Introductory description

Since the end of the Cold War, the expansion of security agendas and the application of security logics to new issues has been widely discussed and analysed. Security is no longer just about the balance of power, narrowly defined conceptions of the national interest, or a focus on strategic issues of war and peace but is increasingly dominated by concerns about migration, climate change, health, development, cyber etc. Arguably, though, the widening and deepening of security only captures part of current trends. Alongside such processes, it has also become common to hear proclamations of a contemporary ‘age of anxiety’. Popular culture, for instance, is replete with visions of dystopian futures about, inter alia, climate breakdown, technological catastrophe, global pandemics, democratic collapse, and authoritarian futures. Framed differently, insecurity has become an ontological condition characterised by (sometimes species level) anxieties about the future.

This module has three aims. First, to engage with and explore how security has become an increasingly contested and politicised concept. Thus, while the expansion of security is often welcomed, it is always important to consider how security is defined, who the winners and losers are, and therefore whether the expansion of security is necessarily positive. Second, it frames debates about the emergence of new issues on the security agenda in terms of the effects of generalised anxiety on security. It is, in this respect, concerned with how we actually experience (in)security in our everyday lives. Third, the module will therefore familiarise students with a number of concepts and theories that have become increasingly important for thinking about the contemporary security terrain.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1: Security and the Perma-Crisis
Week 2: Order: Security and Crises of Global Order
Week 3: Governance and Trust: Populism, Polarisation, Truth
Week 4: Identity: Societal Security, Borders, and Migration
Week 5: Agency, Cosmology, and Existence: Eco-Anxiety, the Global Commons, and the Collective Action Problem
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Freedom and Control: Towards a Generalised State of Exception?
Week 8: Commodification and Risk: The Corporate Capture of Security
Week 9: (Post)Humanity and Purpose: Security Utopias/Dystopias OR Algorithms, AI, and the Rise of the Robots
Week 10: Recognition and Moral Being: Mnemonical Security and Memory Wars

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Appreciate the politically contested nature of the concept of security and foreground the everyday experience of (in)security in the contemporary age of anxiety..
• Identify core debates about the changing nature of security in the contemporary age, the processes that underpin them, and their potential implications.
• Interrogate those claims with a particular emphasis on their political and ethical dimensions and with respect to how debates about security are inherently politicised.
• Engage with policy debates about pertinent approaches to tackling a range of diverse security issues.
• Effectively communicate and debate arguments about the contemporary broadened international security agenda.

Indicative reading list

 Booth, K. (ed.) (2005) Critical Security Studies and World Politics (Lynne Rienner).
 Bourne, M. (2014) Understanding Security (Palgrave Macmillan)
 Browning, C. S. (2013) International Security: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press).
 Buzan, B. et al., (1998) Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Lynne Rienner).
 Buzan, B. and L. Hansen (2009) The Evolution of International Security Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
 Collins, A. (ed.) (2010) Contemporary Security Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Second Edition.
 Dannreuther, R. (2007) International Security: The Contemporary Agenda (Cambridge: Polity).
 Fierke, K. (2007) Approaches to International Security (Cambridge: Polity).
 Hough, P. (2004) Understanding Global Security (London: Routledge).
 Hough, P. et al (2015) International Security Studies: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge).
 Jarvis, L. and J. Holland (2015) Security: A Critical Introduction (Palgrave).
 Kay, S. (2006) Global Security in the Twenty-First Century; the quest for power and the search for peace (Roman and Littlefield).
 Mabee, B. (2009) The Globalization of Security (Palgrave).
 Peoples, C. and N Vaughan-Williams (2010) Critical Security Studies: An Introduction (London: Routledge)
 Sheehan, M. (2005) International Security: An Analytical Survey (Lynne Rienner).
 Terriff, T.; S. Croft, L. James and P. Morgan (1999) Security Studies Today (Cambridge: Polity).
 Williams, Paul (ed.) (2013) Security Studies: An Introduction (London: Routledge).

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

By the end of the module students should be able to:

• Appreciate the politically contested nature of the concept of security.

• Identify core debates about the changing nature of security in the contemporary age, the processes that underpin them, and their potential implications.

• Interrogate those claims with a particular emphasis on their political and ethical dimensions and with respect to how debates about security are inherently politicised.

• Engage with policy debates about pertinent approaches to tackling a range of diverse security issues.

• Effectively communicate and debate arguments about the contemporary broadened international security agenda.

Transferable skills

Critical analysis
Presentation and communication
Argument and debate