International Security Studies Research Articles

Cyberbiosecurity in the new normal: Cyberbio risks, pre-emptive security, and the global governance of bioinformation

Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic saw a surge in cyber attacks targeting pharmaceutical companies and research organisations working on vaccines and treatments for the virus. Such attacks raised concerns around the (in)security of bioinformation (e.g. genomic data, epidemiological data, biomedical data, and health data) and the potential cyberbio risks resulting from stealing, compromising, or exploiting it in hostile cyber operations. This article critically investigates threat discourses around bioinformation as presented in the newly emerging field of ‘cyberbiosecurity’. As introduced by scholarly literature in life sciences, cyberbiosecurity aims to understand and address cyber risks engendered by the digitisation of biology. Such risks include, for example, embedding malware in DNA, corrupting gene-sequencing, manipulating biomedical materials, stealing epidemiological data, or even developing biological weapons and spreading diseases. This article brings the discussion on cyberbiosecurity into the realms of International Relations and Security Studies by problematising the futuristic threat discourses co-producing this burgeoning field and the pre-emptive security measures it advocates, specifically in relation to bioinformation. It analyses how cyberbiosecurity as a concept and field of policy analysis influences the existing securitised governance of bioinformation, the global competition to control it, and the inequalities associated with its ownership and dissemination. As such, the article presents a critical intervention in current debates around the intersection between biological dangers and cyber threats and in the calls for ‘peculiar’ policy measures to defend against cyberbio risks in the ‘new normal’.

THE (MIS)USE OF IDEAL MASCULINITY IN ARMED CONFLICTS

This paper explores the concept of ideal masculinity in the context of armed conflicts and analyses its relationship with actual forms of masculinity. The paper aims to present the content of the socioculturally shaped ideal of masculinity during wartime and explain how such an ideal impacts the lives of men affected by armed conflicts. Through a review of relevant literature from feminist theories of international security and masculinity studies, the paper highlights the discrepancy between ideals and reality, drawing attention to the negative consequences stemming from that gap. Namely, unable to meet the demands of ideal masculinity, men face frustration and pressure to become more violent than they would be, in order to conform to societal expectations. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the need for further research into this domain and the deconstruction of militarised masculinity with an ultimate aim to establish more inclusive perceptions of masculinity so that the majority of men can benefit from such a perception change.

Queer lives during conflict in Northern Ireland: deconstructing the “two communities” model

ABSTRACT This article poses the question of how incorporating the “subjugated knowledge” of queer histories of the Troubles in Northern Ireland affects understandings of the conflict in international relations and security studies. It argues that while the centrality of the “two communities” model drives all other issues to the political margins and perpetuates division, adopting a queer approach can deconstruct the identities of those communities and suggest ways to move beyond that model. It uses Jack Halberstam’s queer methodology as a “scavenger methodology” to draw on existing published interviews, as well as plays and films representing queer experiences during the Troubles, and a queer theoretical approach that seeks to both foreground queer experiences and challenge normative and binary understandings of identity in this context. Focusing on queer lives during the conflict reveals that constructing the identities of the two communities depends on excluding the queer subject, that queer people’s security during the conflict was shaped by their queer identity, and that queerness can and has been mobilized to deconstruct received narratives and the apparently essential identities of the two communities, demonstrating some possibilities for dismantling the unionist/nationalist dichotomy.

Conflict, gender and ontological security-seeking between Eritrea and Tel Aviv

ABSTRACT The proliferating research in ontological security (OS) studies explores how irregular situations of ‘radical disjuncture’ remove the protective cocoon of routinised trust relations that enables the actors to ‘bracket out’ daily threats and dangers. Following this loss of trust, the actors perform a variety of OS-seeking strategies in their attempts to re-establish their lost trust in themselves and their surroundings. But how do disempowered actors in global politics, who suffer multiple marginalities and flee states that turn against their own citizens, seek ontological security (OS)? Focusing on Eritrean asylum-seeking women in southern Tel-Aviv, we rely on ‘thick’ ethnographic data to demonstrate how even when statist violence is the norm, the quest for OS persists in unexpected ways. Adding new insight to the growing research on trust and OS in international relations (IR) and security studies, the article exposes the multiple emerging OS-seeking strategies that thrive in the developing spaces of global politics, while shedding new light on the gendered politics of migration.

Introduction to the Special Issue—COVID-19, international relations, and security studies: Has the pandemic altered the study and practice of international security?

Introduction to the Special Issue—COVID-19, international relations, and security studies: Has the pandemic altered the study and practice of international security?

