Security Policymaking Research Articles

Energy Politics and Warfare: How International Energy Interests Shape Alliances in the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

Purpose: This study aims to critically examine the intricate interplay of energy politics and military strategy within the context of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It posits that energy resources - specifically oil and natural gas - serve as pivotal factors that shape strategic alliances, influence geopolitical manoeuvring, and dictate the foreign policy trajectories of international actors, including the United States, the European Union, and China. Materials and Methods: The research employs a qualitative methodology that is underpinned by a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with a diverse cohort of policymakers, energy analysts, and industry stakeholders. Through this empirical approach, the study explores the participants' perceptions regarding the nexus between energy dynamics and security policymaking. In addition to the qualitative interviews, the investigation analyses a range of qualitative materials, including public statements, policy documents, and corporate strategic outlines. Discourse analysis is utilized to further uncover the mechanisms through which energy companies exert influence on governmental policies and military postures. Findings: The anticipated findings are expected to provide a nuanced understanding of the centrality of energy resources in influencing military strategies and fostering international coalitions. This analysis will contribute to an enriched scholarly discourse that informs not only theoretical frameworks in international relations but also practical applications in global energy governance and security. Implications to Theory, Policy and Practice: The inquiry underscores the imperative for a multifaceted and informed policy approach that acknowledges the profound implications of energy resources on national interests and global stability. By integrating energy considerations into security policymaking, the study advocates for a reassessment of traditional strategic paradigms that often overlook the complexities arising from energy interdependence.

Geopolitical Narratives of Withdrawal and the Counter-Narrative of Women's Rights Activism in Afghanistan

Abstract Gendered narratives are political narratives that frequently frame decisions to go to war or broker peace. Such geopolitical narratives both enable the protection of women's rights and violate them. Women's rights, specifically, have been used as a rhetorical device by security policymakers to persuade people of the urgency and legitimacy of foreign intervention or withdrawal. We explore how gendered, geopolitical narratives work to construct understandings of political reality and delimit foreign policy options, and how counter-narratives contest them, transforming the available policy options. Drawing on narrative analysis frameworks, we examine the shifting narratives invoking “Afghan women” that facilitated the change in US policy on Afghanistan between 2018 and 2021 and the consequent return of the Taliban. In response to the US withdrawal, we investigate the counter-narrative of Afghan women that emphasizes universal human rights, inclusive peace, and international recognition of the situation of “gender apartheid.” We argue that counter-narratives supported by political strategies are an effective instrument for empowering marginalized women and legitimizing their activism that protests the continuation of war against women despite the end of military war.

Timing bombs and the temporal dynamics of Iranian nuclear security

Abstract For more than two decades, Iran’s nuclear programme has concerned policymakers and scholars alike. Whether speeding up uranium enrichment, slowing down international negotiations, or disrupting the timing of key initiatives, actions around Iran’s nuclear programme bear a clear time signature. Yet systematic accounts of the importance of time in shaping foreign and security policymaking have been largely neglected. Through foreign policy timing theory’s (FP4D) reconceptualisation of time we show how actors both constructed and then used time to pursue their strategic interests, creating, altering, and sabotaging the timing mechanism linking Iranian nuclear technology and international sanctions. These manipulations of time by both domestic and international actors resulted in prolonged international negotiations and fluctuating periods of crisis and produced a temporally flawed agreement frozen in time. We consider time’s impact on the current challenges and future direction of nuclear diplomacy with Iran as well as its importance for broader nuclear security issues.

Recent U.S. Government and foreign national government and commercial literature on semiconductors

Semiconductors play a major role in U.S. and international economic activity and in national security policymaking. They are tiny electronic devices based primarily on silicon or germanium, facilitating multiple industrial activities including systems foundational to U.S. technological competitiveness and national security. This industry is a key U.S. exporter with this product’s design and manufacturing being a global enterprise with design, fabrication, assembly, testing, and packing distributed globally. Semiconductors are essential building blocks for emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, 5 G communications, and quantum computing. This article aspires to inform librarians and others about governmental and commercial literature produced on this subject. It aspires to enhance understanding of this topic and its intersections with economics, consumer goods, technology politics, and international security. (Platzer, Sutter, & Sargeant, 2020; Summary, 1–3).

