ABSTRACT
Diversity and security have long had an uneasy co-existence. The relationship between diversity and security is often portrayed as a dichotomy with a troubled history. Conventionally, diversity is posited as ‘the problem’ to which security is ‘the solution’. Disciples of Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens, however, readily admit that self-reflexivity has shattered the modernist faith in linear thinking where there is a solution to every problem. The dialectic between diversity and security is emblematic of this claim. Owing to demographic change, the changing nature of the security environment, and the transnational diffusion of the democratic norms of freedom, equality, and justice, diversity and security actually turn out to be different sides of the same coin. The purpose of this volume is to articulate that this is not merely a normative claim but rather an empirical one. Treating various aspects and dimensions of diversity as the independent variable allows the articles in this special issue to shed a different light on the defence and security sector.
