lOMoARcPSD|3850277

Security Studies

Security Studies (University of Exeter)

StuDocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)
 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

SECURITY STUDIES POL-2057

LECTURE 1. What is security?

 Security is relational

Part 1. – Security Dilemma

- Definition: Security is, objectively, ‘the absence of threats to acquired values’ and,
subjectively, ‘the absence of fear that such values will be attacked’ (Wolfers)
 fear of another group/event etc that might lead to actions that lead to
objective presence of threat.
- So, security is a matter of existence, relations, uncertainty and spill over.

Security existential:
o Life is at stake  WWI (15-20M deaths)
o But non-traditional events kill more than traditional  Flu post WWI (30M)

Security is Relational:
o Those who have particular views on nationalism etc…
o Some may believe they can contain threats with a wall – discord within and
discord without…
o Security from or against other groups will be unsuccessful.
o Not just a basic practical claim it is also moral
o Tragedy of security is we seek security against others when in fact we are
intrinsically linked.

Security Dilemma:

- Logically and empirically linked – it is a public good yet actors are unequal
- We are unpredictable  interpretation or actions and responses
- When we respond we repeat the dilemma…
- Iterative nature  interpretation leads to response which leads to interpretation etc
- Fundamental aspect of uncertainty
- Anarchy  self-help  security dilemma

Security spills over – it is expansive

o Spills over time over sectors  what was political matter becomes societal
matter e.g. migrant crisis
o Places that have armed conflict are more likely to have more
o Discursively it spills over – security sells
o Peace becomes security or conflict revolution becomes about security
o Human development from UN became human security
o Given expansive nature of security, can it be defined?

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

Definable?
o Essentially contested concept
o It is interpretive and interpreted
o Power, authority and fear all matter
o What are the underlying matter defining the field of security… (the top 4 –
existential, relational etc…)
o Inconsistency is a given but there are durable domains of concern
o Calgacus, a leader of the Britons, fighting against the Roman Empire:
 ‘To robbery, butchery, and rapine they give the lying name of
“government”; they create desolation and call it peace’
o the same act depending on the context is a matter of security or not – how is
it constructed or framed

Syllogistically….

Existence + Uncertainty => Fear

Relations + Spill-over => Politics

Fear + Politics => Security

Three Approached to Security

- peace
- power/strategy
- security/insecurity

 Such concepts cannot be defined in strict terms, and the attempt to do so

misunderstands their function in thinking about problems within Social Science.
They represent durable and coherent domains of concern rather than perfectly
defined conditions. Each has its own set of norms and assumptions which compose
the lens it provides for viewing particular social problems. Each also contains
contradictions, which is what prevents their being expressed in universally accepted
definitions”

Theory is:

1. Descriptive -> seeking to describe and explain what is happening

 Excessive focus on the state, national security and war
 Cannot explain non-traditional security e.g. terrorism
2. Normative -> offering moral justifications and evaluations of what ought to be
 Can justify state crimes
3. Prescriptive -> consequentially, what should and could happen – look to future
 Apocalyptic nuclear policies – first strike
 Wasting resources on expensive arms

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

Approaches:

1. Traditional security studies

2. Critical sec stud
3. Human security
1. Traditional:

 We are prone to aggression and violence

 Dominant actors are states/political elites
 National security and war are inevitable evils under anarchy
 Nat. Security and war are continuations of policy and politics
 Power is end of politics and the means of national security, morality is the servant
 Peace is a temporary and fragile condition – the balance of power

Question:

- How can states use force and threat of force to win war, accrue power and gain
security.

2. Critical:

- Humans are political creatures

- Security actors are multiple; they differ by space and time
- War is only one area of security; there are societal, economic and environmental
dimensions
- National security may not protect the nation but it does draw boundaries between
‘Them’ and ‘Us’ – functions of those within states
- Security is about claiming legitimate power, authority and/or sovereignty to speak
security -> who can make these claims to power -> power of daily mail e.g.
- Security threats are constructed in political relations -> who is involved/has role
- Security practice is competitive and involves “extraordinary measures”
- How something that may have been about normal relations become politicised and
securitised

Question:

- Why and how does something become a threat and what is at stake in this process?

