ABSTRACT
Introduction The political transferences witnessed in the past two decades, particularly the lifting of the Cold War overlay, have brought spectacular changes in the traditionally dominant notions of international and national security. The statecentric security notions predicated on military dimensions are being increasingly contested from a range of perspectives. Starting with critical theories, which draw on postmodernism and feminism and pose fundamental disagreements with the core categories of security studies, we also have ‘new thinking’ within the mainstream security discourse which seeks to widen the security debate by incorporating societal threats that affect not only states but also groups and individuals and other non state actors. This ‘post-bipolar renaissance’ in security studies is generally attributed to the surfacing of such new challenges as the violent upsurge of ethno-nationalism, collapsing states, largescale migrations across frontiers, transnational crimes and health hazards, human rights violations, gender and environmental concerns, and food and water security.1
