Chapter 1: What is Security Studies? by Alan Collins

Chapter 1: What is Security Studies? by Alan Collins

1. Type author names here
© Oxford University Press, 2020. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: What is Security Studies?
Alan Collins
Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e

2. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
What is Security Studies?
Security Studies is the sub-discipline of International
Relations concerned with the survival of agents (which
for much of the discipline has meant sovereign states)
Security is a matter of ‘high-politics’; central to policy-
making and the priorities they establish
However, it is not exclusively about war and the threat
to use force
Security is a contested subject
Introduction

3. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
What Does It Mean to be Secure?
Security Studies is always concerned with threats to survival
Introduction
Towards a Definition of Security Studies

4. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e

Introduction
Definitions of Security
Broadening
Security Studies has broadened its remit to encompass a diverse
range of threats and dangers
Deepening
Security Studies has deepened its understanding of what should
be secured (held as a referent object)

5. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e

Introduction
Definition of Security
Security Studies re-emerged at the end of the Cold War
with new questions about its core assumptions
The lines between International Relations, Political
Science, and Security Studies have become blurred
Globalization has led to internal issues becoming
externalized and external issues internalized

6. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
REALISM
 A set of approaches
Seeks an explanation for
state behaviour in the
international system (anarchy)
Structural realism vs.
motivational realism
LIBERALISM
The state as the unit of analysis
Places importance on domestic
actors, power, and the nature of
political systems
Sees state behaviour as a product
of domestic circumstances and
choices
Optimistic approach
Two key theories seeking to explain how and why states have
sought security:
Introduction
Realism and Liberalism

7. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
Introduction
Approaches to Security

8. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
Introduction
Sectors of Security

9. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
Traditional
 Coercive diplomacy
 Weapons of mass
destruction
 Terrorism
 Humanitarian intervention
 Energy security
 The weapons trade
Non-traditional
 Health
 Transnational crime
 Cyber-security
Introduction
Traditional and Non-Traditional

10. Collins: Contemporary Security Studies 5e
Introduction
Conclusion
Security studies is undergoing great changes as it
challenges its past assumptions, deepens its
understandings of what is to be secured, and broadens
its remit to encompass a vast range of threats and
dangers
The theoretical approach you adopt will determine the
type of subject matter that you consider to constitute
security
Always maintain a critical approach to what you read—
understand your thought processes (and those of the
theorists you study) and know why you believe a
particular theory