3. Human Security:

- Humans seek cooperation and the good life

- Progressive individuals and organizations can emerge as forces for human security –
this is a progressive theory
- Human security is physical and social (structural, cultural) security – meeting human
needs – not a bare life condition

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

- Human security cannot be reduced to ‘national security’, but it should be central to

national security policy
- All forms of order must be justified by a consensus of ideas and ideals; Right makes
might
- Threats are often the result of misperceptions
- Security conflicts are not inevitable; war can be prevented, mediated and resolved
with the help of third parties

Question:

- How can parties and third parties protect human security and build positive peace
for all?

Moved from a narrow conception of theory to broader sense…

Narrow: Traditional

- ‘A theory of security, therefore, should be able to explain why arms and deadly
conflicts occur – and why they do not; and how and why they are settled – some
definitively.’ Edward Kolodziej

Broad: Critical

- What kind of vision is required to see those who die invisibly and quietly, not in
spectacular explosions but in silent deprivation of the basic necessities of life?’
Cavanaugh, Bailey & Hovey

Traditional approach isn’t a good fit for today’s events – shift in the contemporary era from
the precepts of the past which traditional could explain

LECTURE 2 – What makes a something a matter of

security?

By asking how something becomes a security matter -> have to ask wider question about
what is at stake…
- Cultures of fear

Strategy by state at centre of security  because state is central actor under anarchy
- 3 S’s of Realism… state, survival, self-help (national defence)

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

BUT empirical oversights: things theories would expect to predict

- Migration -> how does that go from pol matter to security

- Post-cold war (neo realist) makes sense for Germany to increase arms and defence…
functional interdependence of states meant interstate war was not likely.
- US – China relations was key – posed big perceived threat… but it has been no likely
reason for war.
- War on Terror – non state actors are principle threat
- Climate change – not being acknowledged

MORE

 State Centrism:
 Objectivism: security threats seemed to be self-evident…
 limited to state to state threats  we are conditioned to think like
this
 Circularity: something was a security threat because it was a security threat
 State is subject and object of security because they deem what is a
threat and what isn’t
 Materialism: the gravity of a threat was determined by material value…
 5000 nuclear weapons more dangerous than 5? Depends on
interstate relationships and whether they will use them or not

Shift came out of the 1990’s… the neo-neo debate

NON TRADITIONAL:

Four core claims:

Security must be about other actors – it cannot ve about anything or anyone

Have to determine who becomes the referent objects

1. The referent object of security is not just the state

- Security must be about other actors – it cannot be about anything or anyone
- Have to determine who becomes the referent objects

2. Security is essentially contested

- not objective or standpoint dependent – it is a political matter
- so there will be political contestation over what is matter of security or not

3.Security is for someone and some purpose

4.National security does not serve all citizens

- not equal…

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

- vast majorities of countries across the world will have ethnic divisions
What is Missed: Donald Trump

- Master of constructing threats… securitisation

- “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best... They’re sending
people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us.
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume,
are good people.”  issued executive order
- this is a security matter because there are security behaviours on American lives…
but traditional approaches will not portray that

Critical Security Studies: 3 Primary Approaches:

1. The normative – Critical (emancipatory), esp. Welsh School: “Emancipation,

theoretically, is security.”
o Making a particular claim that objective of security is secure people who are
insecure  focus on the individual

2. The subjectivist – Critical (post-structuralist), esp. Toronto School, Paris School: “The
subject of security is the subject of security” (RBJ Walker 1997: 78)
o Draws on post structuralist recourses
o Deny existence of objective structures – e.g. anarchy – and…
o Emphasis on actor – the authority of groups acting on security are defining
what security is

3. The inter-subjectivist – Critical (constructivist), esp. Copenhagen School: “the process

by which something gets designated” as a matter of security (Buzan, Waever and de
Wilde 1998: 21)
o Studies process by which something gets designated as security
o Not just product of actor’s imaginations but rather from relations between
political subjects

So, it is a big area that covers ‘security’

Securitisation gives us language that allows us to talk about security and what is at stake

Security SPEECH ACT: Austin…

- By speaking, you create consequences

- Constitutes politics – statnd for or against
- Has multiple stages:
o Identification by securitising act – they have authority
 They designate things that are threats to survival against a referent
object
 About having an audience and being able to convince people