Retos de la seguridad pública en España

This issue of the Journal of International Security Studies discusses the current challenges of public security in Spain. It does so from the point of view of threats, but also from the point of view of institutions, particularly the police. Perhaps the main contribution of the monograph is that its contributions, first, look at the European context by offering a comparative perspective and, second, focus on some of the important current debates in the police and criminological literature. Each contribution is signed by renowned scholars in their field of expertise. It is a selection of six articles that start with an initial portrait of what public safety culture is like in Europe. This background overview is followed by contributions on the current challenges posed by three types of complex crime: economically motivated organised crime, terrorism, and cybercrime. These forms of crime are decisive for the immediate future of collective security. The issue concludes with two contributions on the implications of these and other challenges for the legitimacy of the police and, above all, the way in which the police respond to them. Finally, the last contribution analyses the implications for the police from the perspective of their corporate social responsibility.

Racialization and International Security

Abstract Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. Despite the field's consistent interest in power, international security studies in the United States largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates about international conflict and cooperation, nuclear proliferation, power transitions, unipolarity, civil wars, terrorism, international order, grand strategy, and other subjects. A new framework lays conceptual bedrock, links relevant literatures to major research agendas in international security, cultivates interdisciplinary dialogues, and charts promising paths to consider how overt and embedded racialization shape the study and practice of international security. A discussion of several research design challenges for integrating racialization into existing and new research agendas helps scholars reconsider how they approach questions of race and security. Beyond diversifying the professoriat itself, revealing and countering embedded biases are crucial to determine how alternative ideas have been marginalized, and, ultimately, to develop better theories.

Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Professional Associations: Experiences from Security Studies

Abstract The International Security Studies Section (ISSS) of the International Studies Association aims to promote the study of global, international, regional, and national security—broadly conceived. Over the past decade, ISSS has also sought to improve diversity and inclusion for its membership, culminating in its Taskforce on Diversity in Security Studies. In this forum, taskforce organizers, researchers, and participants examine the ways in which ISSS has collected data and then acted to improve both experiences and outcomes for historically excluded scholars, using an intersectional approach but with a specific focus on race. By critically reflecting on the role of professional associations in combatting racism in academia, using the case study of ISSS, the forum has two aims. First, we hope that by sharing ISSS experiences and processes, we may encourage other professional associations to self-reflect on how they may contribute to racial injustice, as well as how they can reveal and counteract racial oppression. Second, rather than solely focusing on goals and outcomes, the forum also gives voice to personal perspectives of researchers and participants to highlight how it is people who ultimately make up the heart of efforts to challenge racism and discrimination.

Back to the basics: international relations, intelligence, and strategic competition

As United States foreign policy returns to a focus on great power competition, it is worth reviewing the fundamental theories associated with understanding the threat and its impact on state relations. The social science fields of international relations (IR) and security studies provide the foundational theory and associated concepts for strategic intelligence analysis in this area. The paper addresses four broad theories (realism, liberalism, economic structuralism, and constructivism) and illustrates their impact on policymakers and intelligence analysts as they craft strategy. The author argues for a more explicit inclusion of IR theories, frameworks, and methods in strategic intelligence analysis.

Whose (in)security? Gender, race and coloniality in European security policies: Introduction to the Special Issue

ABSTRACT Building on feminist and postcolonial theoretical approaches across International Relations (IR) and security studies, this Special Issue advances an emerging research agenda within EU studies by shedding light on the gendered and racialised logics of EU security and their links to colonial histories and practices. Together, the contributions to this Special Issue demonstrate how EU security is intrinsically connected to and constituted by histories of colonialism, racism and patriarchy. At the same time, they also highlight how the colonial, racialised and gendered dynamics that underpin EU security and that are mobilised by the EU, its institutions and member states are always complex and shifting. Importantly, they do so by decentring our analysis of EU security moving our focus often away from the EU and towards different, somewhat unexpected sites and geographical locations of EU security. The current war in Ukraine underwrites the need for more historical, contextual and decentred work on EU security, while also highlighting the necessity to reflect on dominant practices of knowledge production and the experiences of people living in and with war through a feminist and postcolonial lens.

International Security Studies: Theory and practice by Peter Hough, Shanin Malik, Andrew Moran and Bruce Pilbeam

International Security Studies: Theory and practice by Peter Hough, Shanin Malik, Andrew Moran and Bruce Pilbeam

Towards a global security studies: what can looking at China tell us about the concept of security?

