Aiming at the measurement, comparison and ranking of all kinds of public dangers, ranging from natural hazards to industrial risks and political perils, the preparation of national risk registers stands out as a novel and increasingly popular Western security practice. This article focuses on these registers and the analytical power politics in which they are complicit. We argue, first, that positing science as an objective determinant of security truth, national risk registers advance a modernist understanding of how knowledge of national dangers can be arrived at, discounting both sovereign and popular authorities; second, that by operationalizing a traditional risk-assessment formula, risk registers make possible seemingly apolitical decisions in security matters, taken on the basis of cost–benefit thinking; and, third, that risk registers’ focus on risk ‘themes’ tiptoes around the definition of referent objects, avoiding overt decisions about the beneficiaries of particular security decisions. Taking all these factors into account, we find that risk registers ‘depoliticize’ national security debates while transforming national insecurity into something permanent and inevitable.
The growing sociology of International Relations literature systematically investigates the discipline's organization and inner structuring. Making the academic field cognizant of its own institutional and intellectual configurations, the literature today empowers scholars to engage critically with the analytical, geocultural, and political lenses through which International Relations explains world politics. This contribution notwithstanding, there is a continuing focus in the literature on leading (flagship) publications as indicators of intellectual proclivities, and on International Relations scholars as their only relevant audiences. This article challenges this focus and expands the sociology of International Relations literature's scope of analysis. Making the case for an inquiry into classroom socialization practices, it maps the paradigmatic, geocultural, gendered, and historical perspectives taught to students in the case of 23 American and European International Relations graduate programs. Pointing to differences between the instructed and the published discipline, the article shows how the instructed discipline is governed and constrained by different kinds of intellectual parochialisms. Problematizing the educative functions of these, it advocates a more self-reflexive understanding of International Relations teaching (a domain in which scholars have greater agency) and the enactment of a critical pedagogy of international studies.
In the view of some Deleuzian scholars, societal steering evolved from analogue disciplining of static enclosures into network-centric, privatized, digital, and global control. This article re-engages the control thesis from a decidedly empirical security studies perspective. In the age of globalization and urbanization, technological innovation and liberal policy ideals, how are security apparatuses reorganized, and in what relations do they stand to local societal and political orders? The article argues that the Deleuzian framework indeed proposes an impressively rich, integrative, and topical research agenda-but also that its security studies applications can benefit from further development. With a view to vindicating its analytical potential, the article first systematizes the control thesis. It then employs a spatial and empirical heuristic to inquire into the securing of three distinct urban spaces-a site of mobility, a public square, and a place of mass commerce-and to illustrate the actual (re-)configuration of contemporary security management. Forgoing articulation of universalisms about societal steering, the article makes the case for more nuanced engagements with security ensembles, their technological evolution, and their relations with democratic ideals, globalization, and de-territorialization, both in and beyond Western polities.
While security has always been political, it has for the most part been considered a special kind of politics that closes down political activity and debate. This introduction reviews recent theoretical and empirical developments to argue that a research agenda that re-engages security through the prism of politicisation is better able to elucidate the growing range of actors, arenas and arguments visible in contemporary security governance. Based on recent literatures from Political Science and European Studies that -so far -have been largely ignored by Security Studies, it develops an analytical framework around three dimensions: controversy, mobilisation and arena-shifting. It showcases the relevance of this perspective through brief empirical illustrations on the post-Snowden controversy, public participation on security strategy-making, and the role of parliaments in security policy. The overall aim is to reopen conceptual questions on the relationship between security and politics, inspire innovative empirical work to study the diverse politics around security, and allow for more differentiated normative inquiries into the ambivalent consequences of politicisation.
Animal traction constitutes the most important source of power for agricultural work in smallholder farming in Zimbabwe. Two studies, a survey and a short term on-farm trial were conducted to evaluate the use of donkeys as draught animals. The survey covered 59 households in 2 smallholder farming areas. For the on-farm trial, 12 donkeys and 12 cattle were spanned separately in teams of 4 animals to plough 40 m x 70 m plots of medium textured soil. The survey findings highlighted the drought tolerance of donkeys compared to cattle. Mortality rates of donkeys were lower. Results of the draught performance trial indicated that donkeys ploughed less area per day (P < 0.05) and their walking speed was slower (P < 0.05) than cattle. There was no significant difference (P < 0.05) in draught force between the 2 species. The work rate per hour for ploughing with donkeys was 65% of that of cattle. It was concluded that donkeys play a critical role in providing draught power for smallholder farmers but that their potential is not fully utilised.
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