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

o Have to have functional actors – e.g. an army willing to fight

o Done in face of opposition from desecuritising evidence
o A descriptive theory so helps us to make sense of things in real world
o Securitisation = intense politicisation **
 The context is V important… race, gender, demographics

** look at slides for diagram to show securitisation visually

Copenhagen School – Security Sectors:

1. Military
o Pertain to traditional issues of defence and weapon systems
o may cause a securitising act
2. Political
o Pertains to survival of government or nation even ethnic group
o Security of a given regime… prioritised over national security
3. Economic
o TNC’s taking over local companies
o threats of a global crash…
o all things linked to economy
o basic market instability and uncertainty is not in itself enough to allow
securitisation – need TNC actor etc…
4. Environmental
o Pertains to all matter of ecology – air, water, land etc…
o Measures taken to address current climate change can lead to other issues
5. Societal
o Ethnicity, migration etc

Examples of Securitisation:

 Successful – e.g. War on Drugs…?

 Unsuccessful – e.g. Climate change
 De-Securitised – e.g. Irish Republicanism
 Non-Securitised – e.g. Asteroid
o Buzan… there is a threat and we could stop it but it isn’t seen so
not a matter (the dog that doesn’t bark)

Questions about Securitisation:

1. Extent that referent object is ‘relatively sedimented’ (McSweeny 1996) - or being

constructed itself
o For poststructuralist critics etc… lot to show how ambiguous security actors
are
o Emotional dynamics are important – how does one generate fear
o Gendered context
o Speech acts not just as text and words but also images etc

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

2. Actors and audience are multiple and multi-level – so are securitizations

o Not helpful to thin about securitisation as a linear process

3. Need to define more clearly what counts as “security” – and what does not
a. Extraordinary measures are taken but then that becomes normalised
b. Security is cyclical

4. Is security eroding liberty?

- Security has to be sacrificed for liberty and visa versa

Conclusion:

1. Critical scholars argue that security threats are real in that they are constructed
2. They offer an account of how some issues (e.g. immigration or drugs) become a
security matter while others (e.g. climate change) do not
3. They identify that Security and Liberty are in conflict but not in balance but…
4. They do not explain the causes of war and the conditions of peace; nor a general
theory of why something becomes a security matter

Lecture 4 – Does counter terrorism and terrorism

US Government definition of terrorism:

o “the term 'terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence

perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or
clandestine agents.” 22 U.S.C. section 2656f(d)
 actors themselves are not state actors…

Terror as state action and radical democracy?

o “Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation

of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the
general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the
country.” Maximillian Robespierre, On the Principles of Political Morality,
February, 1794
 terror as means to address injustice
 complexity of the global politics that this is addressing

- politicised nature of the definitions for terrorism…

o clash and proliferation of meaning, making this complicated

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

1. Counter Terrorism and Intelligence:

- intelligence begins with a need to know (Taylor)

- if war is the continuation of politics – then definition is key (watch lecture)
- cannot gather data on every security threat

Specific data collection… Iraq 2001-2003

- Bush administration decided for regime change

2 possibilities of how intelligent community became invokved:

o Groupthink – received wisdoms in groups

 As they discuss views are moderated
 Views become harmonised
 If they have to look at threat from Iraq then they create it
 Vertical

o Bureaucratic Pressure theory

 Hierarchical
 Gov pressure to find an issue…

o Sovereign decision:
 British gov took a decision then protected itself and found evidence to
justify decision
 Role of gov in responsibility

Global Counter Terrorism:

- ‘GWOT’
o Direct measures against terrorism
 Actions against groups
 E.g. drone campaign
 Renditions programme for Guantanamo Bay

o Indirect – not targeted at terrorists but filtering data to find them

 E.g. Prism… harvest big data
 Targeted at wider population

National:

- UK strategy  4 points:
o Pursue
o Prevent
o Protect – protect buildings – about response to attack
o Prepare – training

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

o See shifts taking place – Terrorism is non-traditional… so must identify

potential threats
o 2006 -> planning attack becomes an offense

Is liberty being eroded?

