Security, Technologies of Risk, and the Political: Guest Editors' Introduction

Abstract

in late modern societies has spawned numerous analyses of the new governance of societies, the role of knowledge and the reshaping of modern subjects. From natural disasters and terrorism to health and finance, risk is now everywhere. While risk had long been a problem of thought, from antiquity to modernity (Maso, 2007), its relation to security and politics has now encountered renewed interest. From anthropology and criminology to cultural studies and sociology, the problem of risk has been rendered as the signifier of our present condition (Beck, 1992;Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982;Luhmann, 1991;Foucault, 2007). But, as risks come to constitute more and more areas of social and political life, it is necessary to ask ourselves, echoing Michel Foucault (1997), what difference today introduces with respect to yesterday.International relations scholars concerned with the concept of risk generally trace the notion back to the end of the Cold War, when major states and international organizations such as NATO, the UN and the EU began to refer to their security environment in terms of risks rather than dangers. This change in terminology has allowed for an understanding of the post-Cold War security environment as highly uncertain and characterized by an explosion of risks, including pandemics to organized crime, global warming, failed states, terrorism, poverty and nuclear proliferation.Given this representation of the security dynamics at play in the post-Cold War environment, early appropriations of risk in the field of international relations have tended to simply conflate the concept of risk with those of danger and threat (Rasmussen, 2001(Rasmussen, , 2004. Failing to spell out the conceptual difference between security and risk, these studies constitute the difference Special Issue on Security, Technologies of Risk, and the Political

Securitization and desecuritization: a dramaturgical analysis of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority

“…This model of settings for securitizing moves fits cleanly with Paris School interventions on the trope of risk (Aradau and van Munster 2007;Aradau et al 2008). However, it is precisely because security plays differently to each audience, is used differently by different speakers, and changes in its meaning that we need to expand our analysis of how securitizing moves are accepted or rejected.…”

Global governance in crisis? Fragmentation, risk and world order

“…4-5). As Aradau et al (2008) have reminded us, the concept of risk within the study of international security emerged at the end of the Cold War when major states as well as international organizations such as NATO and the UN increasingly referred to the collective security environment in terms of risks where they had once referred to dangers and threats. 4 Rather than a simple set of institutions or rather just a system of institutions, both security and finance are characterized by webs of institutions, operating much like the 'regime complex' notion increasingly foregrounding discussions of the changing global order (see Raustiala and Victor, 2004).…”

Lloyd's and the Moral Economy of Insuring Against Piracy

“…Those practices, as noted below, differ in scope from preemptive and precautionary rationalities employed in the analysis of the war on terror (e.g. Anderson 2010;Massumi 2007;Amoore & De Goede 2008;Ericson & Doyle 2004a;Rasmussen 2006;De Goede & Randalls 2009;Aradau et al 2008;Aradau & Van Munster 2007;Cooper 2006). Instead, by employing a logic of risk embracing (Baker & Simon 2002;Baker 2008) maritime war, risks insurers at Lloyd's proactively seek to shape a security apparatus to enable the profitable operation of their insurance venture.…”