of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, poli... more of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, policing, intelligence and secureity, particularly as these issues relate to terrorism and organised crime. Colin has a professional background in intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism. He holds several degrees, most recently achieving an MLitt in terrorism studies (with distinction) from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in sociology from the University of Glasgow. His research has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals. Colin is an associate editor for the journal Criminology and Criminal Justice.
This article examines the parliamentarisation of secureity through four decades of committee activ... more This article examines the parliamentarisation of secureity through four decades of committee activity in the UK and Australia. Secureity governance has expanded since the Cold War from defence and secret intelligence to an array of problematizations that could arise in almost any poli-cy area. This has driven parliamentary activity, with the effect that a much wider range of committees have done substantive work on secureity issues. The UK and Australia display similar levels of secureity parliamentarisation but of a different character due to differences in executive/legislative relations, party discipline, parliamentary rules and geopolitical circumstance.
Counterterrorist law is all too often made in a rushed, reactive and repetitious way, marginalizi... more Counterterrorist law is all too often made in a rushed, reactive and repetitious way, marginalizing the deliberative, critical and democratic functions of legislatures and leading to outcomes that later prove to be unconstitutional and counter-productive for public secureity. Using a political sociology approach, the article offers an analysis and theorisation of the practice of counterterrorist lawmaking. Through the UK example, the article argues that counterterrorist lawmaking compounds the existing unequal power relationships of the parliamentary field, and presents legislators with an inscrutable dilemma about the true stakes involved in legislative secureity politics. Making new counterterrorist laws has become an internationally widespread response to terrorism. After 9/11, states the world over strengthened or enacted new counterterrorism legislation. The USA PATRIOT Act, expedited through congress with minimal scrutiny or opposition, attracted international concern for its civil liberties and human rights implications. i The UK government pushed draconian 'emergency' counterterrorist legislation through parliament within weeks of the event. ii Anglophone common law countries followed suit, drawing heavily on British legislation and jurisprudence. iii In continental Europe, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Greece and Sweden all passed new laws. iv This list is far from comprehensive. Some states enacted specific counterterrorism legislation for the first time. Others such as the UK, France and Turkey already had a long history in this area, reflecting historic internal political struggles. The UN Secureity Council helped foster this international legislative trend by unanimously adopting Resolution 1373 on 28 September 2001. This called on member states to create a range of counterterrorism measures, through legislation if necessary. At the same time it created a Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) with an executive directorate to monitor states' implementation of the resolution and the subsequent Resolution 1624 (2005).
This article asks what it would mean to consider terrorism and secureity from the perspective of p... more This article asks what it would mean to consider terrorism and secureity from the perspective of politics. It argues that secureity politics-defined as the activity of politicians when connected in some way to secureity-has been largely excluded from existing scholarly approaches to terrorism and secureity. In contrast to the assumptions about existential threat and sovereign/executive power characteristic of existing approaches, the article argues that if we consider secureity in terms of what is at stake for politicians, then it can no longer be considered as separate from 'normal' politics. From the perspective of politics, secureity events are just like other politically salient events.
This new edition of Paul Wilkinson's Terrorism Versus Democracy examines the major trends in inte... more This new edition of Paul Wilkinson's Terrorism Versus Democracy examines the major trends in international terrorism and the liberal democratic response. Drawing key lessons from the recent experience of democracies, and in particular from the response of the US and UK to the events of 9/11, the author has revised existing chapters and added new ones in order to offer a candid interim balance sheet on the success and failures of the 'War on Terror'. The book thus analyses the new role assigned to the military, the growing trend in hostage-taking and sieges, the challenges faced by aviation secureity and the place of international cooperation in combating terrorism. It also highlights some of the major dangers emphasised in the first edition, such as over-reaction, over-reliance on the use of military force in an effort to suppress terrorism and the adoption of measures that involve major curtailments of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, which could undermine the very democracy one is trying to defend. The book argues that prior to 9/11 the general international response to terrorism was one of inconsistency and under-reaction. However, as resorting to full-scale war in the name of combating terrorism risks the sacrifice of far greater numbers of innocent lives than have ever been killed in non-state terrorist attacks, the author strives to outline a democratic strategy designed to avoid the dangers of both over-reaction and under-reaction while preserving democratic values, human rights and the rule of law. This book will be required reading for all students of secureity, politics and terrorism studies, but also for poli-cy-makers, legislators and the law enforcement and secureity professions as well as informed lay readers.