Is the intelligence community using their power wisely

COST of counter Terrorism:

1. 2001-2016 (War on Terror)

- An estimated 370,000 killed

- 6,900 US troops (50,000+ allied public and private fighters in all); 619 UK troops
killed (as of 2012)
- At least 217,000 civilians killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq
- Estimated 870,000 indirect deaths
- Alcohol use associated with physical domestic violence in Army families increased by
54%, and with child abuse by 40% (2001-2011)
- 854,000 persons employed in intelligence with top-secret clearance; millions more
with general
- At least $4.6 Trillion spent by US in Iraq since 2001; UK spends £2.5 Bn p.a. on war in
Afghanistan (2012) – 6% of UK defence budget

2. 1960-90’s – Northern Ireland issues

- 3,530 deaths
- 754 UK troops killed
- 2,392 civilians killed in NI
- Various social, economic and health costs
- 1972: 30,000 British Army in NI
- 2001: 13,000 British Army in NI
- Financial cost of the military presence was £405.6 million per annum in 1993 - 1.7%
of the UK defence budget
- UK subsidy of NI:£3.3 billion per annum in 1992-3

 You are as likely to be killed by a bee in the UK as you are by a terrorist…

o Are the costs directly proportional to the threat?
o Or is it about the subjective perception
o Rather than objective threat
o Governments cannot go through a long cost benefit analysis

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

2. Terrorism:

- 3 features of Terrorism…

o Terrorism is political
o Targets include civilians
o Terrorists are not governments?

- Has strong normative dimension…

- Is there just or right terrorism?

“I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me,
including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are
struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist
yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.”
Nelson Mandela

Understanding Terrorism:

1. Terrorism’, a slippery concept:

o Terrorism is “imagined” : what counts as terrorism is arbitrarily and
subjectively designated by elites.

2. ‘Terrorist’, named groups:

o Terrorist is a category of violent political actor which is defined by -
authoritative agents (securitising actors) and constructed (securitised) as a
threat to modernity

3. ‘Terror’, a tactic or strategy:

o Terror exists objectively and subjectively as a tactic of political violence used
by states and non-state actors
o Can find and identity state and on state terror
o
** look at theory and think about how it might define terrorism

Terror as an ACT:

- Academic research using the same core/minimal definitions over a long period does
bring important insights.
o The Global Terrorism Database (University of Maryland START programme)
criteria:
o 1. The violent act was aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or
social goal;

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

o 2. The violent act included evidence of an intention to coerce, intimidate, or

convey some other message to a larger audience (or audiences) other than
the immediate victims;
o 3) and the violent act was outside the precepts of International Humanitarian
Law”

Main problem of terrorism comes from core of groups… 25 groups responsible or half
deaths etc… other half are lone wolves or short-lasting groups

Terrorism follows regional and chronological trends

Can be hard to distinguish armed conflict from terrorist related deaths

Causes of Terrorism:

1. Roots
2. Routes
3. Rational Choice

1. Roots:

- Psychological problems (Madness?) – core malady

o Not a sufficient cause in and of itself
o Plenty of evidence of rational acts
- Culture/religion (Salafism?)
o A lot of salifis disavow violence though
- Economy (The poor?)
o Some can be rich – Osama Bin Laden
- Education (The ignorant?)
o Lot of them are above averagely educated
- Demography (Young men?)
o Mainly young men
- Political grievances (The angry?)
o Vast majority with political grievances don’t commit attacks
o None of the above are sufficient causes;
o Few, if any, or necessary.
 This has hit a dead end in research
 So rather than roots of its about routes to!

2. Routes to terror:

Mix on psychological dynamics and sociological trajectories

- Anomy (isolation and lack of accountability)

o Don’t feel bound by norms
o Rebel against codes of conduct

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

o Recent immigrants are more likely to attach to this

- Exclusion / Relationship breakdown
o Friendships that breakdown – part of identity -> lose identity
o Some research shows terrorists commit after relationship breakdown
- Intergroup processes (e.g. stigma, discrimination)
o Racial issues bond people
o Fight back against the perpetrators
- Encounter with specific individuals, etc.
o The act of recruitment
o Tautological… by time they are recruited they have already been sucked in

New trend of research: Why NOT involved in terrorism?

- Methodological challenge here…

3. Rational Choices

- Cost-benefit calculation: maximising utility, strategic choice.

o ANC 1960’s – needed attention and new prominence
- Situated rationality: which sort of attack is carried out, who does it, when, against
which enemy – all details can be understood in terms of rational calculus.
o Suffragettes – target institution that are bastions of male privilege
- Terror is not irrational.