Impacts of urbanization on food security in Ethiopia. A review with empirical evidence

Currently, the globe is challenged by various problems, such as war/conflict, poverty, climate change, and urbanization. Among them, Urbanization become the main problem. It has a disproportionate impact on developed and developing countries. One of the main problems of urbanization is the inability to ensure food security in urban areas. This situation is also evident in Ethiopia. This happened due to reductions in arable land and its productivity, dumping huge waste into the environment, depleting biodiversity, and water and soil pollution. The combination of these impacts affects urban food security. Although it is an undeniable fact, limited attention is paid to examining the impacts of rapid urbanization on urban food security. To fill this gap, this article reviews the empirical evidence from various studies on how urbanization affects the state of food security in Ethiopia and possible solutions to solve the problem. The review showed that urbanization affects the state of food security by compromising all dimensions of food security. When there is rapid urbanization, production will be reduced and food prices will become higher. Due to this, the prevalence of food insecurity in Ethiopian urban areas is very high. The solution is adjusting the community to live with this challenge. Moreover, this review suggests formulating and implementing proper land use planning and policies, expanding urban agriculture, and farm intensification should be a solution to ensure food security. As can be understood from various articles during the review, Ethiopia has not implemented the abovementioned ideas as a solution to its expectations and potential. In particular, urban agriculture has not been initiated, this is its untapped potential. Therefore, to ensure the food security policymakers, researchers, development planners, and the executive bodies of the government at all levels should exploit the untapped potential of the country’s urban areas.

Reconceptualizing Advocacy through the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Embodiment, Relationality, and Power

Abstract This article critically examines the embodied and relational politics of networked advocacy in the case of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the United Kingdom. Moving beyond liberal framings that position WPS advocacy as an attempt to overcome gender exclusion from peace and security policymaking, this article is concerned instead with the gendered, racialized, and classed logics and hierarchies (re)produced through the practice of WPS advocacy. Toward this end, this article conceptualizes advocacy as an embodied, relational practice where WPS meanings are shaped, power is negotiated, and individuals are interpolated into subject positions. This conceptual claim is substantiated through an initial, exploratory analysis of interviews conducted with UK NGO professionals and government officials. Examining the figures of the “critical friends” and the “shouty NGOs,” I demonstrate how modes of advocating for WPS are ascribed and inscribed to certain bodies, which, in turn, reproduce power relations that affect the possibilities of the agenda. By reconceptualizing advocacy, the article contributes not only to WPS scholarship on civil society and advocacy but to wider debates within international political sociology around embodiment, relationality, and power. Additionally, it contributes empirically by highlighting how NGOs advocate for the WPS agenda.

Ein regulatorischer Sicherheitsstaat? Herrschaftsgrundlagen und Instrumente europäischer Sicherheitspolitik

European security policy is still widely regarded as the realm of national and “positive” states. In contrast to this conventional view, this article argues that the European Union – and the broader European multi-level system – can be conceived as a “regulatory” state in many areas of European security policy-making. The European regulatory security state (ERSS) relies on epistemic authority (i. e. experts) to indirectly produce European security policies by means of setting and enforcing rules. The article introduces the concept of a “European regulatory security state” and illustrates how the ERSS manifests itself empirically; it discusses the extent to which Russia’s war against Ukraine and the European responses to it pose a challenge to the ERSS; and it assesses how normatively desirable – and sustainable – the ERSS is.

The weird world of Russian strategic security culture

The objective of this paper is to explore the Russian interpretation of the concept of security and to question this interpretation. The first part of the essay provides a historical overview of the relationship between NATO and Russia. Although the relationship between NATO and Russia has never been friendly, it has not always been hostile. How did it become so? How did Russian security policy makers come to the conclusion that NATO posed a clear threat to Russia? What is behind Russia’s intransigent stance towards NATO? Is there even a solid basis for this attitude? What does this tell us about the Russian understanding of security? After an overview of the different concepts of security and an examination of the notion of strategic security culture, the second part of the paper attempts to answer these questions. It concludes that Russia’s strategic security culture has imperialist features and points out why, in the longer term, Russia will be the main victim of this.

