What is security?

Question 1

Is there a consensus among academics to the definition of security?

Answer 1

No

Question 2

What is a definition of security?

Answer 2

The absence of threat

Question 3

Why is it difficult to find a common consensus on what security is?

Answer 3

It is based on our perceptions

Question 4

When did security studies become one of the main subfields of IR?

Answer 4

After WW II when there was a need to understand the development of relations between the two superpowers, and at the appearance of asymmetrical conflicts non-conventional conflicts

Question 5

When was the golden time for security studies?

Answer 5

50s and 60s

Question 6

What are the four S’s in security studies?

Answer 6

1. Strategy
2. States
3. Science
4. Status quo

Question 7

What does the Ontological perspective focus on?

Answer 7

What is the specific phenomena to be studied. Can as “what is security” and what the role of the state is in providing security.

Question 8

What does the Epistemological perspective focus on?

Answer 8

How we understand a phenomena. How we can produce knowledge about it.

Question 9

Why is it important to be aware of security ad power relations?

Answer 9

European knowledge will often be more legitimized than knowledge around the same subject from Africa.

Question 10

What does the Methodological perspective focus on?

Answer 10

Tools to be used when studying security and the specific analysis techniques

Question 11

What happened to security studies in the 80s?

Answer 11

It was amplified to include different issues such as health and food security. Must therefore be studied as a transdisciplinary study in order to understand it.

There is a major theoretical discussion of the security concept.

The use of the strategical perspective and the appearance of other critical perspectives of security

Question 12

What did Buzan mean with: “Security does not affect only states but also collectives”?

Answer 12

Security can cross borders, and can affect minorities. Ex: the Kurds and the Nazis. We are not only talking about the states borders but also its citizens

Question 13

What are the five classifications of security?

Answer 13

1. Military security
2. The political security
3. Economic security
4. Societal security
5. Environmental security

Question 14

what is the definition of military security?

Answer 14

The interaction between the offensive and defensive capacity of the state perception and intentions

Question 15

What is political security, and how is it viewed by liberals?

Answer 15

It is the stability of a political system. Liberals see democracy as a tool to uphold this stability as the government can be changed in a peaceful manner.

Question 16

What is the understanding of economic security?

Answer 16

There is a higher level of violence and crime in societies where inequalities are higher

Question 17

What is included in societal security, and how does France view this?

Answer 17

It is centered on the support of cultural identity, language and religion. France believe that homogeneity is the best solution, and that immigrants should leave their past in order to become French.

Question 18

What is included in environmental security?

Answer 18

The preservation of our ecosystem and the threat of climate change

Question 19

What is the perspective of security as power accumulation?

Answer 19

The more power you have, the more secure you are. Other states will be deterred by your capabilities

Question 20

What is the perspective of security from power?

Answer 20

Focus on the power relation between actors rather than material. Ex: Columbia plays an important role in the region and will therefore be a less likely target.

Question 21

What is the perspective of security from a rational sense?

Answer 21

Linked with the liberal and the institutionalist perspectives as it believe that security can be accomplished from a degree of trust in relationships with shared commitments with other actors. Believe in a common interest of peace.

Question 22

When we say that security is the absence of threat we do not only talk about something that threatens the survival of the state, but also…

Answer 22

what is life conditioning. These can be the freedom that democracy brings as well as the access to healthcare and food. It is the threat to achievements of political goals such as health and education for all, gender equality etc…

Question 23

What are three conceptions of security?

Answer 23

1. The objective conception
2. The Subjective conception
3. The discursive conception

Question 24

The objective conception of security

Answer 24

This is the traditional perspective of an absence of a material or military threat. In this case, the level of threat can be measured such as the nuclear threat

Question 25

The Subjective conception of security

Answer 25

This is the absence of a feeling of threat. This cannot be measured and compliments the objective conception.

Question 26

The discursive conception of security

Answer 26

security cannot be defined in objective terms. It is a discourse created by the state in order to legitimise the creation of exceptional policies. Ex: The war on terror.

