The only introduction to critical security studies to take a question-centred approach, with a unique emphasis on equipping students with the knowledge and skills to think, analyse, and debate using critical perspectives. Security Studies: Critical Perspectives introduces the analysis of security from critical and interdisciplinary perspectives. Taking a student-centred approach to understanding contemporary security themes and cases, itprovides an accessible set of analytic steps so that students develop the critical thinking skills and confidence to ask important questions about security and our worlds in contemporary politics. Common-sense security assumptions that reproduce forms of oppression and domination are revealed and their justifications decentredwhile perspectives inclusive of class, gender and sexualities, ethnicity and race, religion, disability, culture and ideology, political belonging, and the global south are introduced. In doing so, the authors combine critical analysis with concrete empirical issues that connect students to the social and political worlds around them. Five foundation chapters introducing students to key concepts and methodologies Fifteen thematic chapters, written by leading security analysts exploring key themes in security Detailed illustrative cases for each thematic chapter Accessible introductions, in the online resources, to major theoretical approaches in critical security studies Online resources Extensive cross-references to encourage students to link elements, draw connections and identify similar logics, questions, and approaches. Digital formats and resources Security Studies: Critical Perspectives is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats, and is supported by online resources. USBLThe e-book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with additional case studies, introductions to theoretical approaches, a bank of useful web links, and questions for further reflection.BEUE

This new book presents critical approaches towards Human Security, which has become one of the key areas for policy and academic debate within Security Studies and IR. The Human Security paradigm has had considerable significance for academics, policy-makers and practitioners. Under the rubric of Human Security, security policy practices seem to have transformed their goals and approaches, re-prioritising economic and social welfare issues that were marginal to the state-based geo-political rivalries of the Cold War era. Human Security has reflected and reinforced the reconceptualisation of international security, both broadening and deepening it, and, in so doing, it has helped extend and shape the space within which security concerns inform international policy practices. However, in its wider use, Human Security has become an amorphous and unclear political concept, seen by some as progressive and radical and by others as tainted by association with the imposition of neo-liberal practices and values on non-Western spaces or as legitimizing attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is concerned with critical perspectives towards Human Security, highlighting some of the tensions which can emerge between critical perspectives which discursively radicalise Human Security within frameworks of emancipatory possibility and those which attempt to deconstruct Human Security within the framework of an externally imposed attempt to regulate and order the globe on behalf of hegemonic power. The chapters gathered in this edited collection represent a range of critical approaches which bring together alternative understandings of human security. This book will be of great interest to students of human security studies and critical security studies, war and conflict studies and international relations.

Critical Security Studies introduces students to the sub-field through a detailed yet accessible survey of evolving approaches and key issues. This new edition contains two new chapters and has been fully revised and updated. Written in an accessible and clear manner, Critical Security Studies: offers a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to critical security studies locates critical security studies within the broader context of social and political theory evaluates fundamental theoretical positions within critical security studies in application to key issues. The book is divided into two main parts. The first part, ‘Approaches’, surveys the newly extended and contested theoretical terrain of critical security studies: Critical Theory, Feminism and gender theory, Postcolonialism, Poststructuralism and Securitization theory. The second part, ‘Issues’, then illustrates these various theoretical approaches against the backdrop of a diverse range of issues in contemporary security practices, from environmental, human and homeland security to border security, technology and warfare, and the War against Terrorism. This edition also includes new chapters on Constructivist theories (Part I) and health (Part II). The historical and geographical scope of the book is deliberately broad and readers are introduced to a number of key illustrative case studies. Each of the chapters in Part II concretely illustrate one or more of the approaches discussed in Part I, with clear internal referencing allowing the text to act as a holistic learning tool for students. This book is essential reading for upper-level students of Critical Security Studies, and an important resource for students of International/Global Security, Political Theory and International Relations.

This book explores the varied ways in which Nigeria needs to undergird her national security and sustainable strategies with critical thinking perspectives and principles. With insecurity in one way or another present in most, if not all, of Nigeria, this volume brings together military professionals and civilian scholars to present their shared understanding in order to answer an age-old question: Whither Nigeria’s national security and strategy? The book is relevant to political leaders, policy makers and scholars with diverse interests around sustainable strategies within security services. Ultimately, it will foster debate and constructively addresses various issues ranging from social, political, cultural, historical, economic, military and intellectual strategies.

Critical Perspectives on Cybersecurity offers a new approach to understanding cybersecurity in international relations. As a counterpoint to existing work, which focuses largely on the security of states, private actors, and infrastructure, chapter authors examine how women and communities across the Global South understand "cybersecurity," including what threats and forms of resistance are most important to them. Bringing together contributions from a globally diverse range of authors, Anwar Mhajne and Alexis Henshaw provide a human security perspective on cybersecurity that pays attention to the interplay of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and other social hierarchies, especially regarding cybersecurity in the Global South.

The notion of counter-insurgency has become a dominant paradigm in American and British thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This volume brings together international academics and practitioners to evaluate the broader theoretical and historical factors that underpin COIN, providing a critical reappraisal of counter-insurgency thinking.

This volume examines the rationale, effectiveness and consequences of counter terrorism practices from a range of perspectives and cases. The book critically interrogates contemporary counter-terrorism powers from military campaigns and repression through to the prosecution of terrorist suspects, counter-terrorism policing, counter-radicalisation programmes, and the proscription of terrorist organisations. Drawing on a range of timely and important case studies from around the world including the UK, Sri Lanka, Spain, Canada, Australia and the USA, its chapters explore the impacts of counter-terrorism on individuals, communities, and political processes. The book focuses on three questions of vital importance to any assessment of counter-terrorism. First, what do counter-terrorism strategies seek to achieve? Second, what are the consequences of different counter-terrorism campaigns, and how are these measured? And, third, how and why do changes to counter-terrorism occur? This volume will be of much interest to students of counter-terrorism, critical terrorism studies, criminology, security studies and IR in general.

This book demonstrates that the disciplinary boundaries present within international relations approaches to security studies are redundant when examining social media, and inter- and multi-disciplinary analysis is key. A key result of the analysis undertaken is that when examining the social media sphere security scholars need to “expect the unexpected”. This is because social media enables users to subvert, contest and create security narratives with symbols and idioms of their choice which can take into account “traditional” security themes, but also unexpected and under explored themes such as narratives from the local context of the users’ towns and cities, and the symbolism of football clubs. The book also explores the complex topography of social media when considering constructions of security. The highly dynamic topography of social media is neither elite dominated and hierarchical as the Copenhagen School conceptualises security speak. However, neither is it completely flat and egalitarian as suggested by the vernacular security studies’ non-elite approach. Rather, social media’s topography is shifting and dynamic, with individuals gaining influence in security debates in unpredictable ways. In examining social media this book engages with the emancipatory burden of critical security studies. This book argues that it remains unfulfilled on social media and rather presents a “thin” notion of discursive emancipation where social media does provide the ability for previously excluded voices to participate in security debates, even if this does not result in their direct emancipation from power hierarchies and structures offline.