Global Security

Global Security

Sub-field of International Relations.
1. Most important sub-field as it deals with war and peace.
  1. Essentially contested concept
    1. Walter Bryce Gallie (Aristotelian Society 1956)
      1. They are concepts where the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users and these disputes cannot be settled by appeal to empirical evidence, linguistic usage or the canons of logic alone. For e.g. art, democracy, revolution, social justice.
Traditional security studies
1. Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679 in his Leviathan:
  1. The state: provide security for their citizens (social contract theory)
    1. Classical Realism: realists are realistic and everyone else is idealistic. Assumption is man is driven by power or domination over others that can only be restrained by threat or force.
      1. Criticisms: parts made redundant by nuclear weapons, lacks coherent definitions, rests on unproivalble assumptions about human nature - superseded by structural realism.
        Walt'z theory of international politics (1979)
        Concept security dilemma developed my John Herz (1950)
        Structural Realism & Security: clear distinction between the domestic & international dimensions of politics, gives primacy to the state - to the total exclusion of all other political actors, the anarchical nature of the international system gives rise to the security dilemma, there is a disagreement over how much power is enough - which is defined by economic & military means alone.
        Defensive Realism: lack of gov. in IR means 'self-help' strategies are only rational cause of action. States seek power not because their leaders lust for it but because it is only way to survive & make them secure. Must seek power to achieve security but they should not seek too much. Security dilemma imposes limits on how much power one should seek.
        Offensive Realism: John Mearsheimer
        Liberal Internationalism: realists overstate the problems of human nature, power and the state. Basic assumption: man is driven by a lust for survival, which can be achieved via the establishment & use of international institutions.
        Cont...emerged as a coherent doctrine in the Enlightenment. Based largely on the works of Thomas Paine (1791), Immanuel Kant (1975) & Adam Smith (1776). Very prominent following WWI; since it vindicated its claims about the problem of power politics. Crystallised under Wilson's 14 points: open diplomacy, selfdetermination, free trade, disarmament, peaceful dispute resolution and the league of Nations. No answer for the actions of powerful, dissatisfied states.
        Kant's 'perpetual peace' 1795
        Democratic Peace Thesis
      2. Morgenthau's Politics among Nations (1948): designed to teach Americans how to conduct 'power politics'
Critical approaches to security

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