- Impossible to find a root cause

- Yet not having one root cause does not mean all the factors involved here are
unimportant

“Many factors contribute to terrorism phenomena and it is counterproductive to argue

about “the” key factor. […] The answer to “Which factor matters most?” is, in most cases “It
depends.” Centrality of context is a first principle and establishing context should be the first
order of business in organizing thought.” (Cragin, RAND)

3. Radicalisation and Counter radicalisation

Radicalization is:
- “changes in beliefs, feelings and behaviours, in directions which increasingly justify
intergroup violence” (MCCauley & Mostalenko 2008: 416)

- “the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism
leading to terrorism” UK Prevent Strategy (2011)

- cognitive precedes the behavioural  non-violent extremism precedes violent

- Key policy idea: ‘non-violent extremism’
- But what, according to government, are the causes?

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

Radicalisation is not:

Radicals” are often not radical, but conservative…

- Misleading term sometimes

Radicalization as a concept may be compared and contrasted with how we explain

recruitment into…
- Protest movements (social mobilization)
- Insurgency (militia recruitment)
- Organised Crime

Problem:

 Almost impossible to research:

o Correlation does not equal causation; You cannot understand the exceptional
in terms of the general
o Selection bias and the difficulty of ‘selecting on the dependent variable’
 Looking at those who have committed attacks to see who commits
them…
o Often, we fail to properly distinguish between behavioural and cognitive
radicalization – and affective and social

Country Estimated recruits Muslim population Proportion of Muslim pop.

Global 20,730 1,619 Million 1 per 80,000

Uzbekistan 500 27 Million 1 per 54,000

Tajikistan 190 7 Million 1 per 37,000

Kazakhstan 250 8.9 Million 1 per 36,000

UK 600 2.9 Million 1 per 4,900

Belgium 440 638,000 1 per 1,450

Saudi Arabia 2,500 25.5 Million 1 per 10,200

Tunisia 3,000 10.4 Million 1 per 3,400

Islamic Sate recruitment:

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

- It is global; driven by powerful brand

- Higher recruitment in places of violence
- Higher proportionate recruitment in Muslim-minority Europe than some Muslim-
majority regions

Also…
- Recent immigrants and full citizens – a mix
- Largely young, particularly young men
- Recruits are theologically ignorant
- Recruits are not particularly observant
- Religiosity – many are religiously ignorant

Counter radicalisation:

Encourage/pay programmes/leaders/movements sharing +- the same ideology/religion but

implementing/understanding it in a moderate way

E.g. Channel programme of “PREVENT” / UK “CONTEST” (counter-terrorism strategy)

E.g. “Moderate Muslims/Islam” encouraged or paid by the UK, the US, France,
Algeria, Netherlands, etc.
E.g. media initiatives like US-sponsored “Magharebia”

Intuitively good idea full of common-sense but…

- Those who commit violence are not necessarily the most radical individuals.
- “Radicals” might well be the most efficient “counter-radicalization” agents!
- Sponsoring “moderates” can create backlash
- The key problem is not radical beliefs, it is to accept violence as a possible tool.

UK Laws 2015 and debate:

- New laws to tackle ‘full spectrum of extremism’

- Extremism banning orders: proscribing organizations
- Extremism disruption orders: banning events
- Censorship via Ofcom
- Blacklists of organizations
- Promoting ‘British values’
- Young people, including high school and university students, are seen as at risk

CONC:

NO…
‘We are not saying that Western governments manufactured the threat of terrorism for
their own purposes….

[BUT…]

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

…What we are saying is that 9/11 constituted a challenge to the way we think about and
pursue security and the way we respond to that challenge will partly determine whether the
horror of 9/11 is repeated.’ (Bellamy and Bleiker, p.5)

[AND…]
‘The Islamist arguments for the killing of civilians are grossly immoral and dangerous.
However, we must face two sobering facts: al Qaeda has been inspired to strike by Muslim
and Palestinian suffering at the hands of the US and its allies, and they draw normative
legitimation from it.’ (Anthony Burke, p.34)

Lecture 6: Economic and Environmental Security: why

are some more secure than others?

