Welsh School of Critical Security Studies - Essay Example

< Welsh School of Critical Security Studies > by Abstract The essay attempts to highlight some of the key approaches in the area of critical security studies, especially the concepts of emancipation in the Welsh School of critical security studies. The essay also analyses the Welsh School in relation to poverty. Introduction One of the most discussed issues worldwide has been the security concerns of a nation. Since the end of the cold war, a number of politicians as well as scholars have realized the need for international and domestic security. With the turn of the century and the end of the Cold War a few decades ago, a new type of peace and international co-operation has prevailed around the world. A number of components such as trans-national capitalism, liberal democracy and international organizations have affected international security in positive and in some cases negative ways. Krause & Williams (1997, p. 49) states ‘The challenges to the conventional understanding of security and the object to be secured also necessitate an epistemological shift in the way security is to be understood and studied.’ In the last decade or so, there have been various events which have threatened international security, some of them being weapons proliferation, advancements in military technology and ethnic conflict in a number of nations. Additionally, cases of human rights violation, gender inequalities and environmental as well as economic security have been on the increase in the present era. This has necessitated a new type of security framework as well as management, which can successfully handle the modern security concerns worldwide. This is also an era where terrorism activities have skyrocketed. Security Studies and International Relations Among the economists and scholars, there is an ongoing debate whether strategic studies should be modified and improved or whether security studies should be augmented. It’s however been agreed by most scholars, that strategic studies should serve a limited purpose and should be seen in the broader context of security studies. Recently, a number of European schools have integrated security studies, and theories from some of these schools have created a major impact in the field of international relations or IR. Krause & Williams (1997, p. 231) states ‘In the West, security was inseparable from the need to secure the space of Western Europe, the securing of a feminine object by a masculine subject, the United States.’ Unlike the security studies originating in American soil, the European schools have put forward breakthrough ideas and incisive analysis which has created a major impact in international relations and security studies. In the last decade, security studies have been a field which has created the most debates in the broader context of international relations. A number of non-realist as well realist theories have been challenged by these schools and new approaches to security studies have been ushered in. There have been valuable contributions from Europeans scholars as well as American scholars, and some of the most important works are the critical security studies originating in Aberystwyth, Securitization originating in Copenhagen and Bigo’s Bourdieu from Paris. Welsh School of Critical Security Studies The critical security studies originating in Aberystwyt is called the Welsh School of critical security studies. The Welsh school of security studies is promoted by scholars such as Andrew Linklater, Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones, who are all from the University of Wales. The Welsh school draws heavily from the political theories of Karl Marx and Immanuel Kant. The critical security studies of the Welsh School are also inspired partly by the Frankfurt school theory, suggested by scholars like Max Horkheimer, Jürgen Habermas and Theodor Adorno. One of the most appreciated features of the Welsh school is its unique approach to security issues. In the Welsh approach, security is considered as a kind of emancipation for the communities and individuals from the restriction of economic and political structure. The Welsh school has also been influenced by the 1991 article called ‘Security and emancipation’ by Ken Booth. The article elaborated on the new approach to security, which laid more emphasis on non-statist and a holistic approach rather than a conventional approach where threat or force is seen as important pillars to security. Thus, the Welsh approach is concerned with the liberation of people from the restrictive boundaries. The restrictive boundaries can include poverty, a poor educational framework, threat of a war or terrorism activity, political oppression and war itself. The arguments put forward by the Welsh school of critical securities studies is quite similar to the notion of human security laid down in 1994 by the United Nations Development Program. In the Welsh approach, the individual is treated as an object of security rather than the state. The state is a means of achieving security and is not an object of security as believed by conventional security theories. Wyn Jones and Booth are of the opinion that security must ultimately lead to emancipation. Emancipation is a continuous process and nations which have been successful in integrating emancipation in their security framework, has always room to improve on the emancipation front. The Welsh school is regarded as a counterpart to the more conventional liberalist and