Existing scholarship has demonstrated that theorising about security is Eurocentric. This leaves us with a partial account of the concept of security, which is presented as universal. This in turn generates explanatory problems because we are only seeing part of the picture. Yet there have been few attempts to move beyond critiques of Eurocentrism to examine the concept of security ‘elsewhere’. This paper takes China as its starting point, asking: what can looking at China tell us about security? In answering this question, the paper makes two contributions. First, it presents new empirical findings, building a conceptual history of security in China. Drawing on 140 key texts dating 1926–2022, the paper traces the emergence of the concept of security in China and its evolution through three explicit security concepts. Drawing on postcolonial insights it demonstrates that these concepts are hybrid, evolving out of multiple domestic and international influences. They have similarities as well as differences with the Eurocentric concept that dominates International Security Studies (ISS) and produce a discrete approach towards security that has been overlooked in a discipline that uses ‘Europe to explain Asia’. Second, considering these insights, the paper demonstrates that the universal concept of security that underpins theorising in ISS is partial and misleading. Differences in security concepts matter for theorising security and for understanding security policy. Consequently, I argue that we need to provincialize the concept of security: a truly global security studies is of necessity a provincial one attuned to difference and similarity.

Instruction over Incentives: Assessing Reading Strategies for International Security Studies

Abstract Discussion-based courses in international relations rely on students’ careful reading of complex texts in advance of class. However, instructors face a perennial problem: many students do not read effectively, or at all. We argue that students often want to, but do not always know how to, read such material effectively. With instruction and guidance on effective reading strategies, students can improve reading comprehension. To test our hypotheses, we measure the effects of (1) receiving course-preparation assignment worksheets (CPAs), (2) receiving critical/active reading strategies instruction, or (3) receiving both interventions (1) and (2) on students’ consumption of reading assignments and reading comprehension. Across four sections of an “International Security Studies” course, we tested our hypotheses using student self-assessment. Results indicate that both CPAs and reading strategies instruction increase student consumption and self-assessed comprehension of assigned material, but with intriguing nuance across the range of possible responses. Generally, no added benefit upon comprehension is realized by offering both treatments together. These effective reading strategies offer benefits beyond our classroom, imparting students with long-lasting skills and offering instructors easily adaptable activities for use in other courses.

Contribution of Copenhagen School to the Security Studies

Security Studies cover the security of referent objects, individuals, or states. Since the Second World War, the importance and depth of Security Studies have increased. In the post-cold war period, it was seen as a purely military field and was handled within the scope of the power policies of the states. In the post-Cold War period, it emerged as a multidimensional form. This research describes prominent approaches such as Realism, Liberalism, Peace, and Critical Security Studies and the most recent essential theories. The research underlines the three pillars of The Copenhagen School, which has contributed to the academic literature on securitization/desecuritization theory, regional security complex theory, and sectoral security approach in international security studies. In the securitization theory, any subject can be non-politicised, politicised, or elevated to a national security concern level. According to the Regional Security Complex pillar, standard points, security priorities, and security dynamics must coincide with establishing a region in the security realm. Lastly, the safety of human societies is affected by factors in five primary areas - military, political, economic, social, and environmental factors. The study concludes that the Copenhagen School occupies a significant position among security studies methodologies and offers a helpful framework for examining contemporary global security concerns.

Nato’s Anglo-American identity and the Ukrainian crisis from an ontological security perspective – can a realist international system give diplomacy a chance?

International military organizations derive their identity from the objectives they are set to perform thus acquiring ontological security. Organizations like NATO—adhering to a realist approach to International Relations (IR) and Security Studies (SS) – have historically reconfigured their identity depending on the ontological threat du jour by prioritizing Anglo-American interest at the expense of Russian and Franco-German socio-economic security. By adopting an ontological security perspective critically approaching a realist lens to IR and SS, the following sections highlights that NATO has in the past, and continues in the present, to acquire ontological security by constructing imaginaries founded on an ontological double-requirement emphasizing that Anglo-American Self-security is based on demanding a threatening Other-identity. That is, while most studies on NATO focus on the question “why does NATO still exist?”, the sections seek to highlight “how” did the process of ontological security seeking unfold, and what were the driving naturalized assumptions that enabled such process. The introductory section familiarizes the reader with the Anglo-American camp known as Atlanticism perceiving Continentalism interest as trivial. The second section defines the perspective of ontological security and its inter-related concepts of “critical situation”, “environmental stability”, “routine”, “socialization” and “narratives”. The third section highlights Atlanticist’s protracting the war in Ukraine for ontological security purposes by fabricating narratives relating to Russia seeking “past glory”, Ukraine becoming a possible NATO member, and finally, by undermining Franco-German sovereignty. The final section reveals the importance of considering diplomacy as the primary solution remedying the ontological insecurity accenting world politics.

