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Barry Buzan & Lene Hansen Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?
661
what international security studies is. In that sense, we do side with nontraditionalists who have fought to be recognized as doing work not only on
their own agenda but on security proper. As Bilgin (2010) points out in
her contribution on the Western-centrism of international security studies,
this means that The Evolution of International Security Studies devotes more
space to non-traditionalist approaches than these take up on the terrain of
international security studies, whether measured in terms of how much is
published or how much attention and citation is generated. The question of
how much and who are included is one side of the normative coin; the other
is whether a conflictual or a dialogical history is brought out. In terms of the
latter question, we should perhaps clarify that, as indicated towards the end
of The Evolution of International Security Studies (Buzan & Hansen, 2009: 262),
we do think we rely on a Foucauldian genealogical approach. This approach
is usually defined as a history of the present that traces the exclusions, marginalizations and silences that have gone into producing current understandings. Our use of genealogy led us to privilege debates/wars over the
conceptualization of security over empirical works, and to base our decision
on what was included (and what fell out along the way) on the constitution
of international security studies in the present. Moreover, precisely because,
as Bilgin argues, the Western state has been the dominant understanding of
entities or political community within international security studies, a main
priority of a genealogy must, in our view, be to engage the analytical and
normative status of the state.
Yet, we do also want to stick by our meta-normative decision to provide
a framework and a story that emphasize the possibility of dialogue across
camps rather than, in Shahs (2010: 637) words, radical incommensurability. Like Sylvester (2010), who addresses the camp-dynamics of international
security studies, we find plenty that divides international security studies,
and hence the need to find where conversations can be engaged is more pressing than pointing out that they break down. That said, we would welcome a
genealogical analysis that traces Shahs incommensurabilities and silences to
see where it might differ from ours.
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driving forces, because that is where academic power comes through most
explicitly. We agree that more could be done to theorize the impact of institutionalization on international security studies, and certainly that much more
could be done to trace it empirically. Such an expansion of the historicalsociological research agenda might also speak to Bilgins and Shahs calls for
a more critical approach to international security studies, in that it is possible
that a stronger emphasis on the sociology and power of institutionalization
would provide a different picture of international security studies than the
largely text-based one that we offer. Although we include texts on the institutionalization of international security studies, including some that trace the
role of smaller research environments and individuals, we have not had the
resources to conduct much primary research ourselves. That project would
be a good subject for another book (or doctoral thesis).
The call for boosting the study of institutionalization appears to be based on
the assumption that this factor holds sufficient explanatory or heuristic power
that it should be further subdivided. One possibility would be to continue
along the macro-sociological line that we adopt and provide more thorough
studies of funding, journals and journals networks and citation practices as
in the contribution by Russett & Arnold (2010) and international security
studies curricula. One particular suggestion would be to document hiring
practices within international security studies, looking to the way in which
particular perspectives and university departments succeed in providing
their graduates with jobs.
Another would be to look to the micro-sociology of international security
studies, as advocated by Wver (2010), or the personal experiences of security theorists, as suggested by Biersteker (2010). This raises a really interesting methodological choice. Our decision was to base analysis mainly on the
output of international security studies, its texts. Choosing to work through
the input side, the personal histories and networks of the main participants,
would almost certainly bring not just the motivations but also the conflicts
and boundary settings into clearer perspective. It would also, as indicated by
Wvers (2010: 651) Buzan & Hansen, 2020 remark, be an immense research
task, and we doubt that such an approach could ever produce a synoptic
overview of international security studies. A start, at least on the traditionalist side, has been made in Baylis & Garnetts (1991) Makers of Nuclear Strategy,
which looks at nine of the early thinkers about nuclear weapons. It would be
extremely interesting to see whether such studies would challenge the conclusions we reach or come to the same conclusions but provide a much richer
account of how we got there. We are not going to embark on such a project,
but for those who might we would like to offer two comments.
First, we disagree with Wver that a micro-sociology that starts with scholars in their immediate social context and then adds institutional conditions
and larger economic and political processes as the second and third layers
Barry Buzan & Lene Hansen Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?
663
664
Barry Buzan & Lene Hansen Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?
665
international security studies has influenced the policy world, an impact that
could be traced through studying texts (do concepts and logics from international security studies later appear in policy doctrines, speeches, etc.?) or
networks and institutions (who went to work in the world of policymaking,
or who went from policy to academe and how did that affect their writings?).
This aspect might well come out more clearly using a micro-sociological
approach. The more challenging question for The Evolution of International
Security Studies is whether there is a more distinct driving influence from the
policy world that we have downplayed or even overlooked. In the driving
forces framework, policy and politicians come in primarily through institutionalization (via think-tanks with an ideological stance, state funding for
universities and particular institutions) and great-power politics. But, one
might also see many events as driven by policy decisions. Again, we would
welcome studies that examine whether the policy world should be granted a
higher explanatory status.
666
wedded to security as the core concept. We do not see how the traditionalists can both keep security, claim it to be a distinct subject area, and represent the only perspective inhabiting this territory. There is definitely more
to say about how strategic studies saw its relationship to the (Western) state
in general, to the USA as the hegemonic power in particular, and to both
the normative opposition from peace researchers and the non-traditionalists
who sought to speak to a broader agenda of international security. We hope
that the companion study addresses these questions, and tells us not only
about the internal composition of traditionalism, but of how the wideningdeepening debates are understood.
Second, by carving up the field such that traditionalists get the use of force
and non-traditionalists get all the ostensibly softer issues, Miller (2010: 644)
stacks the cards such that non-traditionalists are said to find the study of the
use of force objectionable or problematic. Yet, we know of no international
security studies perspective that does not engage with the use of force. As
we hope The Evolution of International Security Studies has borne out, what is
at stake in international security studies debates is not that the use of force
requires analysis (and, for some, political engagement), but how it is studied
and what the implications are of adopting particular definitions of what constitutes force.
Third, Miller makes the important observation that traditionalists feel that
work in strategic studies is not respected within at least parts of the academic
world. We hope that a companion volume will make much more of the relationship between traditionalism and other parts of international relations/
political science. In particular, we would value a traditionalist insider view
of our decision to change the composition of traditionalism quite dramatically following the end of the Cold War, where we include those parts of
peace research and conflict resolution that side with the military/negative
peace agenda. Considering the epistemological battles between quantitative,
formal model and rational choice scholars from conflict resolution, on the one
hand, and the softer, case-study approach of strategic studies on the other, is
there now a silence, a truce or rearmament?
Fourth, we are also curious to find out what the reading of international
security studies from within traditionalism will imply for the four questions
and five driving forces framework: Will these factors be used differently than
when telling the story of the field as a whole? Are there other questions or
driving forces that come into view as needing to be part of the analytical
framework? Does the particular link to policy and doctrine distinguish the
traditionalists from others who work on security?
Let us conclude by thanking the contributors to this special issue for the care
and enthusiasm with which they have engaged with our book. We hope that
others will feel inspired to write one or several of the companion volumes
suggested.
Barry Buzan & Lene Hansen Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?
667
References
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