ABSTRACT

Contesting Security investigates to what extent the ‘logic of security’, which underpins securitization, can be contained, rolled back or dismantled.

Featuring legitimacy as a cement of security practices, this volume presents a detailed account of the "logic" which sustains security in order to develop a novel approach to the relation between security and the policies in which it is engraved. Understanding security as a normative practice, the contributors suggest a nuanced, and richer take on the conditions under which it is possible, advisable or fair to accept or roll back its policies.

The book comprises four sections, each investigating one specific modality of contesting security practices: resistance, desecuritization, emancipation, and resilience. These strategies are examined, compared and assessed in different political and cultural habitats.

This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, securitisation theory, social theory, and IR in general.

part |73 pages

Resistance

chapter |14 pages

Security and surveillance contests

Resistance and counter-resistance

chapter |21 pages

Poking holes and spreading cracks in the wall

Resistance to national security policies under Bush

part |54 pages

Desecuritization

chapter |15 pages

Security as universality?

The Roma contesting security in Europe

chapter |18 pages

The political limits of desecuritization

Security, arms trade, and the EU's economic targets

part |30 pages

Emancipation

chapter |13 pages

Emancipation and the reality of security

A reconstructive agenda

chapter |15 pages

Contesting border security

Emancipation and asylum in the Australian context

part |50 pages

Resilience

chapter |16 pages

Resiliencism and security studies

Initiating a dialogue

chapter |16 pages

Resilience as standard

Risks, hazards and threats

chapter |14 pages

Pandemics as staging grounds for resilient world order

SARS, avian flu, and the evolving forms of secure political solidarity

chapter |13 pages

Conclusion

Towards an ontopolitics of security 1