WHAT KIND OF
SECURITY?
Lucie Konečná
CDSn4005 Security Systems and Actors
27/2/2024
Brief History of S S
• Sub-discipline of IR
• What is security?
• Agenda of SS
• Periodization of the evolution of security studies:
a) Interwar period (national security ensuring the defense of the state, first
research centers)
b) the 1950s (interdisciplinarity, focus on foreign policy expansion of the
methodological base - game theory dominant direction realism, World
Politics)
c) period 1955-1965 (strategy for the use of nuclear weapons, Survival
journal)
d) period 1965 -1980 (decline SS, MAD - mutual assured destruction)
e) period 1980-1989/90 (International Security journal, new approaches)
f) period after the end of bipolar confrontation (completely new topics,
non- military threats)
2023 ESTIMATED GLOBAL NUCLEAR WARHEAD INVENTORIES
The world's nuclear-armed states possess a combined total of over 12,500 nuclear warheads;
nearly 90% belong to Russia and the United States. Approximately 9,600 warheads are in
military service, with the rest awaiting dismantlement.
•
\ U N I T E D l
| S T A T E S |
5,244
^ J N T T E D l
| K I N G D O M |
^ R U S S I A !
o r ? r i s r r ^
| I N D I A | K T ^ H
Source: Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Reynolds, and Kate Kohn. Federation of American Scientists,
U.S. Department of Slate, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Updated: June 2023
Arms Control
Associatioi
Critical Security Studies
Shift in the 90s (The first impulse - Toronto school - Strategies in Conflict: Critical
Approaches to Security Studies)
Traditional security studies focused on military and state as referent object
Discussion of the concept of security in the 90s - three groups
- A) group against changing the agenda (John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt)
- B) group supporting the partial change (Schultz, Buzan?)
- C) group supporting radical reform (Ulman, Kegley)
A shift in the definition of the referent object and threats
Mohammed Ayoob - subaltern realism
C S S - two characteristics:
Exploring the differences between the Euro-Atlantic approach and Third World authors
The concept of the individual as a separate referent object
The most famous SS approaches Toronto
School
• 1994 - small conference at the York University entitled Strategies in Conflict:
Critical Approaches to Security Studies
• Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams - Critical Security Studies: Concepts and
Cases
• They began to questioning the concept of state as the main referent object who
or what is to be secured?
• Set out agenda of CSS in three points:
a) referent object
b) security more than just a military security
c) changed the way how security was studied
New topics and new referent objects
The most famous SS approaches Copenhagen
School
• 1995 - Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver and Jaap de Wilde published book: Security: A
New Framework for Analysis
• Old vs. new concept of security
• Concept of sectoral security - military, political, economic, societal,
environmental security
• Concept of securitization
• Concept of analytical levels/categories (international systems, international
subsystems, units, subunits and individuals).
• Concept of regional security complexes (4 basic principles)
„a group of states whose major security perspectives and concerns are so
intertwined that the national security issues of each cannot be adequately analyzed
or addressed separately"
Copenhagen School - Regional
Security Complexes
Map 2. Patterns of Regional Security Posl-Cold War
Copenhagen School - Securitization
• Referent object - entity which is threatened and has legitimate right for survival
• Securitisation actor - the one who securitises
• Functional actor - influences the dynamic of the sector
• Securitisation actor is presented by an entity which presents certain issue as
security threat through speech act - 2 phases:
a) portraying a certain problem as an existential threat
b) accepting the phenomenon as a threat and subsequently taking
appropriate measures
• Three aspects influencing success of the securitization - the nature of the threat,
the external context, the linguistic and grammatical criteria of the speech act
The most famous SS approaches Welsh/Aberyswyth
School
• Steve Smith - Critical Security Studies and World Politics, Theory of World
Security by Ken Booth.
• Emancipatory realism - security is perceived in a wider context = education,
economic growth, healthy environment, etc.
• Focused on a normative goal = human independence
• A wide range of non-military threats
• The normative aspect - an academic lives in society and cannot separate
himself from "values" - we select and emphasize certain facts + influences such
as gender, education, class, etc... The problem is not that we do not make an
"objective decision", the problem is that some options we choose to ignore
Sectoral analysis - Military sector
• Referent objects - state or military.
• Securitisation actors - ruling political elite
• In practice, the military security agenda includes the ability of governments to
avert internal and external threats to their existence, but also includes the use of
military force to defend states or governments against non-military threats such
as immigrants, competing ideologies, etc.
