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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An essential critical appraisal of the concept of "security" in IR theory,
By Rob Woods (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cultures Of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger (Barrows Lectures) (Paperback)
The essays collected in this book, which represent a sort of interdisciplinary confluence between "political science" (such as it is) and anthropology, engage with traditional international relations theory in a really compelling and refreshing manner. The central idea is fairly simple: "insecurity," whether between states or other non-state actors, is not naturally given, but is instead produced through social interaction. Coming from this is an ontological refocus, in which the subject (ie, the actor) is "decentred" within the field of analysis, and replaced by these social processes themselves. Subsequently, we see the emergence of questions related to the nature of identity and "culture," the power relations that are manifested in the production of these insecurities, and some of the most basic assumptions of more traditional "rationalist" theories (which are revealed to be problematic).
The exceptional introductory chapter establishes a set of core principles: reality is socially constructed; this construction reflects, enacts, and reifies relations of power; and the "critical constructivist" approach promoted throughout the book must problematise these dominant constructions (or discourses) while reflexively acknowledging its own role within the discursive field. Each successive chapter employs these principles, more or less, to analyse a specific IR-relevant topic, including the Cuban missile crisis, the ineffectual international response to genocide in Rwanda, the "colonisation" of the Internet as a new field of national insecurity, and the failure of neorealism to anticipate the end of the Cold War. Despite the fact that the content is diverse, conceptual incoherence is avoided through reference to these basic ideas, and the case studies instead do a good job of developing and highlighting the usefulness of the approach. The editors themselves identify strongly with the constructivist school. I'd argue that their reflexive approach to discourse puts them somewhere further down the post-positivistic spectrum, closer to poststructuralism. Either way, this book should be required reading for anyone in the field of international relations, particularly those with a specific interest in security studies. By effectively critiquing a number of traditional assumptions within IR theory, it serves to alleviate the hegemony of certain long-dominant schools of thought, and provides a more complex and, arguably, a more realistic portrayal of political process. FURTHER READING: David CAMPBELL, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity and National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia In both of these works, Campbell provides an intriguing account of foreign policy, in which these discourses, rather than expressing the interests of a predefined national group, actually participates in constructing the group's identity and defining the state as an object. William CONNOLLY, Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox Connolly examines the relational, interdependent nature of the concepts of identity and difference, which, he argues, are mutually constitutive and conceptually inseparable. Ernesto LACLAU and Chantal MOUFFE, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics Laclau and Mouffe tackle a number of related concepts, including the constitutive and constraining nature of discourse, and the emergence of systemic organising principles through (often unguided) self-reinforcing social processes. Jutta WELDES, Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis An expanded version of Weldes' chapter on the Cuban missile crisis.
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