ABSTRACT
In his work on issues of security, Ken Booth suggested that since the publication of Buzan's PSF, scholars have only really been adding footnotes to it rather than developing new lines of thought. This is not to say that Buzan's work has been met with unanimous acceptance. Despite Buzan's impact on the broader international relations community, his work on the state has received relatively little critical attention. Shaw suggests that Buzan, despite his argument for the importance of notions of community and society, is still irredeemably state-centred. Specifically, Shaw argues that Buzan's treatment of the nation is conceptually thin, as are his explanations of society and culture. A second line of criticism of Buzan's concept of the idea of the state relates to a more general idea of legitimacy, but also explores the results of Buzan's attempt to address the charge that he reifies the state.