Public knowledge is very low **

 “Unable to comprehend all the complexity around them, [many modern Western
citizens] choose instead to comprehend almost none of it and then sullenly blame elites for
seizing control of their lives. Faced with a public which has no idea about the way most
things work, experts disengage, choosing to speak mostly to one another.” Tom Nicholas
Foreign Affairs – READ How America lost faith in Expertise.

What makes some places chronically insecure?

Not military and political security.

Additional security sectors (Copenhagen School)
1.Societal security
2.Economic security
3.Environmental security

Economic inequality turns out to be a common factor in all.

It is objectively a threat, subjectively narrated, but is rarely securitised…
- Often diminished in value though…
- So often not securitised

ECONOMIC SECURITY:

Narrow:

‘Safeguarding the structural integrity and prosperity-generating capabilities and interests of

a politico-economic entity’ (Dent in Collins, 2010, p.244)
- Could be sector of economy
- Ability to extract something e.g. oil…

Broader:

Copenhagen: broader threats to them are not included…

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

- Economic threats to a non-economic entity – financing of terrorism creating military

problems
- Economic actors causing non-economic threats – businesses transferring WMD
technology for business reasons causing traditional Sec threats
- Non-economic actors taking economic measures to counter non-economic threats
and achieve non-economic security – (sanctions in coercive diplomacy e.g.) -
(Shiffman in Collins 2013/2016)

Narrow and the broad are related… inextricable linkages.

ISSUES:

1. Debt: is it a security threat

- Adds to crisis that have high impact on lives

- Can lead to broader macro-economic threats

2. Inequality:
- Incline in debt matches incline in inequality
- Can inequality make crisis more likely
- Has knock on political effects which adds issues to broader society

3. Labour vs Capital – capital concentration.

- Since capital tends to be owned by richer households, a rising share of national
income going to capital worsens inequality. […] Politically, that is dangerous, and is
producing a lot of particularly polarised debate.

4. Offshore Tax Havens:

- Is this sustaining inequality…
- Capital mobility – enhanced by globalisation
- Allow tax avoidance and secrecy but that means money laundering etc

COUNTERING ILLICIT GLOBALISATION:

*** READ GLOBAL SHELL GAMES

- Anonymous shell companies – no need for photo ID

- Corporate service providers do not do checks consistently – high risk companies can
be easily set up…
- Compliance higher in tax havens than in OECD
- Offering a bribe works (to a degree)

Links to wider situation of how capitalism has developed… and the issues that that has
created.

Crisis of Capitalism: David Harvey, Crisis of Global Capitalism (2010) – Watch…

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY:

Narrow:
- environment as referent object (‘ecological security’)
- damage to the environment causing security issues…

Broad:
- environment as threat to various referent objects of human society; sometimes
counter-measures conflict
- island states
- environmental counter measures working against each other…
- e.g. threat of global warming – reducing petrol cars – UK subsidise deiseal cars…

ISSUES:

1. National Disaster:

- Hurricanes…
o Katrina – age and race associated issues
o Haiti – same poor are continually flooded and subject to drought.

2. Environmental and Armed conflict…

- Correlation between rising temps and inter-group conflict…

 Each [degree of] change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme
rainfall increases the frequency of interpersonal violence by 4% and intergroup conflict by
14% (median estimates).
- Water wars… rare and frequently exaggerated
- Hard to securitise

The causes come from the rich…

- The wealthiest 20% = 53% CO2 emissions; The poorest 20% = 3% CO2 emissions

The costs are borne by the poor…

- E.g. Annual deaths due to poor water quality (diarrhoea)

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)

 lOMoARcPSD|3850277

- Wealthiest countries: Negligible

- Poorest: an estimated 5 million

3. Climate Change: Paris Agreement

- Agreed a hold to the rise in temps – keeping it 1.5 degrees down…

- Wasn’t fully enforced…
- Targets are non-binding… so not enforceable.
- It’s a fraud… so why isn’t is securitised
No real radical measures in securitising environment:

- Uncertainty of future without immediacy of threat

- Securitising actors are weak
- De-securitising actors are strong
- The enemy is primarily systemic and secondarily a group of actors

Downloaded by mc160400079 Makhdoom Muhammad Ali (mc160400079@vu.edu.pk)