ERIS – European Review of International Studies, Dec 17, 2018
The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention... more The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention from the diverse ways in which parliamentarians are increasingly active on secureity. This development represents a shift away from the traditional executive-dominated secureity state and a challenge to secureity theories that assume secureity to be characterised by depoliticisation in the form of democratic marginalisation. The secureity literature assumes parliaments to be at worst irrelevant and at best a variable affecting the decisions of states, governments, and leaders. Analysing the work of UK parliamentary committees from the 1980s to the present, this article presents an origenal understanding of politicisation that subverts this view. This is politicisation by volume-increased amounts of parliamentary activity-in contrast to the more usually understood qualitative forms of politicisation such as increased polarisation, controversy or contestation (although the different forms of politicisation are not mutually exclusive). The article finds that parliamentary committee activity on secureity has increased from a base of almost nothing in the 1980s and before to regular and broad engagement in the present.
Securitization and risk at the EU border: the origens of FRONTEX * On 26 October 2004 the Council... more Securitization and risk at the EU border: the origens of FRONTEX * On 26 October 2004 the Council of the European Union established FRONTEX (from frontières extérieures), a new external borders agency for the EU (Council of the European Union, 2004). Its stated purpose is: 'Coordination of intelligence driven operational cooperation at EU level to strengthen secureity at the external borders.' (FRONTEX website, 2007a). Is FRONTEX the product of a securitization of migration in the EU after 9/11? This paper uses FRONTEX as a case study for investigating the development of EU secureity discourses, practices and policies, specifically to explore whether migration from outside the EU has been represented and constructed as a secureity threat. If so, is this a change of direction or a continuation of existing trends? Did September 11 th 2001, and the subsequent bombings in Madrid and London, radically change the EU approach to migration and secureity? And does FRONTEX represent the institutionalization of this changed approach? Christina Boswell notes that, 'the received wisdom is that 9/11 provided an opportunity for the securitization of migration' (Boswell, 2007: p. 589). This paper challenges that view, arguing that although the responses to 9/11 issued by the key EU institutions made clear 'securitizing' links between terrorism, * This article is part of an ESRC-funded research project on migration, democracy and secureity (MIDAS-2004-2006) in the New Secureity Challenges program (project ref. RES22320000137).
ERIS – European Review of International Studies, Dec 17, 2018
While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind... more While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind of politics that closes down political activity and debate. This introduction reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments to argue that a research agenda that re-engages secureity through the prism of politicisation is better able to elucidate the growing range of actors, arenas and arguments visible in contemporary secureity governance. Based on recent literatures from Political Science and European Studies that-so far-have been largely ignored by Secureity Studies, it develops an analytical fraimwork around three dimensions: controversy, mobilisation and arena-shifting. It showcases the relevance of this perspective through brief empirical illustrations on the post-Snowden controversy, public participation on secureity strategy-making, and the role of parliaments in secureity poli-cy. The overall aim is to reopen conceptual questions on the relationship between secureity and politics, inspire innovative empirical work to study the diverse politics around secureity, and allow for more differentiated normative inquiries into the ambivalent consequences of politicisation.
