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Security Studies (security + studies)
Selected AbstractsConstructivist Security Studies: Portrait of a Research ProgramINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2002Theo Farrell [source] Gender, Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist Security StudiesPOLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Laura J. Shepherd In this essay I develop a critique of the war/peace dichotomy that is foundational to conventional approaches to IR through a review of three recent publications in the field of feminist security studies. These texts are Cynthia Enloe's (2007) Globalization and Militarism, David Roberts' (2008) Human Insecurity, and Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics by Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry (2008). Drawing on the insights of these books, I ask first how violence is understood in global politics, with specific reference to the gendered disciplinary blindnesses that frequently characterise mainstream approaches. Second, I demonstrate how a focus on war and peace can neglect to take into account the politics of everyday violence: the violences of the in-between times that international politics recognises neither as ,war' nor ,peace' and the violences inherent to times of peace that are overlooked in the study of war. Finally, I argue that feminist security studies offers an important corrective to the foundational assumptions of IR, which themselves can perpetuate the very instances of violence that they seek to redress. If we accept the core insights of feminist security studies , the centrality of the human subject; the importance of particular configurations of masculinity and femininity; and the gendered conceptual framework that underpins the discipline of IR , we are encouraged to envisage a rather different politics of the global. [source] Germans as Venutians: The Culture of German Foreign Policy BehaviorFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2006AKAN MALICI The end of the Cold War eliminated many of the external constraints that had straitjacketed German policy during the Cold War era. At the same time, unification augmented Germany's already substantial power base. In light of these changed geopolitical circumstances, it was only logical for the dominant theory of security studies, namely realism, to expect a reorientation in German foreign policy behavior toward unilateralism and increased levels of power politics. Yet these expectations proved wrong. This article argues that German foreign policy behavior in the post-Cold War era can be ascribed to a foreign policy culture of reticence,a culture of restraint and accommodation that can be traced to well-defined sets of fundamental beliefs of the German decision-making elite. This article systematically examines these beliefs in the post-Cold War era, relates them to foreign policy choices, and concludes with a plea for increased attention to ideational variables. [source] Unipolarity, Globalization, and the War on Terror: Why Security Studies Should Refocus on Comparative Defense,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2007Damon Coletta Changes in the international environment such as the shift toward unipolarity, the rise of globalization, and the expansion of terrorist networks have redefined the sorts of problems confronted by policymakers and military practitioners in the arena of national security. With most of its fundamental concepts and frameworks rooted in the study of international relations (IR), the field of security studies has failed to keep up. Highly educated soldiers and diplomats sent to help rebuild failed or fragmented states are still poorly equipped to identify major obstacles or formulate solutions for accomplishing their missions. The safety of states and societies today depends less exclusively on blocking the military, economic, and ideological initiatives of a foreign power and more on supporting the integrity of members that can participate in an international system regulated by generally agreed-upon rules and conventions. The need to help various types of states under a variety of cultural and economic conditions build legitimate, durable political institutions and functioning societies should push security studies toward a broader examination of comparative politics. Beyond the balance of power and modalities of interstate competition, the new security studies should embrace fundamentals found outside of IR to make more robust intellectual contributions to the examination of comparative defense. [source] Becoming Undisciplined: Toward the Supradisciplinary Study of SecurityINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2005J. Marshall Beier In recent years we have seen increasing reflection among scholars of security studies regarding the boundaries of their field and the range of its appropriate subject matter. At the same time, scholars elsewhere in the academy have been developing their own approaches to issues of security. These various pockets of work have been undertaken in nearly complete isolation from one another and with little apparent awareness of relevant developments in the other fields. In this essay, we advance the claim that security cannot be satisfactorily theorized within the confines of disciplinary boundaries,any disciplinary boundaries. The challenge thus becomes how to develop what might be termed a "supradisciplinary" approach to the study of security that will allow us to think and engage our subject matter across a range of discourses without giving rise to an interdisciplinary hybrid or sui generis discipline. [source] Food security problems in sub-Saharan Africa: Operations Research as a tool of analysisINTERNATIONAL TRANSACTIONS IN OPERATIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2008Caspar Schweigman Abstract For many years, the author has been involved in teaching and research in the use of Operations Research as a tool of analysis to study food security problems in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, grass root problems of poor farmers. The paper presents an introduction to the way Operations Research methods have been applied in case studies and research projects, and discusses in retrospect the author's views on the strengths and limitations of the application of Operations Research. The paper has in particular been written for people who are not familiar with applications of Operations Research in agriculture, and are interested to learn about its potential usefulness in practice. The retrospective part is largely based on food security studies in e.g. Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Bénin, Togo and Eritrea and on participation in several interdisciplinary research programmes in Africa. [source] Gender, Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist Security StudiesPOLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Laura J. Shepherd In this essay I develop a critique of the war/peace dichotomy that is foundational to conventional approaches to IR through a review of three recent publications in the field of feminist security studies. These texts are Cynthia Enloe's (2007) Globalization and Militarism, David Roberts' (2008) Human Insecurity, and Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics by Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry (2008). Drawing on the insights of these books, I ask first how violence is understood in global politics, with specific reference to the gendered disciplinary blindnesses that frequently characterise mainstream approaches. Second, I demonstrate how a focus on war and peace can neglect to take into account the politics of everyday violence: the violences of the in-between times that international politics recognises neither as ,war' nor ,peace' and the violences inherent to times of peace that are overlooked in the study of war. Finally, I argue that feminist security studies offers an important corrective to the foundational assumptions of IR, which themselves can perpetuate the very instances of violence that they seek to redress. If we accept the core insights of feminist security studies , the centrality of the human subject; the importance of particular configurations of masculinity and femininity; and the gendered conceptual framework that underpins the discipline of IR , we are encouraged to envisage a rather different politics of the global. [source] | ||||||||||