Security studies

Last updated
The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York, also known as the Norwegian Room United Nations Headquarters - Security Council chamber, straight-on view.jpg
The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York, also known as the Norwegian Room

Security studies, also known as international security studies, is an academic sub-field within the wider discipline of international relations that studies organized violence, military conflict, national security, and international security. [1] [2]

Contents

While the field (much like its parent field of international relations) is often meant to educate students who aspire to professional careers in think tanks, consulting, defense contractors, human rights NGOs or in government service positions focused on diplomacy, foreign policy, conflict resolution and prevention, emergency and disaster management, intelligence, and defense, it can also be tailored to students seeking to professionally conduct academic research within academia, or as public intellectuals, pundits or journalists writing about security policy. [3]

History

The origin of the modern field of security studies has been traced to the period between World War I and World War II. [4] Quincy Wright's 1942 book, Study of War, was the culmination of a major collaborative research project dating back to 1926. [4] Scholars such as William T. R. Fox, Bernard Brodie, Harold Lasswell, Eugene Staley, Jacob Viner, and Vernon Van Dyke were involved in the project. [4] Security studies courses were introduced at Columbia University, Princeton, the University of North Carolina, Northwestern, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania in the 1940s. [4] Think tanks, such as the RAND Corporation, played an influential role in post-WWII security studies in the United States. [1] The field rapidly developed within international relations during the Cold War, examples from the era including the academic works of mid-20th century realist political scientists such as Thomas Schelling [5] and Henry Kissinger, [6] who focused primarily on nuclear deterrence.[ citation needed ]

Some scholars have called for expanding security studies to include topics such as economic security, environmental security and public health. Stephen Walt has argued against this expansion, saying it would undermine the field's intellectual coherence. [1] While the field is mostly contained within political science and public policy programs, it is increasingly common to take an interdisciplinary approach, incorporating knowledge from the fields of history, geography (stressing classical geopolitics), military sciences, and criminology.[ citation needed ]

The field of security studies is related to strategic studies and military science, both of which are frequently published in security studies journals. [7]

Book series

The 'Studies in Asian Security', by Stanford University Press, is one of the most prominent book series on Asian security studies. [8]

Journals

International Security and Security Studies are the most prominent journals dedicated specifically to security studies. [9] Other security studies journals include:

See also

Related Research Articles

International relations theory is the study of international relations (IR) from a theoretical perspective. It seeks to explain behaviors and outcomes in international politics. The three most prominent schools of thought are realism, liberalism and constructivism. Whereas realism and liberalism make broad and specific predictions about international relations, constructivism and rational choice are methodological approaches that focus on certain types of social explanation for phenomena.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military alliance</span> Alliance between different states with the purpose to cooperate militarily

A military alliance is a formal agreement between nations that specifies mutual obligations regarding national security. In the event a nation is attacked, members of the alliance are often obligated to come to their defense regardless if attacked directly. Military alliances can be classified into defense pacts, non-aggression pacts, and ententes. Alliances may be covert or public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deterrence theory</span> Military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons

Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer. Deterrence in an international relations context is the application of deterrence theory to avoid conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quincy Wright</span> American political scientist (1890–1970)

Philip Quincy Wright was an American political scientist based at the University of Chicago known for his pioneering work and expertise in international law, international relations, and security studies. He headed the Causes of War project at the University of Chicago, which resulted in the prominent 1942 multi-volume book A Study of War.

In international relations, the security dilemma is when the increase in one state's security leads other states to fear for their own security. Consequently, security-increasing measures can lead to tensions, escalation or conflict with one or more other parties, producing an outcome which no party truly desires; a political instance of the prisoner's dilemma.

Economic interdependence is the mutual dependence of the participants in an economic system who trade in order to obtain the products they cannot produce efficiently for themselves. Such trading relationships require that the behavior of a participant affects its trading partners and it would be costly to rupture their relationship. The subject was addressed by A. A. Cournot who wrote: "...but in reality the economic system is a whole in which all of the parts are connected and react on one another. An increase in the income of the producers of commodity A will affect the demands for commodities B, C, etc. and the incomes of their producers, and by its reaction will affect the demand for commodity A." Economic Interdependence is evidently a consequence of the division of labour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peace and conflict studies</span> A subject in social science

Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviors as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, to understand those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies, is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, based on achieving conflict resolution and dispute resolution at the international and domestic levels based on positive sum, rather than negative sum, solutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Pape</span> American political scientist (born 1960)

Robert Anthony Pape is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, American and international political violence, social media propaganda, and terrorism. He is currently a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and founder and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Realism (international relations)</span> School of thought

Realism, a school of thought in international relations theory, is a theoretical framework that views world politics as an enduring competition among self-interested states vying for power and positioning within an anarchic global system devoid of a centralized authority. It centers on states as rational primary actors navigating a system shaped by power politics, national interest, and a pursuit of security and self-preservation.