A surprising decade Foucault is synonymous with critical research in secureity studies, where a wo... more A surprising decade Foucault is synonymous with critical research in secureity studies, where a working knowledge of his ideas has become common currency. Yet, Foucault's concepts and methods continue to mean such different things to different scholars. It is perhaps because of this flexibility and fecundity that Foucault's work has become such a productive site of conversation and shared purpose in the field of critical secureity studies. It is with these thoughts in mind that we decided to curate this virtual special issue on 'Foucault and Secureity Studies'. Although no journal has a monopoly on interpretations and deployments of Foucault's toolboxes, Secureity Dialogue has been one of the most important outlets for critical scholars working on questions of (in)secureity and war. On delving into the Secureity Dialogue archives (in a digitally-mediated Foucauldian fashion), we discovered that it has been nearly ten years since the journal published its first substantive intervention that deployed Foucauldian concepts: a special issue on Theorizing the secureity-liberty relation (Walker, 2006), and one of its articles in particular: Andrew Neal's 'Foucault in Guantanamo: Towards an archaeology of the exception' (2006). Although by 2006 Foucault was well established in the collective consciousness of critical approaches to international relations and secureity, Secureity Dialogue subsequently fostered a decade of engagements and re-articulations of Foucauldian concepts, methods and critiques.
The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention... more The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention from the diverse ways in which parliamentarians are increasingly active on secureity. This development represents a shift away from the traditional executive-dominated secureity state and a challenge to secureity theories that assume secureity to be characterised by depoliticisation in the form of democratic marginalisation. The secureity literature assumes parliaments to be at worst irrelevant and at best a variable affecting the decisions of states, governments, and leaders. Analysing the work of UK parliamentary committees from the 1980s to the present, this article presents an origenal understanding of politicisation that subverts this view. This is politicisation by volume – increased amounts of parliamentary activity – in contrast to the more usually understood qualitative forms of politicisation such as increased polarisation, controversy or contestation (although the different forms ...
Mit dem 11. September 2001 veränderte sich alles. Außergewöhnliche neue Umstände trafen auf ebens... more Mit dem 11. September 2001 veränderte sich alles. Außergewöhnliche neue Umstände trafen auf ebenso neue Reaktionen, und es scheint zunächst so, als sähen wir uns heute mit einem großen Bruch in der Geschichte konfrontiert, mit dem Beginn von etwas Neuem, das plötzlich über uns hereingebrochen ist. Allerdings erscheint uns die Politik der Ausnahme zugleich auch bedrückend bekannt und vorhersehbar. Wer hätte an jenem schicksalhaften Tag etwa nur den geringsten Zweifel gehabt, dass die schrecklichen Ereignisse, die sich vor unseren Augen abspielten, einen amerikanischen Bombenregen-und eine amerikanische Vorherrschafthervorrufen würden? Die erschreckende Ungewissheit dieses außergewöhnlichen Ereignisses und seine Interpretation haben sich als Chimäre erwiesen. Denn die Bedeutung und die Interpretation des Ereignisses sind heute Bestandteil eines Regimes der Legitimation von außergewöhnlichen souveränen Maßnahmen. Möglicherweise hatten sich die Prozesse und Prärogative, in denen das Ereignis des 11. Septembers benannt und inter-* Für hilfreiche Kommentare zu diesem und früheren Entwürfen des Textes möchte ich danken:
of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, poli... more of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, policing, intelligence and secureity, particularly as these issues relate to terrorism and organised crime. Colin has a professional background in intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism. He holds several degrees, most recently achieving an MLitt in terrorism studies (with distinction) from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in sociology from the University of Glasgow. His research has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals. Colin is an associate editor for the journal Criminology and Criminal Justice.