neo-realist approaches. There is a distinct difference in the approaches of the critical security studies or CSS and the realist approaches. The realists would argue that a terrorist organization such as the Al-Qaeda is a threat to the western world and U.S. and Europe would have to defend themselves from the Al-Qaeda threat. The Welsh critical security studies would try to refer to the realist studies and try to analyze the meaning structures of the threat by Al Qaeda. The Welsh school would then try to study the political intentions as well as social processes. Then, the Welsh school would ask whether the threat is truly from the Islamic fundamentalists or is it from the political elites of a certain region. Finally, the Welsh school might deduce that the perceived threat of Al Qaeda might not be as severe as it’s propagated by the media. Instead, the critical security studies would point at the western politicians, who might have a hand in falsely constructing a threat of terrorism, for their own vested interests. Scholars such as Ken Booth believe that the U.S. might be responsible for the terrorist attacks to a great extent since they have a very rigid foreign policy. The Concept of Emancipation Another one of the critical security studies’ features is the concept of emancipation. Traditional security theories do not always favor the idea of emancipation but the Welsh school seamlessly integrates emancipation in its framework of International Relations. Krause & Williams (1997, p.110) comments ‘Whereas traditional International Relations theories privileged power and order as the bases for security, critical security studies—at least in my conception of it—privileges emancipation.’ The reason why traditional security studies dislike emancipation is that traditional security studies basically are based on static concepts, whereas the concept of emancipation falls in the purview of dynamic concepts. Emancipation is a concept which highlights the freedom and liberation of people from constraints such as economic, political, physical and social. Emancipation however is very changeable. The objectives of emancipation keep changing with the changing circumstances. Realist and Marxist Critique of the Welsh School In Relation To Poverty The1991 article by Ken Booth ‘Security and Emancipation’ supported a non-statist and holistic approach to international security issues. The Welsh school‘s theory is based on the same guidelines. The guidelines include the liberation of the people from restrictions such as war and threats of war, terrorism and most importantly, the constraint of poverty. Hence, the Welsh school version of security aims at removing the prejudice of social relations, ecological destruction and poverty. Regarding the issue of poverty, the Welsh school is also greatly affected by the two approaches, the Marxist Critique of poverty and the Realist Critique of poverty. Naturally, all the three approaches are different. The realist critique believes that poverty is primarily caused by factors such as terrorism and dissidence. The realist approach often uses social atomism and empiricism to explain poverty. Moreover, realists maintain that poverty is a domestic subject and not a transnational subject. Krause & Williams (1997, p. 51) comments ‘While the categories of neorealist empiricism in International Relations are frequently (and implausibly) invoked as standards against which interpretive approaches must be judged, the issues involved here remain complex and difficult to resolve.’ On the other hand, the Marxist critique of poverty is completely different from the other traditional theories. The poor or a particular culture are not held responsible for the poverty of a community. The Marxists believe that poverty and the poor are an important part of the working class in any society. The most disadvantaged segment of the working class is called the poor. The Marxist critique rather points out that the structure of a society and the capitalist inclinations of a society is what cause poverty. Therefore, the capitalist economy is the major factor which contributes to poverty. The Marxist approach doesn’t subscribe to relative poverty, unlike the Welsh School. The Welsh school considers poverty to be a relative concept, and poverty in a particular region may be the wealth of someone else in some other region. Conclusion Krause & Williams (1997, p. 33) states ‘Optimists have declared that the end of the century is ushering in a new era of peace and cooperation, based variously on liberal democracy, transnational capitalism, international organizations, or a combination of the above.’ In the twentieth century, the major issues which prevented emancipation of individuals and communities were colonialism, racism, gender inequality and labor rights. It’ll be wrong to assume that in this century, the same issues of the twentieth century would act as a hindrance to emancipation. Emancipation is not universal, since there are number of traditionalist powers which greatly change the fabric of emancipation from region to region. The Welsh school of critical security studies tries to answer important questions such as the exact meaning of emancipation and the entities which are actually emancipated. These are important questions which require an urgent answer, for the greater good of global politics and security. Bibliography Krause, Keith & Williams, Michael (Eds.) (1997) Critical Security Studies -Concepts and Cases, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. Read More