ABSTRACT
In this chapter, students will learn about the critical approach to security studies, which takes Gramscian and Frankfurt School critical theory as its guiding framework. This approach is also known as the ‘Aberystwyth School’ or ‘emancipatory realism’. The chapter begins by tracing the origins of critical security studies. It then explores the key concepts of approaches to security that have been inspired by critical theory, using empirical illustrations from regions such as the Middle East and southern Africa, and issues such as nuclear weapons, ‘state failure’ and the post-9/11 prospects for emancipation in the Muslim world.