Promoting College Reading Completion and Comprehension with Reading Guides: Lessons Learned Regarding the Role of Form, Function, and Frequency

College faculty often struggle with getting their students to read assigned materials. Even if students do read, they may not read closely or critically. Not only does the lack of effective reading undermine understanding, but it also hampers class discussions and engagement. To promote close and critical reading in a required, upper-division International Security Studies course, we offered optional reading guide worksheets as tools to increase students’ reading comprehension and completion. While our reading guides helped students focus on key terms and lesson objectives, flaws in our implementation produced a lack of perceptual value and extrinsic motivation in using the reading guides. In this article, we offer our lessons learned from the use of reading guides, focusing on their form, function, and frequency. These findings equip faculty with useful guidance in how to design and implement effective reading guides across the disciplines.

Remaining ‘in-between’ the divides? Conceptual, methodological, and ethical political dilemmas of engaged research in Critical Military Studies

ABSTRACT Critical Military Studies (CMS) has emerged as an important subdiscipline in international security studies and an interdisciplinary field in its own right. In this article, we offer a close reading of foundational CMS literature to reveal its distinct approach to the critical study of military power. We argue this foundational literature is characterised by a commitment to a series of ‘in-between’ and 'engaged' positions on conceptual binaries between civilian and military spheres, questions of methodological proximity to or distance from military actors, and ethical political support for or opposition to militarism. While CMS makes important contributions to analyses of military power and security, we argue it too often re-centres white western male military subjects and agendas while marginalising antimilitarism. In this way, we argue, it reproduces a form of epistemic and ‘methodological whiteness’ that limits its potential to offer a sustained critique.

Food Security and International Security: Tracing the Links

The article aims to analyze food security from the perspective of international security studies. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 has generated renewed interest in food security. The undeniable links between war and famine have taken on an added dimension in this conflict due to the importance of both warring parties to the global food market. While the way food security is conceptualized points to its indirect relationship with international security, the change that took place in the study of international security after the Cold War recognized socio-economic problems as equivalent of threats to the national security. The analysis allowed the following conclusions. First, food security should be treated as a new research area of international security because it challenges the stability of the global socio-economic system. Second, as the 2008 and 2010–2011 food crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine have shown, food insecurity generates threats to international security.

Konceptualizace bezpečnostně-rozvojového nexu: současné interpretace a kritika

The security-development nexus (SDN) has gained prominence in international relations since the 1990s, undergoing significant theoretical and practical transformations in conflict resolution. It is generally viewed as a relationship between security and development, with two primary perspectives: one where security precedes development and another where they progress hand in hand. The SDN's theoretical foundations have been translated into practical policies, emphasizing human security and post-conflict reconstruction. However, it faces criticism from those who argue that security and development are inherently incompatible. In response to the diverse and contentious debate surrounding SDN, this paper aims to provide Czech scholars and students of International Relations and Security Studies with a comprehensive overview. It synthesizes the core arguments of international relations scholars across various theoretical and cultural backgrounds and practice-oriented literature. The article examines how recent discussions have shaped the SDN concept and highlights key author differences. Over the past three decades, the SDN has evolved dynamically and offers valuable insights into resolving past and ongoing armed conflicts. Additionally, the article discusses the security-development nexus in the Czech academic context, which has been largely absent, with only a few exceptions.

THE DILEMMA OF HEALTH SECURITY AND ECONOMIC SECURITY IN HANDLING CORONAVIRUS DISEASE (COVID-19) CASE STUDY: MAKASSAR RECOVER POLICY

<p>International security studies have developed and expanded from the scope and actors involved. The emergence of new threats, such as the spread of disease, requires the state to shift the referent object of security to focus on the individual. The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) phenomenon is a new thing that requires a quick response from the state and local governments. This response is needed to suppress the resulting impact so that it does not grow and spread to various fields. This study aims to assess the implementation of the Makassar Recover policy to handle COVID-19 through the Human Security Concept. It starts by comparing several state policies and more specifically looking at local government policies in Indonesia in dealing with the COVID-19 phenomenon. This study uses descriptive qualitative methods and interviews with several parties related to the COVID-19 phenomenon. The approach used is the concept of Human Security to measure the form of secured threats and objects. The study results that the implementation of the Makassar Recover policy has a dilemma in determining the priority of objects that should be secured. In the case of the COVID-19 phenomenon, it is still difficult for central and regional government policies to determine policy priorities that are directed at the economy or health sector. In this study, the results are that the Makassar Recover Policy should be implemented in stages. The health security sectors should be the priority, not economic security. Because the COVID-19 phenomenon has an existential threat to health security, economic security is still at the stage of vulnerability</p>