<i>World Politics</i> Academic journal

World Politics is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering political science and international relations. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Before 2003, it was sponsored by Princeton's Center of International Studies and before 1951, by the Yale Institute of International Studies. It was established in 1948. The chair of the editorial committee is Grigore Pop-Eleches.

The S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) is an autonomous graduate school and policy-oriented think tank of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Founded in 1996 as the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), RSIS offers graduate education in international affairs and strategic studies, taught by an array of international faculty. The school is named in honour of S. Rajaratnam, Singapore's former Deputy Prime Minister who had also been its longest-serving Foreign Minister. It is regarded as one of the best graduate schools for international studies in Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yan Xuetong</span> Chinese political scientist

Yan Xuetong is a Chinese political scientist and serves as a distinguished professor and dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University. Yan is one of the major Chinese figures in the study of international relations (IR). He is the founder of 'moral realism', a neoclassical realist theoretical paradigm in IR theory. His moral realist theory is based on political determinism.

Salma Malik is an Associate Professor at the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Michael Dalzell Swaine is a senior research fellow in the field of China and East Asian security studies at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Prior to joining the Quincy Institute, Swaine was a Senior Associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Before joining the Carnegie Endowment as co-director of the China Program in 2001, Swaine worked for 12 years at the RAND Corporation, where he was appointed as the first recipient of the RAND Center for Asia-Pacific Policy Chair in Northeast Asian Security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Service Institution</span>

United Service Institution of India (USI) is a national security and defence services think tank based in New Delhi, India. It describes its aim as the "furtherance of interest and knowledge in the art, science and literature of the defence services".

In international relations theory, the bargaining model of war is a method of representing the potential gains and losses and ultimate outcome of war between two actors as a bargaining interaction. A central puzzle that motivates research in this vein is the "inefficiency puzzle of war": why do wars occur when it would be better for all parties involved to reach an agreement that goes short of war? In the bargaining model, war between rational actors is possible due to uncertainty and commitment problems. As a result, provision of reliable information and steps to alleviate commitment problems make war less likely. It is an influential strand of rational choice scholarship in the field of international relations.

Rational choice is a prominent framework in international relations scholarship. Rational choice is not a substantive theory of international politics, but rather a methodological approach that focuses on certain types of social explanation for phenomena. In that sense, it is similar to constructivism, and differs from liberalism and realism, which are substantive theories of world politics. Rationalist analyses have been used to substantiate realist theories, as well as liberal theories of international relations.

In international relations, credibility is the perceived likelihood that a leader or a state follows through on threats and promises that have been made. Credibility is a key component of coercion, as well as the functioning of military alliances. Credibility is related to concepts such as reputation and resolve. Reputation for resolve may be a key component of credibility, but credibility is also highly context-dependent.

In international relations, coercion refers to the imposition of costs by a state on other states and non-state actors to prevent them from taking an action (deterrence) or to compel them to take an action (compellence). Coercion frequently takes the form of threats or the use of limited military force. It is commonly seen as analytically distinct from persuasion, brute force, or full-on war.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Walt, Stephen M. (1991). "The Renaissance of Security Studies". International Studies Quarterly. 35 (2): 211–239. doi:10.2307/2600471. ISSN   0020-8833. JSTOR   2600471.
  2. ↑ Williams, Paul (2012) Security Studies: An Introduction, Abingdon: Routledge
  3. ↑ Rossi, Norma; Riemann, Malte, eds. (2024-03-15). Security Studies: An Applied Introduction. SAGE. ISBN   9781529615548.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Baldwin, David A. (1995). "Security Studies and the End of the Cold War". World Politics. 48 (1): 117–141. doi:10.1353/wp.1995.0001. ISSN   0043-8871. JSTOR   25053954. S2CID   154382276.
  5. ↑ "War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Thomas Schelling, 1986". openvault.wgbh.org.
  6. ↑ Buzan, Barry; Hansen, Lene (2009-08-27). The Evolution of International Security Studies. ISBN   9781139480765.
  7. ↑ Betts, Richard K. (1997). "Should Strategic Studies Survive?". World Politics. 50 (1): 7–33. doi:10.1017/S0043887100014702. ISSN   0043-8871. JSTOR   25054025. S2CID   145289684.
  8. ↑ Webmaster. "Series: STUDIES IN ASIAN SECURITY". www.sup.org. Retrieved 2024-07-05.
  9. ↑ Hoagland, Jack; Oakes, Amy; Parajon, Eric; Peterson, Susan (2020-05-13). "The Blind Men and the Elephant: Comparing the Study of International Security Across Journals". Security Studies. 29 (3): 393–433. doi:10.1080/09636412.2020.1761439. ISSN   0963-6412. S2CID   219437237.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.