was legitimated through a number of political mechanisms of representation, to one in which state elites and institutions need to forge new kinds of relationships with the governed. This is a key development that has been noticed in political, sociological and legal theoretical literature but as yet hardly addressed in international relations and security studies. This transformation of the state, I will argue, is intimately linked to the form and content of contemporary security policies. The contemporary state is undergoing a process of an erosion of legitimacy, which has a direct impact upon the capacity of the state to govern. In this context, policies take on the role of trying to bridge the legitimacy gap. I will argue that this shift in the state leads to a different understanding of contemporary security policies as representative of a decreasing ability to govern security, a state that is losing legitimacy and authority; that is in effect, losing its sovereignty. This article argues that British national security strategies and policies are representative of this.

Jumping off the Bandwagon

Engaging two recent articles published in Contemporary Security Policy, this intervention affirms that the emergence of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) cannot be meaningfully described as European balancing vis-à-vis the United States. It is equally sceptical about attempts to explain it as a bandwagoning move. Instead, it suggests that European investment in CSDP can be most plausibly explained with a constructivist framework that takes into account strategic culture and identity-related concerns. From this perspective, CSDP is best understood as a vehicle for emancipating Europeans from American tutelage.