India and order transition in the Indo-Pacific: resisting the Quad as a ‘security community’
Managing order transition in the Indo-Pacific is as much about negotiating the character of regional order as it is about mounting balance of power chal lenges or establishing countervailing institutional arrangements. For this rea son, members of the Quad have expressed ambitions to deliver shared...
The Radical Milieu and Radical Influencers of Bosnian Foreign Fighters
This research note looks at the radical influencers of Bosnian foreign fighters. This group is important, as the Balkan region has been seen as a spot of jihadist activism and recruitment for the IS and Al-Nusra Front. Previous research on foreign fighters emphasized that a small number of individua...
Explaining the impact of militancy on Iran– Pakistan relations
Sectarian militants have for years launched attacks from Pakistan across the border to Iran. Finding sanctuary in a neighbouring country can make the difference between success and failure for militants. Conventional wisdom holds that a lasting transnational militancy challenge would typically creat...
Untangling threat perception in international relations: an empirical analysis of threats posed by China and their implications for security discourse
in international relations, the concept of ‘threat perception’ is the key focus in research on war, deterrence, coercion, alliances and conflict. although detecting and measuring the concept of threat is challenging, this field of study has become increasingly critical. to represent the inta...
The global order of Muslim surveillance and its thought architecture
This essay contends that since 2015 a global surveillance order has come into existence as a result of Islamophobia in the international political system in the context of the rise of Islamic State. With regard to the causes of Islamophobic surveillance, the article rejects the argument that it is a...
Jihadi fiction: radicalisation narratives in the contemporary novel
As Ulrich Beck suggests in World at Risk, fear of Islamist extremism has become a dominant strand in contemporary perceptions of risk. In the media, a set of ‘stock’ radicalisation narratives have emerged in which, typically, a misguided loner is brainwashed into embracing a violent perversion o...
From Oslo to Be’eri: how the 30-years-long peace delusion led to Hamas’s 10/7 massacres
The failure to prevent Hamas’s slaughter of some 1,300 Israelis on 7 October 2023 – the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – is a direct result of an emergency phone consultation three hours before the terror group’s invasion of Israel with the participation of the IDF’s and Shin...
Future security threats arising from the UK’s deprivation of citizenship: a model to understand the human rights-security risk landscape
Following the collapse of the Islamic State, the issue of “Returning Foreign Fighters” became a dominant global problem. The securi tised response adopted by many states is a cause for concern, particularly in relation to human rights. Men, women and children with a range of physical and psy...
‘Pragmatic Peacekeeping’ in Practice: Exit Liberal Peacekeeping, Enter UN Support Missions?
Global politics impact on UN peacekeeping and four trends are worth noting. UN peacekeeping is being downscaled, there is less emphasis on human rights, more multilateral support to use UN peacekeeping in situations of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, and an increasing frequency of support ...
The failure to prevent Hamas’s slaughter of some 1,300 Israelis on 7 October 2023 – the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – is a direct result of an emergency phone consultation three hours before the terror group’s invasion of Israel w
Thirty years after its euphoric launch, the ‘Oslo peace process’ between Israel and the PLO stands as the worst calamity to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war, and the most catastrophic strategic blunder in Israel’s history. By replacing Israel’s control of the West ...
Group-integrated cognitive behavioural therapy to aid affected communities victims’ reintegration of former Boko Haram members in Nigeria: a pilot randomised control trial
The reintegration of former Boko Haram members into society remains a significant challenge due to the affected victims’ experiences of depression and trauma because of terrorism, and their resistance towards reintegration, with implications for recidivism. To address this issue, we adopt an exper...
‘This is the fate of Libyan women:’ contempt, ridicule, and indifference of Seham Sergiwa
As the debate on how harmful online content translates into violent offline actions continues in the Global North, this debate should be enriched by data from the Global South. In Libya, the kidnapping of a female politician (Seham Sergiwa) in 2019 was arguably foreshadowed on social media, with som...
Radicalization and counter-radicalization at British universities: Muslim encounters and alternatives
This paper explores the ‘spaces’ left over for Muslims to be ‘radical’ and the management of minority identities in light of their securitization in the UK. The paper considers a key site of this management of ‘radical’ identities: the university. The university works as prototypical cas...
Masculinities and Disengagement from Jihadi Networks: The Case of Indonesian Militant Islamists
Men who join militant Islamist networks often frame their participation in masculine terms, as protectors, warriors or brothers. While the role of masculinities in recruitment to jihadi groups has received increasing attention, their role in disengaging men from armed groups (and particularly men in...
Human Rights matter: a reassertion of the UN charter and UDHR core values in turbulent times
Drawing its strength from the UN Charter and UDHR, human rights ethics is a beacon of hope and a promise that requires continuous reaffirmation during these turbulent times. These two documents, with their unwavering faith in ‘fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person,...
The Narrative of Victimization and Deradicalization: An Expert View
While the study of victimology and radicalization mainly focuses on those who suffered from terrorist attacks, this article explores the role of victimological processes in deradicalization. Experts from different international deradicalization initiatives were interviewed. Using the narrative frame...