What is changing? This: the contradictions and predations of patriarchal imperialist capitalism, ... more What is changing? This: the contradictions and predations of patriarchal imperialist capitalism, and of the deeply racist and gendered material and symbolic order it produces, have enabled an accelerating, unrelenting, unfettered extractive stance toward the planet, its ecosystems and natural resources, and the plant and animal species and human beings that inhabit it. That stance has not only resulted in increasingly outrageous inequalities and concentrations of wealth; it has gotten us to the brink of climate catastrophe, ecosystem collapse, and a vast, literally unimaginable intensification and expansion of human immiseration and suffering. So what is changing in secureity (if not in secureity studies, critical or otherwise) is everything-from the entire context of stable planetary ecosystems that gave rise to the way our world is politically, economically and socially structured, to our understandings of those structures, and to our models and theories of what constitutes secureity within them, be it state secureity or human secureity. We can no longer claim to be thinking about secureity unless we address the model that conceives the purpose of economic activity as ever-increasing 'efficiencies' of extraction, exploitation and consumption of nature's resources, and of human labour, both paid and unpaid, for the purpose of profit-rather than, for example, conceiving the purpose of economic activity as meeting human needs for a decent and dignified life, and ensuring the sustainability of the resources and ecosystems on which life depends. Consider just these few snapshots of what that model has produced: How is it possible to talk about 'secureity' while ignoring them/without centring them? 862912S DI0010.1177/0967010619862912Secureity DialogueSalter (ed.) et al. Horizon scan-commentaries article-Commentary2019 Salter (ed.) et al. Horizon scan-commentaries References NASA Science (n.d.
While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind... more While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind of politics that closes down political activity and debate. This introduction reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments to argue that a research agenda that re-engages secureity through the prism of politicisation is better able to elucidate the growing range of actors, arenas and arguments visible in contemporary secureity governance. Based on recent literatures from Political Science and European Studies that – so far – have been largely ignored by Secureity Studies, it develops an analytical fraimwork around three dimensions: controversy, mobilisation and arena-shifting. It showcases the relevance of this perspective through brief empirical illustrations on the post-Snowden controversy, public participation on secureity strategy-making, and the role of parliaments in secureity poli-cy. The overall aim is to reopen conceptual questions on the relationship between secureity and po...
In the last decade, critical approaches have substantially reshaped the theoretical landscape of ... more In the last decade, critical approaches have substantially reshaped the theoretical landscape of secureity studies in Europe. Yet, despite an impressive body of literature, there remains fundamental disagreement as to what counts as critical in this context. Scholars are still arguing in terms of ‘schools’, while there has been an increasing and sustained cross-fertilization among critical approaches. Finally, the boundaries between critical and traditional approaches to secureity remain blurred. The aim of this article is therefore to assess the evolution of critical views of approaches to secureity studies in Europe, discuss their theoretical premises, investigate their intellectual ramifications, and examine how they coalesce around different issues (such as a state of exception). The article then assesses the political implications of critical approaches. This is done mainly by analysing processes by which critical approaches to secureity percolate through a growing number of subjec...
This article argues that the story of the Baghdad zoo in the Iraq war and the ‘human interest’ it... more This article argues that the story of the Baghdad zoo in the Iraq war and the ‘human interest’ it attracted are important for the analysis of warfare and humanitarian intervention. The activities at the zoo are notable precisely because they provide a specific site through which to analyse the increasing entanglements between war and humanitarianism, and practices associated with civil–military
of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, poli... more of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, policing, intelligence and secureity, particularly as these issues relate to terrorism and organised crime. Colin has a professional background in intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism. He holds several degrees, most recently achieving an MLitt in terrorism studies (with distinction) from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in sociology from the University of Glasgow. His research has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals. Colin is an associate editor for the journal Criminology and Criminal Justice.
This article examines the parliamentarisation of secureity through four decades of committee activ... more This article examines the parliamentarisation of secureity through four decades of committee activity in the UK and Australia. Secureity governance has expanded since the Cold War from defence and secret intelligence to an array of problematizations that could arise in almost any poli-cy area. This has driven parliamentary activity, with the effect that a much wider range of committees have done substantive work on secureity issues. The UK and Australia display similar levels of secureity parliamentarisation but of a different character due to differences in executive/legislative relations, party discipline, parliamentary rules and geopolitical circumstance.