Question 27

What us the traditional approach to security studies?

Answer 27

This was the main approach during the cold war and focused mainly on the state and the military perspective. It believed that actors make the most rational decisions, and did by this put ideas of natural science into social science. The methodologies applied were rational and positivist. The ruling perspective is the realist, but with certain traits of liberalism as diplomacy still exists.

Question 28

How has the traditional approach to security studies evolved?

Answer 28

After the cold war there has been a proliferation of actors and methods of warfare. One can therefore no longer only study it from the perspective of the state and the military. One does no longer believe that actors can make rational decisions, and no actor can be completely neutral.

Question 29

What happened to security studies in the 70S?

Answer 29

There was a widening in the variety of threats. It went beyond military factors. We are not only talking about terrorism, but also the idea of justice.

Question 30

What happened to security studies in the 60-80s?

Answer 30

The appearance of other subjects beyond the state. Ex: look at the link between poverty and violence.

in the 80s we saw the first critical approaches to security.

Question 31

Busan and Hansen 5 factors of the theoretical evolution of security studies

Answer 31

1. Superpower politics and due to the distribution of power among them
2. Technology, specially nuclear
3. Specific historical events
4. internal dynamics of academic debates
5. institutionalization of the security studies

Question 32

Three different levels of superpower politics

Answer 32

1. Bilateral: US vs USSR
2. Unilateral: US after the cold war
3. Multilateral: future?

Question 33

Why is nuclear power an important part of security studies?

Answer 33

Nuclear power gives a state a lot of power and can be used as persuasion. Military power can increase your ranking

Question 34

Why is the internal dynamics of academic debates important in security studies?

Answer 34

Academic debates will impact how the country behaves

Question 35

What is the institutionalization of security studies according to Busan and Hansen 5 factors of the theoretical evolution of security studies

Answer 35

The recognition of the existence of security studies as a subfield under the study of international relations

Question 36

What are the two epistemological debates of security studies?

Answer 36

1. Rationalist or positivist
   - traditional perspective does not take perception into account. believes that the sate acts as a rational actor
2. Post-positivist or reflectivist perspective
   - believes that one cannot measure perception. How we build the idea of a threat is related to identity. It is what creates the idea of an opposition of the identity of the enemy

Question 37

Which epistemological argument will the US most often use?

Answer 37

Rationalist or positivist

Question 38

Which epistemological argument will Europe most often use?

Answer 38

Post-positivist or reflectivist perspective

Question 39

What was the traditional perspective of security studies during the cold war?

Answer 39

The main threat is seen as the military power of another state. If I can maintain the security of the state I can also maintain the security of the people within the state.

Did not look at the domestic situation of one’s own state, but focused on the military capabilities of another state.

Question 40

What are four important parts of the state-centric perspective post the Cold War?

Answer 40

1. Intrastate perspective and violent non-state perspective
2. New actors appear
3. 9/11: changed the idea of security-reinforce realist approach
4. War on Terror

Question 41

Under which circumstance was the idea of “preventive war” introduced?

Answer 41

The War on Terror

Question 42

Why do we have to rethink the concept of war after 9/11

Answer 42

The War on Terror is not a war against another state, but against a group and an ideology

Question 43

What is Johan Galtung’s theory on negative peace?

Answer 43

The absence of a violent conflict through trust-building, negotiation, and disarmament agreements

Question 44

What is Johan Galtung’s theory on positive peace?

Answer 44

Social justice and the absence of structural violence, and the common security cooperation against global threats

Question 45

What is human security?

Answer 45

It was a term that was first coined in a UN development report from 1994 when the international context he’s a liberal perspective and the US was a unilateral superpower. It saw a causal relationship between poverty and violence.

Question 46

What is the difference between the wide and the Restrained approach to Human security?

Answer 46

In the wide approach, one will consider the interlinkage between human security and human development in order to ensure freedom from threat and fear, as well as ensuring basic needs.

In the narrow approach, one will merely focus on the freedom from fear and physical violence, and will not consider development.