response to security

7/29/2019 Response to Security

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De-Westernizing Cr itical Security Studies 1

The field of social science is often seen as inherently a reflection or a disciplinary

attempt to reflect and explain the world order. If accepted as true, it would explain trend

throughout this discipline in the post-Cold War era to re-evaluate some of its basic

assumptions and theoretical frameworks. The field of Security Studies saw the creation of

a niche of security studies theorists under its auspices that claimed to represent what is

now termed as Critical Security Studies. They challenged the traditional frameworks of

the field and introduced factors that attempted to broaden its conceptual scope. One of the

major strands of critical security studies theorists, that include the likes of Mohammed

Ayoob 2, has levied the particular claim that traditional security studies lacks the adequate

theoretical tools to analyze the Third World and that it requires an alternative frame of

analysis that takes into account its (Third Worlds) particular historical, political, social

and cultural context. Others like Claire Wilkinson 3 have questioned the Westphalian

straightjacket as not only having plagued the theoretical applicability of traditional

security studies but also certain strands of critical security studies, namely the

Copenhagen School. What this study attempts to claim is that while it is true that there is

a requirement for a theoretical frame within Security Studies that is applicable to acontext beyond the west, it is overly simplistic to claim the presence of a clear distinction

between the western and the non-western social, political and cultural reality. It further

posits that the complexity lies in the fact that aspects of the west and the non-west are

present within the context of the non-Western state/country. So, the alternative theoretical

framework, instead of attempting structure a framework around the notion of the

western/non-western dichotomy, should rather attempt to reflect the struggle that exists

between these, supposedly, opposing features (i.e. of the west and non-west) within the

non-Western context.

1 In this paper Third World states and non-Western countries are referred to as being synonymous. Whilebeing a non-Western country does not necessary mean that such state could be characterized as a ThirdWorld country, this study works on the assumption that most non-Western countries, owing to a variety of reasons, can be categorized as being part of the Third World.2 see Ayoob, Mohammed, The Third World Security Predicament (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers,1995)3 see Wilkinson, Claire, The Copenhagen School on Tour in K yrgyzstan: Is Securitization Theory UseableOutside Europe? Security Dialogue 38.5 (2007)


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Critical Security Studies, Third World and the non-Western

While the critical security studies theorists are dealing with the Third World and

the non-Western, and are responding to the supposedly western-oriented frameworks of

traditional security studies, they could also be seen as caught within the struggle between

the notions of representation and resistance. Post-colonial studies see this as an arena

within which much of the drama of colonialist relations and post-colonial examination

and subversion of those relations has taken place 4. According to Lings analysis it could

be seen as a response to cultural chauvinism 5, one that encourages the mimicry of

what is considered Western, modern, urban, industrialized, upwardly mobile and

masculine [with] nonmimicry [leaving] behind the so-called traditional sectors and

natives who are backward, rural, agricultural, socially stagnant, and feminine 6.

In lieu of this struggle of representation and resistance as articulated by Post-

colonial studies, the notion of Third World Security could be seen as a manifestation of

this within the field of critical security studies. Mohammed Ayoob in The Third World

Security Predicament defines the term Third World as describing the underdeveloped,

poor, weak states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America that together make up a substantial

numerical majority among the members of the international system7

. In the context of this definition, Ayoob cites Robert Gilpin in claiming that what characterizes the Third

World is its weakness towards the two organizing principles of international social life

the sovereign state and the international market 8. This classification of the Third

Worlds weakness is key as it is manifested at both of the levels at which the Third

World interacts with the international system: as a group, and as individual sovereign

states 9.

4 Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffith and Helen Tiffin, Introduction: Representation and Resistance in Thepost-colonial studies reader ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffith and Helen Tiffin. (London: Routledge,1995): 855 Ling, L.H.M. Cultural Chauvinism And The Liberal International Order: West versus Rest in Asiasfinancial crisis in Power in a postcolonial world: race, gender, and class in International Relations ed.Geeta Chowdhury and Sheila Nair (London: Routledge, 2002): 1156 Ling, 1217 Ayoob, Mohammed, The Third World Security Predicament (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995):128 Ayoob, 19 Ibid , 1


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Drawing an analysis similar to that of Ayoob, Amitav Acharya in The Periphery

as the Core: The Third World and Security Studies, sees the emergence of the Third

World as [challenging] the dominant understanding of security in three important

respects 10 :