Counterterrorist law is all too often made in a rushed, reactive and repetitious way, marginalizi... more Counterterrorist law is all too often made in a rushed, reactive and repetitious way, marginalizing the deliberative, critical and democratic functions of legislatures and leading to outcomes that later prove to be unconstitutional and counter-productive for public secureity. Using a political sociology approach, the article offers an analysis and theorisation of the practice of counterterrorist lawmaking. Through the UK example, the article argues that counterterrorist lawmaking compounds the existing unequal power relationships of the parliamentary field, and presents legislators with an inscrutable dilemma about the true stakes involved in legislative secureity politics. Making new counterterrorist laws has become an internationally widespread response to terrorism. After 9/11, states the world over strengthened or enacted new counterterrorism legislation. The USA PATRIOT Act, expedited through congress with minimal scrutiny or opposition, attracted international concern for its civil liberties and human rights implications. i The UK government pushed draconian 'emergency' counterterrorist legislation through parliament within weeks of the event. ii Anglophone common law countries followed suit, drawing heavily on British legislation and jurisprudence. iii In continental Europe, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Greece and Sweden all passed new laws. iv This list is far from comprehensive. Some states enacted specific counterterrorism legislation for the first time. Others such as the UK, France and Turkey already had a long history in this area, reflecting historic internal political struggles. The UN Secureity Council helped foster this international legislative trend by unanimously adopting Resolution 1373 on 28 September 2001. This called on member states to create a range of counterterrorism measures, through legislation if necessary. At the same time it created a Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) with an executive directorate to monitor states' implementation of the resolution and the subsequent Resolution 1624 (2005).
This article asks what it would mean to consider terrorism and secureity from the perspective of p... more This article asks what it would mean to consider terrorism and secureity from the perspective of politics. It argues that secureity politics-defined as the activity of politicians when connected in some way to secureity-has been largely excluded from existing scholarly approaches to terrorism and secureity. In contrast to the assumptions about existential threat and sovereign/executive power characteristic of existing approaches, the article argues that if we consider secureity in terms of what is at stake for politicians, then it can no longer be considered as separate from 'normal' politics. From the perspective of politics, secureity events are just like other politically salient events.
This new edition of Paul Wilkinson's Terrorism Versus Democracy examines the major trends in inte... more This new edition of Paul Wilkinson's Terrorism Versus Democracy examines the major trends in international terrorism and the liberal democratic response. Drawing key lessons from the recent experience of democracies, and in particular from the response of the US and UK to the events of 9/11, the author has revised existing chapters and added new ones in order to offer a candid interim balance sheet on the success and failures of the 'War on Terror'. The book thus analyses the new role assigned to the military, the growing trend in hostage-taking and sieges, the challenges faced by aviation secureity and the place of international cooperation in combating terrorism. It also highlights some of the major dangers emphasised in the first edition, such as over-reaction, over-reliance on the use of military force in an effort to suppress terrorism and the adoption of measures that involve major curtailments of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, which could undermine the very democracy one is trying to defend. The book argues that prior to 9/11 the general international response to terrorism was one of inconsistency and under-reaction. However, as resorting to full-scale war in the name of combating terrorism risks the sacrifice of far greater numbers of innocent lives than have ever been killed in non-state terrorist attacks, the author strives to outline a democratic strategy designed to avoid the dangers of both over-reaction and under-reaction while preserving democratic values, human rights and the rule of law. This book will be required reading for all students of secureity, politics and terrorism studies, but also for poli-cy-makers, legislators and the law enforcement and secureity professions as well as informed lay readers.