• 2 major turning points: the end of the Cold War + the collapse of the USSR and
9/11
• The biggest threat - conflicts
• Military sector and events of 2023/2024 - war in Ukraine, long-lasting conflicts in
Syria and Jemen, increasing instability in the Sahel, etc.
Sectoral analysis - Political sector
• Referent object - stability and sovereignty of the state
• Securitisation actor - political leaders
• Threats against internal legitimacy x external recognisiton/legitimacy
• 3 components of the state: ideas/ideology of the state, physical base and
institutions.
• Threats: separatist tendencies towards weak states, threats to states arising
from political-ideological issues, actions of the supranational, regional
integration unit and the reaction to this action, etc.
• Domestic (coups, anti-government protests, delegitimization of the government),
regional (tensions and instability within bilateral relations), and global level
(rising tensions between the West and China/Russia).
Sectoral analysis - Economic sector
• Referent object can be individuals, sometimes states (economic stability and
prosperity) and sometimes the entire international economy
• Securitisation actor - state authorities, IGOs and sometimes companies
• Threats: economic losses, eventual collapse of the entire economy, economic
declines, etc.
• Economic regionalism - EU, ASEAN, NAFTA/US MCA, etc.
• A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial
assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. Example: banking
crisis, currency crisis, international finances crisis.
Sectoral analysis - Societal sector
• Referent object - national security, society/community
• Societal security = identity security
• Securitisation actor - Leaders (political, spiritual, tribal etc.).
• Identity threats : a) Migration
b) Horizontal Competition
c) Vertical Competition
d) Massive population decline
• The way in which identity is constructed is important, examples: Separation,
Numerical superiority, Language, Cultural customs, Melting pot, etc.
Sectoral analysis - Environmental
• Referent object - the environmenScSCrfeOflfits strategic components, the
preservation of the current level of civilization
• Securitisation actors - governments, government agencies and
intergovernmental org. - governments establish rules to the actors, enforce their
compliance
• Three types of threats:
a) Threats to human civilization that arose from the natural environment
and not caused by human activity.
b) Threats caused by human activity and affecting the natural system
(present an existential threat)
c) Threats caused by human activity and affecting the natural system (do
not represent an existential threat)
Sectoral analysis
POLITICAL
SECTOR
MILITARY
SECTOR
GLOBAL RIVALRY
WEAK STATES OF GREAT POWERS
AND REDISTRIBUTION
OF POWER
NATIONAL
PROTECTIONISM
COMPETITION O F
REGIONAL POWERS
AND REGIMES
CONFLICT
IN SYRIA
DECREASE
~L.RKE'r": ASSERTIVE! IESS |,j THE LEGITIMACY
EROSiOll OF THE OF NATIONAL
TRANSATLANTIC GOVERNMENTS
BOND
IMPACT ACTIVITIES
(RUSSIA, CHINA)
CONFLICT NAGORIIOKARABAKH
III AFGHANISTAN CONFLICT-
CONFLICT
C O M P E T E ™ " , L , B Y A
RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT
BETWEEN Hi UKRAINE
CHINA AND U
CONFLICTS
III YEMEN
AND ETHIOPI
AUTHORITARIAN
TENDENCIES
RADICALISM
POPULISM
SOCIETAL
SECTOR
INTERNATIONAL
MIGRATION
ENVIRONMENTAL
SECTOR
ECONOMIC
SECTOR
Security according to Reveron and
Mahoney-Norris
Derek S. Reveron, Kathleen A. Mahoney-Norris - Human and National Security
Understanding Transnational Challenges
H u m a n Security
Crime
Corruption
Disease
Poverty
I U U Fishing
Identity Hacked
Religious Intolerance
Radicalization
Natural Disaster
Jational Security
Crime
Governance
Pandem
Unequal Ddvolopment
Maritime Border Dispute
Infrastructure Attack
,o/iflict
Extremi
utarian Crisis
ternational Security
Transnational Criminal Enterprise^
Failing State
Global\Pandemic
Mass Migration and Refugees
nsecurity
de
International Terrorism
ate Change
Security according to Reveron and
Mahoney-Norris
• Identity Security
• Civil Security
• Economic Security
• Environmental Security
• Maritime Security
• Health Security
• Information Security
Class Participation- Discuss the
following points:
What type of security do you think is the most important and what is the least
important? Justify your answers
- Identity Security, Health Security Military Security Economic Security
Environmental Security Information Security Civil Security Maritime
Security
What do you think are the three biggest threats that Central European society
faces at the moment?
How are these threats different from those that most endanger African and Asian
societies?
Thank you for your
attention