1. Its focus on the interstate level as the point of origin of securitythreats.

2. Its exclusion of non-military phenomena from the security studiesagenda.

3. Its belief in the global balance of power as the legitimate andeffective instrument of international order. 11

Caroline Thomas in, In Search of Security , sees this challenge as rooted in the fact thatsecurity in the context of the Third World states does not simply refer to the military

dimensions, as is often assumed in the Western discussions of the concept, but to the

whole range of dimensions of a states existence which are already taken care of in the

more-developed states, especially those of the West 12 . Thomas further lists search

for the internal security of the state through nation-building, [and] the search for secure

systems of food, health, money and trade 13 as some key examples. While food, health,

money and trade seem obvious factors that draw a correlation between social well-being

and security, the notion of nation-building and internal state security provides for a

complex problematique . Thomas claims that unlike the West where society is often seen

as coherently structured to be compatible with the boundaries of the state, in the Third

World context this process has been particularly problematic. The author notes that

owing to arbitrary creation of state boundaries by European colonizers the resulting

[t]erritorial boundaries pay insufficient attention to ethnicity, indigenous historical

divisions or even at times geography 14 . What this has meant for the Third World is the

need for a process of nation-building among a greatly heterogeneous population.According to Thomas it is then this heterogeneity that has been the major cause of

10 Acharya, Amitav, The Periphery as the Core: The Third World and Security Studies in CriticalSecurity Studies ed. Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams (London: UCL Press, 1997): 30111 Acharya, 30112 Thomas, Caroline, In Search of Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987): 113 Thomas, 114 Thomas, 10


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domestic, regional and international instability, as well as being a source of massive

human suffering through repression and displacement of persons 15 .

Ayoob, elaborating on the notion of nation-building in the Third World concept,

representing what he terms as subaltern realism and, in a way, alluding to Lings notion

of cultural chauvinism, sees the international normative framework on state making

and nation building 16 to have had a particular impact on the Third World. According to

the author, what this has meant is the Third World states insistence on maintaining the

essential norms of the Westphalian system to protect themselves from unwanted external

intervention 17 . This insistence has, of course, often manifested into extreme levels of

suffering and repression at the hands of the political elite.While Third World Security theorists have critiqued the foundations of traditional

security studies as western-centric, similar criticisms have been levied on critical security

studies as well. The Copenhagen School has, within critical security studies, been

particularly targeted by those theorists that see it as having an incomplete theoretical

framework. Holger Stritzel in Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and

Beyond claims that while theorists within the Copenhagen School have adequately

defined securitization as a successful speech act 18 , which allows one to characterize

something as an existential threat thus permitting urgent and exceptional measures to

deal with the threat 19 , they have failed to transform this notion into a coherent

theoretical framework 20 . The author further posits that within the Copenhagen School, the

primacy of the speech act renders it inadequate and vague 21 . Instead, according to

Stritzel, the focus should be on the dynamics of causality involved within the trilogy of

speech act, actor and audience 22 . As further criticism of the Copenhagen School, Stritzel

posits the need to

15 Ibid , 1016 Ayoob, Mohammed. Inequalities and Theorizing in International Relations: The Case for SubalternRealism International Studies Review 4.3 (Autumn, 2002): 4817 Ayoob, 4818 Stritzel, Holger. Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and Beyond European Journal of International Relations 13.3 (2007): 35819 Stritzel, 35820 Ibid , 35821 Ibid , 35822 Stritzel, 364


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conceptualize securitizing speech acts and securitizing actors as embedded inbroader social and linguistic structures. [This would further mean] that the actorcannot be as significant as a social actor and a speech act cannot have an impact

on social relations without a situation that constitutes them as significant 23 .

A similar argument is made by Thierry Balzacq in The Three Faces of Securitization:

Political Agency, Audience and Context. He claims that since securitization is not a

self-contained process 24 we could make three assumptions (i) that an effective

securitization is that an effective securitization is audience-centered; (ii) that

securitization is context-dependent; (iii) that an effective securitization is power-laden 25 .