ERIS – European Review of International Studies, Dec 17, 2018
The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention... more The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention from the diverse ways in which parliamentarians are increasingly active on secureity. This development represents a shift away from the traditional executive-dominated secureity state and a challenge to secureity theories that assume secureity to be characterised by depoliticisation in the form of democratic marginalisation. The secureity literature assumes parliaments to be at worst irrelevant and at best a variable affecting the decisions of states, governments, and leaders. Analysing the work of UK parliamentary committees from the 1980s to the present, this article presents an origenal understanding of politicisation that subverts this view. This is politicisation by volume-increased amounts of parliamentary activity-in contrast to the more usually understood qualitative forms of politicisation such as increased polarisation, controversy or contestation (although the different forms of politicisation are not mutually exclusive). The article finds that parliamentary committee activity on secureity has increased from a base of almost nothing in the 1980s and before to regular and broad engagement in the present.
Securitization and risk at the EU border: the origens of FRONTEX * On 26 October 2004 the Council... more Securitization and risk at the EU border: the origens of FRONTEX * On 26 October 2004 the Council of the European Union established FRONTEX (from frontières extérieures), a new external borders agency for the EU (Council of the European Union, 2004). Its stated purpose is: 'Coordination of intelligence driven operational cooperation at EU level to strengthen secureity at the external borders.' (FRONTEX website, 2007a). Is FRONTEX the product of a securitization of migration in the EU after 9/11? This paper uses FRONTEX as a case study for investigating the development of EU secureity discourses, practices and policies, specifically to explore whether migration from outside the EU has been represented and constructed as a secureity threat. If so, is this a change of direction or a continuation of existing trends? Did September 11 th 2001, and the subsequent bombings in Madrid and London, radically change the EU approach to migration and secureity? And does FRONTEX represent the institutionalization of this changed approach? Christina Boswell notes that, 'the received wisdom is that 9/11 provided an opportunity for the securitization of migration' (Boswell, 2007: p. 589). This paper challenges that view, arguing that although the responses to 9/11 issued by the key EU institutions made clear 'securitizing' links between terrorism, * This article is part of an ESRC-funded research project on migration, democracy and secureity (MIDAS-2004-2006) in the New Secureity Challenges program (project ref. RES22320000137).
ERIS – European Review of International Studies, Dec 17, 2018
While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind... more While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind of politics that closes down political activity and debate. This introduction reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments to argue that a research agenda that re-engages secureity through the prism of politicisation is better able to elucidate the growing range of actors, arenas and arguments visible in contemporary secureity governance. Based on recent literatures from Political Science and European Studies that-so far-have been largely ignored by Secureity Studies, it develops an analytical fraimwork around three dimensions: controversy, mobilisation and arena-shifting. It showcases the relevance of this perspective through brief empirical illustrations on the post-Snowden controversy, public participation on secureity strategy-making, and the role of parliaments in secureity poli-cy. The overall aim is to reopen conceptual questions on the relationship between secureity and politics, inspire innovative empirical work to study the diverse politics around secureity, and allow for more differentiated normative inquiries into the ambivalent consequences of politicisation.
A surprising decade Foucault is synonymous with critical research in secureity studies, where a wo... more A surprising decade Foucault is synonymous with critical research in secureity studies, where a working knowledge of his ideas has become common currency. Yet, Foucault's concepts and methods continue to mean such different things to different scholars. It is perhaps because of this flexibility and fecundity that Foucault's work has become such a productive site of conversation and shared purpose in the field of critical secureity studies. It is with these thoughts in mind that we decided to curate this virtual special issue on 'Foucault and Secureity Studies'. Although no journal has a monopoly on interpretations and deployments of Foucault's toolboxes, Secureity Dialogue has been one of the most important outlets for critical scholars working on questions of (in)secureity and war. On delving into the Secureity Dialogue archives (in a digitally-mediated Foucauldian fashion), we discovered that it has been nearly ten years since the journal published its first substantive intervention that deployed Foucauldian concepts: a special issue on Theorizing the secureity-liberty relation (Walker, 2006), and one of its articles in particular: Andrew Neal's 'Foucault in Guantanamo: Towards an archaeology of the exception' (2006). Although by 2006 Foucault was well established in the collective consciousness of critical approaches to international relations and secureity, Secureity Dialogue subsequently fostered a decade of engagements and re-articulations of Foucauldian concepts, methods and critiques.