Future security threats arising from the UK’s deprivation of citizenship: a model to understand the human rights-security risk landscape
Following the collapse of the Islamic State, the issue of “Returning Foreign Fighters” became a dominant global problem. The securi tised response adopted by many states is a cause for concern, particularly in relation to human rights. Men, women and children with a range of physical and psy...
The discourse of terror: carceralism, border politics, and security in Aotearoa New Zealand
The discursive construction of terrorism in the media allows and limits possible policy responses. These constructions help set the precedent for modes of intervention and regularisation by the state by locating potential terrorists within the logic of security. Such a logic was a trademark of the s...
Brazil’s Foreign Policy and Security under Lula and Bolsonaro: Hierarchy, Racialization, and Diplomacy
https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2023.2230447
Fragmented We Fall: Security Sector Cohesion and the Impact of Foreign Security Force Assistance in Mal
Security Force Assistance (SFA) is presented as a panacea for security threats and governance problems in the Global South. Using Mali as a point of departure, in this article we explore the complex reality of SFA in a state with a highly fragmented security sector. A plethora of SFA providers colle...
Hybrid Threats and the Intelligence Community: Priming for a Volatile Age
A specific set of challenges facing the intelligence community in a contemporary environment is characterized by composite and dynamic hybrid threats. An understanding of the reciprocal interaction is required between the intelligence actors responsible for intelligence analysis and disseminatio...
Ransomware as a threat to peace and security: understanding and avoiding political worst-case scenarios
Ransomware is arguably the most disruptive cyber-dependent crime to date. It not only causes considerable economic loss globally but it also threatens public services and security such as critical infrastructure including public transport and healthcare facilities. In this paper, our aim is to foste...
Security and privacy in the internet of things
The internet of things (IoT) is a technology that has the capacity to revolutionise the way that we live, in sectors ranging from transport to health, from entertainment to our interactions with government. This fantastic opportunity also presents a number of significant challenges. The growth in th...
Cutting off the King’s head: security and normative order beyond the state
Central to the ‘liberal political tradition’ is the legitimacy of violence enacted by the state. While, since the Cold War, the horizons of security have broadened beyond the national boundaries of states, the sovereign state acting as the principal security agent remains the central tenet of th...
Whose security is it? Elitism and the global approach to maritime security in Africa
Africa’s marine environment and resources that lie beneath it are central to the continent’s sustainable development and actualising the ambitions set out by the African Union in its Agenda 2063, where the oceans are described as the frontier of Africa’s development. The continent’s maritime...
The United States–Canada security community: a case study in mature border management
Canada and the US The United States and Canada have a long tradition of bilateral and binational security coordination, cooperation and collaboration. This is evident in a vast and growing number of transgovernmental networks that facilitate and enable policy alignment and parallelism in defence...
African security and global militarism
This Special Issue asks: what is the current place of militarism in relation to security where Africa is concerned? It aims to contribute to emerging debates interested in critical inquiry of the relation between militarism and security, and to explore its diverse articulations in African settings. ...
Communicating security threats: Emergency politics, the media, and the role of the public
The way security threats are communicated, constructed, and shaped by the media plays a crucial role in empowering particular actors and maintaining or changing the discursive power dynamics and relations within societies. Worldwide, a series of topics are presented in media as threats, demanding an...
Topologies of security: inquiring in/security across postcolonial and postsocialist scenes
Postcolonial and postsocialist thought has critiqued Critical Security Studies (CSS) on its Eurocentric orientation in terms of its concepts, categories, and concerns of security. In this introductory text, we discuss a concept in tension – topology/scene – to deepen a dialogue between postcolon...
Towards local agency: critical reflections on community engagement programmes at Abkanisa/Amara West, northern Sudan
Community engagement programmes are increasingly designed into archaeological projects in Sudan, largely prompted by the remit and funding of the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project (QSAP; 2013-present). This paper provides a critical reflection on how a British Museum project in northern Sudan ...
‘Madman Theory’ or ‘Persistent Engagement’? The Coherence of US Cyber Strategy under Trump
The Trump administration authorized an assertive cyber strategy of persistent engagement and defending forward. Less a radical break than an evolution, it reflected the impact of bureaucratic politics, emerging theories about cyber competition and arguments about improving the Obama-era strategy. Th...
Exploring Youths’ Willingness to Engage with Civil Society and Public Sector Institutions: The Untapped Potential of Religious
Research on preventing violent extremism is still in its infancy concerning the question of who the target audiences might be willing to talk to if they need help. To explore this question, we utilized the “Young in Oslo” dataset from 2015, where attitudes toward the use of violence were express...
The fallacy of uti possidetis juris: transboundary fishing in disputed maritime boundaries as a threat to Africa’s peace and security
Africa’s oceans and seas and their resources are crucial for the economic and food security of Coastal States and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). However, sustaining these contributions is undermined by depleting resources and other security threats at sea. Given the transboundary nature of...