Like Stritzel, Balzacq too can be seen as positing the primacy of the particular social

context as a key factor in determining the success of the speech act.What both Stritzel and Balzacq have engaged in is a critical analysis of the

Copenhagen School that attempts to take it beyond its conceptual inadequacies in order to

move it towards becoming a more comprehensive theory. While not specifically delving

into the western-centric assumptions of security studies, one could claim that both these

authors analyses reflect a perspective that marginalizes the non-western and Third World

context, especially that of non-democratic societies. If one claims the primacy of the

social context in determining the success of a speech act, an untoward level of power and

political significance is accorded to the society in question. While this could be seen as

reflective of democratic societies where the population plays a key role in political

decision-making, and often in the act of securitization, it could also be subsequently

perceived as incompatible with the non-democratic. In such societies it is often the

securitizing actor, namely, the political elite, that plays a key role in determining the

social and political context that would make the a particular brand of speech act

successful. Here, unlike in democratic societies, it is the securitizing actor that could be

seen as demanding primacy than the context. What this would further mean is that whilebeing critical of a particular brand of critical studies, both Stritzel and Balzacq have

effectively marginalized the political reality (non-democratic societies) of significant

23 Stritzel, 36724 Balzacq, Thierry The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context European

J ournal of International Relations 11.2 (2007): 17125 Balzacq, 171


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sections of the non-western world, thus failing to make their response to the Copenhagen

School as effectively comprehensive.

A more explicit criticism of the Copenhagen Schools western-based analytical

frameworks is made by Claire Wilkinson in The Copenhagen School on Tour in

Kyrgyzstan: Is Securitization Theory Useable Outside Europe? While criticizing the

universal applicability of the speech act, through the analysis of the case of Kyrgyzstan,

Wilkison claims that inherent to the Copenhagen School is what Buzan and Little defined

as the Westphalian straitjacket [which is] the strong tendency to assume that the

model established in seventeenth century Europe should define what the international

system is for all times and places26

. Drawing from this, the author further claims that theEuro-American assumptions about concepts such as society, identity and the state,

combined with the presumption of Western democracy and primacy of the speech-act,

mean that, particularly in a non-Western setting, security dynamics are edited and

Westernized through the application of the theoretical framework 27 . This, for Wilkinson,

remains the primary hindrance of the Copenhagen School that impedes its attempt to

create a universal and multilevel framework for empirical analyses of security 28 .

Having thus discussed some of major criticisms of both traditional security

studies and critical security studies as being western-oriented we can articulate the

following as some of the major claims of this particular perspective:

1. From the perspective of Third World theorists, traditional security studies are

rooted in a Western-based understanding of societies, states, and the international

system. A study of Third World states would thus demonstrate the need for an

alternative theoretical framework that truly reflects the institutional, societal and

political realities of Third World states.2. While Stritzel and Balzacq criticized the theoretical inadequacies of the

Copenhagen School and proposed the primacy of the imbedded context in

determining the success of a particular speech act, this analysis could also be seen

as drawing from a particular understanding of the interaction between the state

26 Wilkinson, Claire, The Copenhagen School on Tour in Kyrgyzstan: Is Securitization Theory UseableOutside Europe? Security Dialogue 38.5 (2007): 727 Wilkinson, 2228 Ibid , 22


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and society. This, being orientated to a Western notion of democratic society

where it often has the power to determine the compatibility of a certain speech

act, marginalizes a large section of the non-western, non-democratic world where

the society cannot be accorded such a level of primacy

3. Finally, Wilkinson explicitly critiques the Westphalian straitjacket, that is at a

core aspect of the Copenhagen School, as limiting its analysis to a Western

understanding of the society, state and the international system.

De-Westernizing Critical Security Studies

What critical security studies have attempted to do is challenge our traditionalunderstanding of the dynamics of societies, states and the international system. Those

challenging the Western-centric notions of (critical) security studies can be broadly

divided (for the purpose of this study) into two groups. The first proposes an alternative

theoretical framework that solely engages in the non-Western perspective (e.g. Third

World Security). The second group of theorists (namely, Wilkinson and to an extent

Stritzel and Balzacq) propose a critical engagement within the frameworks of critical

security studies attempting to disentangle it from the remnants of the traditional western-

centric assumptions of security studies. While both perspectives attempt to provide a

comprehensive solution in significantly different manners, they can be seen as drawing

from a common empirical assumption, i.e. the presence of a clear dichotomy between the

western and non-western, where the western is seen as encroaching from beyond the

borders of Third World/non-Western states while the non-Western reality remains an

internal force against this external/incompatible threat. I would claim that the weakness

of these perspectives lays solely on the acceptance of this assumption. While it is true that

the dynamics of non-Western societies are vastly different from that of the West, it wouldbe nave to assume that institutionally and structurally they are completely incompatible

with Western notions of society, state and the international system. One must first realize

the creation of Third World states was primarily a Western/colonial project. Whether it

was the Sykes-Picot Agreement for the Middle East, the carving of the continent of

Africa among the European colonial powers or the partition of the Indian subcontinent,

the arbitrariness of this colonial project transcended the particular needs of any particular


