Critical Approaches to Security in Europe: A Networked Manifesto

Abstract

In the last decade, critical approaches have substantially reshaped the theoretical landscape of security studies in Europe. Yet, despite an impressive body of literature, there remains a fundamental disagreement as to what counts as critical in this context. Scholars are still arguing in terms of "schools" while there has been an increasing and sustained crossfertilization among critical approaches. Finally, the boundaries between critical and traditional approaches to security remain blurred. The aim of this paper is therefore to assess the evolution of critical views of approaches to security studies in Europe, discuss their theoretical premises, investigate their intellectual ramifications and examine how they coalesce around different issues (such as state of exception). The paper then assesses the political implications of critical approaches. This is done mainly by analysing processes by which critical approaches to security percolate through a growing number of subjects (such as development, peace research, risk/crisis management). Finally, ethical and research implications are explored. IntroductionHIS MANIFESTO IS THE RESULT of collective work. The author of this article is a network of both junior and senior researchers referred to as c.a.s.e. collective who share an interest in critically examining contemporary practices of security. The aim of this paper is to collectively assess the evolution of critical views of security studies in Europe, discuss their theoretical premises, examine how they coalesce around different issues, and investigate their present -and possibly future -intellectual ramifications. The specificity of this text thus lies in the very way it has been thought and written through a networked collective. The article is driven by two broad motivations. First, the authors share the view that, over the past two decades, important innovations in the study of 'security' have emerged among European scholars in particular (Waever 2004a). Although the genesis of these innovations involves scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, these approaches have arguably gained momentum and density in Europe, leading to the emergence of distinctive European research agenda(s) in the traditionally US-dominated field of 'security studies'. Conequently, it was hence felt that time had come to evaluate these 'European' approaches both in order to increase their exposure and to push them further in specific directions. Second, the aim of working and writing as a collective, a network of scholars who do not agree on everything yet do share a common perspective, is based on the desire to break with the competitive dynamic of individualist research agendas and to establish a network which not only facilitates dialogue but is also able to speak with a collective voice. In this sense, the article can be read as a 'manifesto'. 2 In order to understand the composition of the text, we believe it is important to briefly explain its genesis. After the COST Paris Training School, paper givers and additional PhD candid...

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