Subjective Perception of Hybrid Threats in Latvia

The concept of hybrid threats plays an increasingly important role in the security studies agenda, as it raises awareness about the multidimensional nature of contemporary security. Hybrid threats are considered hostile activities that involve the simultaneous use of two or more types of threats and are controlled or coordinated by a specific actor, whether state or non-state. Some experts may argue that hybrid threats are the most prevalent type of threat in the European security landscape at present. As a result, the focus of research has shifted to an investigation into this phenomenon and the vulnerabilities that make a country weaker in the face of emerging hybrid threats. However, much less attention has been paid to the subjective perception of hybrid threats in particular societal and historical contexts, as well as their impact on security policy-making. This article analyses the perceptions of Latvian society in regard to its vulnerability to hybrid threats, as well as how these perceptions are reflected in the main security policy documents. It is concluded that the Latvian population recognises certain hybrid threats as being current in their security agenda. This is especially true of information and cyber threats. On the other hand, the analysis of the key national security documents reveals the lack of a well-defined agenda for preventing and combating hybrid threats.

The ‘situatedness’ of security in postcolonial spaces: Examining the historical and spatial trajectories of localised practices in Tunisia

Preventing and countering violent extremism programmes (P/CVE) programmes in western and postcolonial countries present several differences as well as similarities. The differences are a consequence of specific coordinates of time and space in which security programmes are situated. This article builds on a growing scholarship focusing on the dimension of time, highlighting how the investigation of global and local historical trajectories brings to light postcolonial processes of security policymaking and their role in shaping local security measures. Through interviews carried out in Tunisia with local and international NGOs working on P/CVE, this research examines the agency of international and local actors, and their role in implementing or challenging global and local security narratives. The objective of this research is to show the connection between global and local security narratives and practices, and the role of colonial historical trajectories in the evolution of security.

Para-Diplomacy and Border Security: A Kenyan Perspective

Purpose: Para-diplomacy empowers subnational governments to engage directly in international relations, including security policy-making. It operates outside traditional diplomatic channels, bridging gaps between subnational and national governments, and allowing for more nuanced and context-specific approaches to security policy-making. For subnational governments to actively participate in addressing security concerns and shaping security policies, the potential and efficacy of para-diplomacy should be carefully understood and therefore managed. This research explores para-diplomacy and its potential impact on border security in Kenya, particularly the role of border counties.
 Methodology: Using mixed research methods, the study examines the mechanisms of border management and the important, yet undefined role of border counties. By applying purposive sampling technique, the research selected a sample of 76 individuals from 23 border counties and 6 national government departments all of which are part of Kenya’s governance structure. Questionnaires and interview guides were adopted to gather primary data and both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis were employed.
 Findings: It uncovers an institutional gap that fails to clearly define or utilize the potential of these counties in boosting border security. The study also delves into track one diplomacy, delineating its significance in maintaining border stability. It found out that diplomacy appears to produce positive results by transforming conflicts into opportunities for integration through peace building, and conflict management. Additionally, the study investigates the transformative power of neofunctionalism theory, demonstrating how diplomacy can be used to resolve conflicts and foster regional integration. The research suggests that para-diplomacy, the involvement of subnational regions in international affairs, could enhance border security by leveraging the contribution of border counties towards regional integration.
 Recommendations: In conclusion, the study recommends frameworks promoting collaboration between the central government and border counties to improve border management mechanisms and strengthen Kenya's border security. The research highlights the need for a paradigm shift in understanding and utilizing para-diplomacy in border security management.

Conceptual Issues of National Security Policy-Making Under Uncertainty

The article examines the nature of the uncertainty impact on the formation and implementation of national security policy. The multiplication of uncertainties and complication of the system of social relations prompt a transformation of conceptual approaches to the identification of the national security basic features and the organization of key processes in this area. It has been proven that the development of the concepts of uncertainty and resilience prompts a reconceptualization of the national security. This process is currently taking place. The implementation of new approaches to ensuring national security contributed to the initiation of a paradigm shift in national security policy. Management of uncertainty allows for reducing its influence on national security policy-making. The development of science and increasing the level of public trust in scientific information, which is taken as a basis for shaping political decisions, are of great importance for this.