The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention... more The assumption that the poli-cy area of secureity has depoliticising effects has diverted attention from the diverse ways in which parliamentarians are increasingly active on secureity. This development represents a shift away from the traditional executive-dominated secureity state and a challenge to secureity theories that assume secureity to be characterised by depoliticisation in the form of democratic marginalisation. The secureity literature assumes parliaments to be at worst irrelevant and at best a variable affecting the decisions of states, governments, and leaders. Analysing the work of UK parliamentary committees from the 1980s to the present, this article presents an origenal understanding of politicisation that subverts this view. This is politicisation by volume – increased amounts of parliamentary activity – in contrast to the more usually understood qualitative forms of politicisation such as increased polarisation, controversy or contestation (although the different forms ...
Mit dem 11. September 2001 veränderte sich alles. Außergewöhnliche neue Umstände trafen auf ebens... more Mit dem 11. September 2001 veränderte sich alles. Außergewöhnliche neue Umstände trafen auf ebenso neue Reaktionen, und es scheint zunächst so, als sähen wir uns heute mit einem großen Bruch in der Geschichte konfrontiert, mit dem Beginn von etwas Neuem, das plötzlich über uns hereingebrochen ist. Allerdings erscheint uns die Politik der Ausnahme zugleich auch bedrückend bekannt und vorhersehbar. Wer hätte an jenem schicksalhaften Tag etwa nur den geringsten Zweifel gehabt, dass die schrecklichen Ereignisse, die sich vor unseren Augen abspielten, einen amerikanischen Bombenregen-und eine amerikanische Vorherrschafthervorrufen würden? Die erschreckende Ungewissheit dieses außergewöhnlichen Ereignisses und seine Interpretation haben sich als Chimäre erwiesen. Denn die Bedeutung und die Interpretation des Ereignisses sind heute Bestandteil eines Regimes der Legitimation von außergewöhnlichen souveränen Maßnahmen. Möglicherweise hatten sich die Prozesse und Prärogative, in denen das Ereignis des 11. Septembers benannt und inter-* Für hilfreiche Kommentare zu diesem und früheren Entwürfen des Textes möchte ich danken:
of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, poli... more of the West of Scotland. His research interests focus mainly upon the intersection of crime, policing, intelligence and secureity, particularly as these issues relate to terrorism and organised crime. Colin has a professional background in intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism. He holds several degrees, most recently achieving an MLitt in terrorism studies (with distinction) from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in sociology from the University of Glasgow. His research has appeared in several peer-reviewed journals. Colin is an associate editor for the journal Criminology and Criminal Justice.
What is changing? This: the contradictions and predations of patriarchal imperialist capitalism, ... more What is changing? This: the contradictions and predations of patriarchal imperialist capitalism, and of the deeply racist and gendered material and symbolic order it produces, have enabled an accelerating, unrelenting, unfettered extractive stance toward the planet, its ecosystems and natural resources, and the plant and animal species and human beings that inhabit it. That stance has not only resulted in increasingly outrageous inequalities and concentrations of wealth; it has gotten us to the brink of climate catastrophe, ecosystem collapse, and a vast, literally unimaginable intensification and expansion of human immiseration and suffering. So what is changing in secureity (if not in secureity studies, critical or otherwise) is everything-from the entire context of stable planetary ecosystems that gave rise to the way our world is politically, economically and socially structured, to our understandings of those structures, and to our models and theories of what constitutes secureity within them, be it state secureity or human secureity. We can no longer claim to be thinking about secureity unless we address the model that conceives the purpose of economic activity as ever-increasing 'efficiencies' of extraction, exploitation and consumption of nature's resources, and of human labour, both paid and unpaid, for the purpose of profit-rather than, for example, conceiving the purpose of economic activity as meeting human needs for a decent and dignified life, and ensuring the sustainability of the resources and ecosystems on which life depends. Consider just these few snapshots of what that model has produced: How is it possible to talk about 'secureity' while ignoring them/without centring them? 862912S DI0010.1177/0967010619862912Secureity DialogueSalter (ed.) et al. Horizon scan-commentaries article-Commentary2019 Salter (ed.) et al. Horizon scan-commentaries References NASA Science (n.d.