Whose violence, whose security? Can violence reduction and security work for poor, excluded and vulnerable people?
This paper probes behind the assumptions underpinning the violence reduction agendas of the UN and the World Bank: that all forms of violence are commensurate and fit neatly into causal models; that violence is ‘development in reverse’ and inseparable from state fragility; and that security is a...
Predictive intelligence for tomorrow’s threats’: is predictive intelligence possible?
The world is facing an ever-changing array of complex threats to international security. Yet intelligence agencies have a mixed record of anticipating these threats, while decision-makers have an equally mixed record of effectively acting on predictive intelligence when offered. Sometimes intelligen...
Patterns in nascent, ascendant and mature border security: regional comparisons in transgovernmental coordination, cooperation, and collaboration
This special issue raises the prospect of trust-based determinants of security communities other than cultural similarity. The case studies in this special issue document the emergence of cross-border and transgovernmental policy and enforcement networks that facilitate policy development, implement...
Two sides of a coin? The security-development nexus in Brazilian diplomacy and military
The military and diplomacy would be two sides of a coin, two means of following the national interest. Regarding the securitydevelopment nexus, that should not be different: soldiers and diplomats are subordinate to the governments to which they respond. This article aims to compare how the nexus is...
(Not) Coming of age? Unpacking the European Union’s quest for strategic autonomy in security and defence
Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine brought back the debate about the European Union’s strategic autonomy ambitions in security and defence. The notion had slipped off the EU’s radar following the post-2016 thematic shift in strategic autonomy discussions to global economic interde...
Communities of Security Practice at Work? The Emerging African Maritime Security Regime
Maritimesecurity has been a long-neglected issue on the African security agenda. This situation is changing incrementally, not the least because of the atten tion to the problem of piracy in the continent’s waters. The “piracy momentum” has led to a significant intensification of maritime s...
Mutual trust without a strong collective identity? Examining the Shanghai cooperation organization as a nascent security community
t has long been assumed that security communities form in the international system based on at least two criteria, having a strong collective identity and mutual trust among their members. Security is gleaned through mutual trust, while community coalesces around a strong collective identity and sha...
Governing risks in international security
Risks are omnipresent in contemporary international security. Despite a long tradition in security studies going at least back to Von Clausewitz, we consider that the topic of risk remains under-examined. This forum seeks to advance the research agenda on risk in security studies by showcasing work ...
Public attitudes to China in the ‘Five Eyes': unpacking views across the Anglosphere security community
China is an important security concern for the United States and its allies, including the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group that is sometimes described as the core of the ‘Anglosphere’ security community. While we would expect securitising discourses at the elite level to reproduce so...
Exploring the human dimension of nuclear security: the history, theory, and practice of security culture
Over the past two decades, the international community has devoted considerable attention to the human dimension of nuclear security. This trend is part of a more holistic approach to securing nuclear facilities, grounded in the concept of culture, that moves beyond the traditional focus of physical...
Repositioning African states to prudently engage the global (dis)order and advance peace, security and development
Africa is by all accounts one of the richest continents but also displays the worst in human security indexes. During colonisation, the continent was characterised by the lack of peace, insecurity and underdevelopment. Moreover, with the demise of colonialism, Africa became a geo-political stake in ...
Security sector practitioner perceptions of the terror threat environment before the Christchurch attacks
On 15 March 2019, Brenton Tarrant destroyed New Zealand’s perception of its low threat terrorist risk. Security sector practitioners interviewed for this study before 15 March spoke about the challenges of performing counter terrorism roles in that low threat environment. Their perceptions ...
Safety in international security: a view point from the practice of accident investigation
While security points to a deliberate harming of humans and/or the environment, safety refers to unintended damage. In this view point, I will analyse how the distinction between safety and security matters in the practice of accident investigation and I will argue that the division between the fiel...
Locating the local police in Iraq’s security arena: community policing, the ‘three Ps’ and trust in Ninawa Province
Post-2003, the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) has undergone a series of overhauls that have prioritised building institutional capacities (‘statebuilding’) above socio-political cohesion (‘nation-building’). Following the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), however, a communit...
Public attitudes to China in the ‘Five Eyes': unpacking views across the Anglosphere security community
China is an important security concern for the United States and its allies, including the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group that is sometimes described as the core of the ‘Anglosphere’ security community. While we would expect securitising discourses at the elite level to reproduce som...
Children, childhoods, and security studies: an introduction
Children and childhoods have not garnered much attention from either mainstream or critical currents of scholarship in International Relations and Security Studies, notwithstanding the significant ways in which they may be inseparable from the fields’ subject matters, core concepts, and ideas. Add...
Cold CASE: a manifesto for Canadian critical security studies
Critical security studies is an established interest that brings together a variety of disciplines and theoretical approaches to bear on the ubiquitous deployment of security discourses and practices in the post-9/11 world. This article maps scholars working in critical security studies in Canada an...
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