Securing containerized supply chain through public and private partnership

Global trade is seafaring commerce; 90% of traded goods are carried by maritime transport, which has become vulnerable to security risks. This has led governments to initiate security programs serving tens of thousands of members worldwide. This paper studies the government's incentive design and the interaction between Customs inspection capacity and the incentives offered in security programs. Using the theory of incentives, we investigate the value of a partnership in improving the security of containerized supply chain. We developed a sequential game featuring the government, firms, and an adversary. The government selects the inspection capacity and incentives to foster the partnership, namely, an operational benefit in the form of a reduced inspection rate, and a security benefit obtained through reductions in the risks of adversarial infiltration. Firms subsequently decide on a collaboration level, followed by a strategic adversary's decision to infiltrate. Using the adversary's best response, we show that, in equilibrium, the government ranks all the firms and induces collaboration with only a subset of them. We demonstrate that, in equilibrium, while security incentives may benefit all participants, tailored operational incentives should be offered strictly to foster collaboration. The required condition to implement the inspection‐free lane for members is also characterized. Our results also inform practice to help security policymakers understand the underlying interaction between Customs inspection capacity and incentive design in forging collaboration with private firms. In particular, as firms opting for collaboration experience lower inspection rates, this further reduces overall congestion, which, in turn, creates a positive externality for nonmember firms. Therefore, having an excess inspection capacity may result in shorter wait times that could dissuade firms from collaborating.

State or soldier? Explaining China’s decisionmaking in India-China border crises

ABSTRACT Prevailing explanations for India-China border crises rely on rational actor models and assumes centralized decisionmaking. Instead, I argue that the several recent India-China border crises cannot be understood without separately interrogating the role of the PLA in China’s national security policymaking. I argue that the PLA uses its operational independence to continuously challenge Indian forces on the contested border. The Indian forces, when confronted, pushed back. The several recent border standoffs are a manifestation of the interactions between the two armed forces.

Why is Lived Experience Absent from Social Security Policymaking? – CORRIGENDUM

Why is Lived Experience Absent from Social Security Policymaking? – CORRIGENDUM

Why is Lived Experience Absent from Social Security Policymaking?

Abstract Processes of public engagement in decision-making and research are increasingly discussed as ways of addressing democratic deficits in high-income countries. In this paper, we explore why these processes of engagement and involvement in the UK have been less successfully incorporated into social security policymaking aimed at the out-of-work by drawing a comparison with health policy, a sphere in which these processes have now become orthodox (albeit imperfect). There is, for example, no formal or institutionalised imperative to involve people with lived experience of out-of-work social security benefits in processes of policy development. Government departments might focus group new policies with members of the public or hold periodic discussions with beneficiaries but in recent years there have been a number of major reforms to out-of-work social security which have been developed almost entirely without involving those affected. This would have been unacceptable in the health policy arena. We argue that this difference is rooted in structural differences in how the field of power for this form of social policy is organised, in the different social imaginaries which construct patients and out-of-work beneficiaries, and in the limited scope for solidarity and collective action around resisting the stigmatisation of out-of-work beneficiaries.

The regulatory security state in Europe

ABSTRACT The ‘regulatory state’ has prevailed in almost every sector of European public policy. The provision of security, however, is still widely viewed as the domain of the ‘positive state’, which rests on political authority and autonomous capacities. Challenging this presumption, we argue that expertise – as foundation of authority – and rules – as policy instruments – also shape the provision of European security by national and, in particular, supranational ‘regulatory security states’, namely the European Union (EU). We lay out a framework for mapping the uneven and contested rise of European regulatory security states; analyzing drivers and constraints of security state reforms; and grasping the implications of the regulatory security state for the effectiveness and democratic legitimacy of European security policy-making. We advance the research program on the regulatory state and contribute to an innovative understanding of who governs security in Europe’s multi-level polity, by what means, and on what legitimatory grounds.

The boundedly rational employee: Security economics for behaviour intervention support in organizations1

Security policy-makers (influencers) in an organization set security policies that embody intended behaviours for employees (as decision-makers) to follow. Decision-makers then face choices, where this is not simply a binary decision of whether to comply or not, but also how to approach compliance and secure working alongside other workplace pressures, and limited resources for identifying optimal security-related choices. Conflict arises because of information asymmetries present in the relationship, where influencers and decision-makers both consider costs, gains, and losses in ways which are not necessarily aligned. With the need to promote ‘good enough’ decisions about security-related behaviours under such constraints, we hypothesize that actions to resolve this misalignment can benefit from constructs from both traditional economics and behavioural economics. Here we demonstrate how current approaches to security behaviour provisioning in organizations mirror rational-agent economics, even where behavioural economics is embodied in the promotion of individual security behaviours. We develop and present a framework to accommodate bounded security decision-making, within an ongoing programme of behaviours which must be provisioned for and supported. Our four stage plan to Capture, Adapt, Realign, and Enable behaviour choices provides guidance for security managers, focusing on a more effective response to the uncertainty associated with security behaviour in organizations.

