Synopses & Reviews
This book explores current thinking about positive security and seeks to suggest a reformulated positive security concept, and to evaluate the efficacy of such a concept in terms of foreign and security policy.
Proceeding from a critical evaluation of McSweeney 's positive security approach, the author assesses the potential for reformulating positive security in other existing theoretical approaches: the Copenhagen School, the Welsh School, and largely Galtungian-defined Peace Studies and finally proposes a formulation of positive security defined as the ability of orders (security referent objects) to achieve/maintain just values, and secondly tackle the highly contentious issue of the use of force in the securing of these values.
In equating Positive Security with the achievement/maintenance of just values, the book, although locating itself within a tradition that is committed to ways of promoting equitable and cooperative relations between humans and human communities, will also seek to pose contentious questions of violent- as well as non-violent transformations.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, critical security and peace studies.
Synopsis
This book critically conceptualises positive security and explores multiple areas in global politics where positive security can be studied as an alternative to the existing understandings and practices of security.
Structured through a framework on the practice and ethics of everyday security, the book defines positive security as a focal point of contextual and spatiotemporal moments that emerge through encounters with 'the other' in everyday politics. In these moments, an actor can show attentiveness and humility towards 'the other'. In this book, the authors present their own understandings of positive security, offering an in-depth discussion and analysis of the Global North and South divides, delving into many aspects such as human security, migration, gender, indigenous issues and perceptions of security in the Arctic, and challenges and tensions for and within NATO. The book concludes by reflecting on the significance of positive security, looking at its application for other current issues including how to understand and manage new (in)security challenges including hybrid threats and warfare.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, critical security and peace studies.