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social, cultural, political and geographical context. Instead what it has left behind was a

institutional structure that, whether compatible or not, remains till today the primary

configuration around which the Third World interacts with the international system. The

problem remains in the fact that while a Third World country remains officially

committed to this structure (of the Westphalian straitjacket), its underlying society

remains incompatible to the institutional structures. So, what we have is a dichotomy but

not between the external and the internal but one that is within the Third World/non-

Western state. It is a struggle between the institutional constrains imposed by the west

and the societal context that is often inherently incompatible to it. The complexity lies in

the fact that both these contexts remain and struggle within the boundaries of the ThirdWorld state. What this internal dichotomy and struggle further manifests is the creation of

a societal division between those that are committed to the institutional constraint and

those see them incompatible to the societal structure of the particular state in question.

Two extreme examples of the presence of this struggle have been Yemen and Pakistan.

Both countries have had to contend with a western-imposed state structure while also

having to accommodate a significant tradition of tribalism on its territorial boundaries.

What this has meant is a continuous struggle between the centre and periphery within

the non-western context and demonstrates that, more than a clear division between the

western and the non-western sphere, what exists is a complex struggle among these

spheres within non-Western states. While one can claim the Western roots of the

institutional constraints forced on the Third World, it cannot be ignored that these

structures have seen a deep commitment from these countries. The problem rather lays in

the incompatibility of it to the societal context. This is where I would claim that any

attempt to de-westernize critical security studies should start. Rather than focusing on the

difference between the West and the non-Western, this perspective would inherentlyprovide for a reflection of the social reality of Third World states and the societies they

encompass. Providing this frame would in fact be the only way one can reflect the non-

Western perspective. Failure to do so would only see the theoretical perspectives of

critical security studies as still drawing on some of the traditional conceptual assumptions

rooted solely in the West.


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Conclusion

While the process of decolonization ended the territorial control of the west over the

Third World, it is clear that this control has remained within the analytical frameworks

that have been used to comprehend the dynamics of the non-Western. Drawing from the

post-colonial notion of cultural chauvinism, Critical Security Studies through the likes

of Ayoob, Thomas, Acharya and Wilkinson, has attempted to break away from the

constraints of the western paradigms in order to truly understand the security concerns

and their manifestations outside the West. Unfortunately, the outcome of this attempt has

been a flawed understanding of the problematique . Notions of Third World security and

Wilkinsons critique of the Copenhagen Schools Westphalian straitjacket have created a

conception based on the assumption that there exists a clear dichotomy between the non-

western reality and the Western institutional/structural assumptions. This could be seen as

essentially flawed as it fails to recognize that in the post-colonial context, where Third

World institutional/structural realities have strong western roots, the relationship with

non-western societal reality is far more complex. Moreover, often owing to its societal

incompatibility these structural realities are frequently engaged in a struggle within non-

Western countries. This is where this paper claims lies the security problematique , i.e. inthe struggle between the Western institutional constraints implemented by the colonial

west and the often incompatibility of it with the society it encompasses. Furthermore, it is

the reflection of this struggle that can truly incorporate the non-western within the

theoretical frameworks of the critical security studies, thus paving the way towards

comprehensively de-westernizing the discipline.


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Works Cited L ist

1) Acharya, Amitav, The Periphery as the Core: The Third World and SecurityStudies in Critical Security Studies ed. Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams(London: UCL Press, 1997)

2) Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffith and Helen Tiffin, Introduction: Representationand Resistance in The post-colonial studies reader ed. Bill Ashcroft, GarethGriffith and Helen Tiffin. (London: Routledge, 1995)

3) Ayoob, Mohammed, The Third World Security Predicament (London: LynneRienner Publishers, 1995)

4) Ayoob, Mohammed. Inequalities and Theorizing in International Relations: TheCase for Subaltern Realism International Studies Review 4.3 (Autumn, 2002):27-48

5) Balzacq, Thierry The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audienceand Context European J ournal of International Relations 11.2 (2007): 171-201

6) Ling, L.H.M. Cultural Chauvinism And The Liberal International Order: Westversus Rest in Asias financial crisis in Power in a postcolonial world: race,gender, and class in International Relations ed. Geeta Chowdhury and SheilaNair (London: Routledge, 2002)

7) Stritzel, Holger. Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and BeyondEuropean J ournal of International Relations 13.3 (2007): 357-383

8) Thomas, Caroline, In Search of Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers,1987)

9) Wilkinson, Claire, The Copenhagen School on Tour in Kyrgyzstan: IsSecuritization Theory Useable Outside Europe? Security Dialogue 38.5 (2007):5-25

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