Top-level Design and Enlarged Diplomacy: Foreign and Security Policymaking in Xi Jinping’s China

ABSTRACT Xi Jinping has centralized foreign policymaking authorities by setting up new central coordination organizations with himself as the head to bypass entrenched interests and cut through bureaucratic roadblocks. Staking his claim to power on the party and demanding personal loyalty of Chinese bureaucrats to him in a way that none of his recent predecessors could; Xi has introduced a top-level design to develop strategic visions, conduct strategic planning, and make tough decisions. The top-level design has advanced the enlarged diplomacy far beyond the sphere of professional diplomats. But Xi’s personalization of Chinese foreign and security policymaking has increased the possibility of intended and unintended consequences of foreign adventure and actions.

Rediscovering the Contemporary Relevance of National Security Strategies in Divya Upadesh: A History-Policy Relationship

Rediscovering the past to build a secure future is better realized by understanding the role of history in policy making. Today, while Nepal’s national security policies remain silent about the geopolitical threats, it is timely to rediscover the guidelines on national security strategies introduced in Divya Upadesh, a Divine Counsel of the Great King Prithivi Narayan Shah. Currently, Nepal inability in escaping the geostrategic challenge of accommodating the interest of major powers is explicitly visible in the fiasco created by the Nepali political parties in the context of Nepal’s uncertainty over US-sponsored MCC project, which is today perceived in Nepal as hostile to China-led BRI. Historically, Nepal has successfully balanced its two Gulliverian neighbors. But, today, Nepal is not in a position to evade the repercussions triggered by Sino-Indian rivalry at the regional front and Sino-US strategic competition at the global level. On the backdrop of their conflicting interest—strategic, security, economic—Kathmandu faces the geostrategic challenges of accommodating the interest of major powers. Although Nepal’s integrated foreign policy of 2020 mentions of the changed geopolitical context, pragmatic policy recommendations, as indicated by foreign policy behavior, are missing. Constitutional guidelines on Nepal’s foreign policy and national security alone are not sufficient. Thus, drawing lessons from history could be of help to formulate the national security strategies in order to better cope with the external threats. The rationale behind considering Divya Upadesh is to make Nepali policy makers realize that the national security strategies and policies that Nepal adopted in a usual/normal context won’t be able to fulfill the requirements of the uncertain strategic milieu against the backdrop of a ‘new Cold War’ brewing between the United States and China. In the late 18th century when P.N Shah was introducing a comprehensive national security policy for the first time, the external environment wasn’t much favorable. After his death, however, instead of paying heed to his guidelines, expansionism ended up to territorial loss, adventurism led to Himalayan wars, appeasement led to increasing British influence in Nepal. After 1950, guidelines in Divya Upadesh have been more confined to history books and classrooms lectures. While Nepal lionizes its act of balancing India and China though the policy of non-alignment and equidistance, foreign and security policy makers never paid attention to reinvent the lesson for the same. Thus, this qualitative study recuperates the relevance of effective balancing as advocated by PN Shah in addressing the challenges surfaced while accommodating the interests of major powers. Most of the available literature on Divya Upadesh are either translated English versions, or limited to the analysis of the unification process. The relevance of an intersection of foreign policy and national security in Divya Upadesh is not unveiled by any of the available literature. Apprehending the same research gap, this study explores the contemporary significance of Divya Upadesh while devising the national security policies and strategies. Firstly, the contemporary challenges to Nepal’s national security prompted by Kathmandu’s struggle in accommodation of the interest of major powers is discussed; secondly, the policy of ‘balancing’ counseled by Prithivi Narayan Shah is emphasized as an apt and relevant in dealing with the contemporary challenges emanating from the neighborhood and beyond. Thirdly, “meticulous diplomacy,” is highlighted to offer economic shape to the act of balancing. Finally, it has been realized how studying history means studying causes, and as such, turning the pages of Divya Upadesh, policy makers discover the causes of Nepal’s failure in accommodating the interest of major powers.