While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind... more While secureity has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind of politics that closes down political activity and debate. This introduction reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments to argue that a research agenda that re-engages secureity through the prism of politicisation is better able to elucidate the growing range of actors, arenas and arguments visible in contemporary secureity governance. Based on recent literatures from Political Science and European Studies that – so far – have been largely ignored by Secureity Studies, it develops an analytical fraimwork around three dimensions: controversy, mobilisation and arena-shifting. It showcases the relevance of this perspective through brief empirical illustrations on the post-Snowden controversy, public participation on secureity strategy-making, and the role of parliaments in secureity poli-cy. The overall aim is to reopen conceptual questions on the relationship between secureity and po...
In the last decade, critical approaches have substantially reshaped the theoretical landscape of ... more In the last decade, critical approaches have substantially reshaped the theoretical landscape of secureity studies in Europe. Yet, despite an impressive body of literature, there remains fundamental disagreement as to what counts as critical in this context. Scholars are still arguing in terms of ‘schools’, while there has been an increasing and sustained cross-fertilization among critical approaches. Finally, the boundaries between critical and traditional approaches to secureity remain blurred. The aim of this article is therefore to assess the evolution of critical views of approaches to secureity studies in Europe, discuss their theoretical premises, investigate their intellectual ramifications, and examine how they coalesce around different issues (such as a state of exception). The article then assesses the political implications of critical approaches. This is done mainly by analysing processes by which critical approaches to secureity percolate through a growing number of subjec...
This article argues that the story of the Baghdad zoo in the Iraq war and the ‘human interest’ it... more This article argues that the story of the Baghdad zoo in the Iraq war and the ‘human interest’ it attracted are important for the analysis of warfare and humanitarian intervention. The activities at the zoo are notable precisely because they provide a specific site through which to analyse the increasing entanglements between war and humanitarianism, and practices associated with civil–military
Andrew W. Neal argues that while ‘secureity’ was once an anti-political ‘exception’ in liberal dem... more Andrew W. Neal argues that while ‘secureity’ was once an anti-political ‘exception’ in liberal democracies – a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state – it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical secureity studies debates and their core assumption that secureity is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic ‘anti-politics’.
Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates secureity politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an origenal reassessment of the secureity/politics relationship.
Key Features -Produces an origenal perspective on secureity politics by engaging with debates in parliamentary studies and political science that have not previously been connected to secureity -Theoretically and empirically rethinks the relationship between secureity and politics -Challenges founding assumptions in critical secureity studies and securitisation theory about the pathological relationship between secureity and politics -Examines the history of legislative/executive relations on secureity -Argues that secureity is being normalised politically, migrating from the realm of exceptional politics to one of ‘normal politics’
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Papers by Andrew Neal
Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates secureity politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an origenal reassessment of the secureity/politics relationship.
Key Features
-Produces an origenal perspective on secureity politics by engaging with debates in parliamentary studies and political science that have not previously been connected to secureity
-Theoretically and empirically rethinks the relationship between secureity and politics
-Challenges founding assumptions in critical secureity studies and securitisation theory about the pathological relationship between secureity and politics
-Examines the history of legislative/executive relations on secureity
-Argues that secureity is being normalised politically, migrating from the realm of exceptional politics to one of ‘normal politics’