This chapter addresses the question of ‘what security is’. It begins by exploring the history of security as a concept and practice emerging out of the long nineteenth century. The chapter shows security's inherent ties to colonialism and imperialism. It then suggests that security can be seen as an achievable threshold/goal whose progress can be measured, or as an ongoing process that is never complete. Either way, security is a form of political mobilization that acts upon our worlds through the prism of threats and risks, creating conditions of possibility and impossibility. The chapter concludes that the ubiquity of security demands that we ask how it defines our relations with others and with ourselves in shaping socio-political orders. To ask ‘what is security?’ is ultimately to answer the question, ‘what does security do?’.
Chapter
2. Security
Chapter
Imperialism and Human Rights
Bonny Ibhawoh
This chapter
discusses the correlation between human rights and imperialism. It cites how
imperialism is central to the development of human rights ideology by
referencing the collapse of the empire following World War II and the rise of
the international human rights movement. The human rights language boosted the
justification and legitimization of imperialism. The chapter also highlights the
impact of imperialism on the rights and liberties of colonized people, which
also led to the strategic social reforms, anti-colonial activism, and colonized
people's struggles for independence in the human rights movement. The collapse
of empires shaped the development of human rights, while decolonisation
influenced international human rights.
Chapter
16. Edward W. Said
Rahul Rao
This chapter studies the major intellectual contributions of Edward Said, many of which laid the foundations for what would become the field of postcolonial studies. It begins by exploring Said’s views on how knowledge and power structure relations between Western imperial powers and non-Western states and societies, through critical readings of Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1993), respectively. The chapter then looks at Said’s writings and activism as a spokesperson for Palestinian self-determination. It also examines Said’s views on what it means to be a public intellectual. While Said’s ideas have become so influential, the apparent familiarity of his ideas has allowed a forgetting of the nuance and complexity with which they were originally articulated. By offering a close re-reading of Said’s best-known texts, the chapter encourages a more careful appreciation of the ideas that were central to his political thinking.
Chapter
8. Empire
This chapter contests the myth that imperialism has ended by showing how imperial attitudes, racialised power hierarchies, and material inequalities that structured the era of empires remain in place today. It discusses why the field of International Relations conventionally sidelined the issues of imperialism and racism. Dismantling structural racism and imperialism requires long-term work on many fronts. Campaigns combining Postcolonial and Decolonial theories like ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ and ‘Why is My Curriculum White?’ have resulted in new publications and toolkits that decolonise the university. The chapter also recognises the need to review programmes, modules, and reading lists to include perspectives from outside the West, as colonialism and imperialism are at work in core disciplinary concepts and theories.
Chapter
16. Introducing Global Politics
Stephanie Lawson
This chapter discusses global politics in relation to the phenomenon of globalization. ‘Global politics’ as a field of study encompasses the traditional concerns of International Relations with how states interact under conditions of anarchy but lays greater emphasis on the role of non-state actors and processes in a globalizing world. The chapter first provides an overview of politics in a globalizing world before explaining the basic distinctions between ‘state’ and ‘nation’ in the context of contemporary global politics. It then considers the variation in state forms and the phenomenon of empire throughout history as well as the historical emergence of the modern state and state system in Europe along with ideas about sovereignty and nationalism against the background of ‘modernity’. It also examines the effective globalization of the European state system through modern imperialism and colonialism and the extent to which these have been productive of contemporary global order.
Chapter
7. Marxism
Mark Rupert
This chapter examines Marxist theory’s understanding of capitalism as an historically particular way of organizing social life and how Marxism can shed light on complex social relationships through which human beings produce and reproduce their social relations, the natural world, and themselves. It argues that the kind of social organization envisioned by Marxists has political, cultural, and economic dimensions that must be viewed as a dynamic ensemble of social relations not necessarily contained within the territorial boundaries of nation-states. The chapter first provides an overview of historical materialism and the meaning of dialectical theory, with particular emphasis on Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism and the Marxist tradition’s theorizing of imperialism, before discussing Western Marxism and Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. It then considers Marxist concepts of global power and hegemony and concludes with a case study that highlights the social relations underlying US global militarism.
Chapter
3. The rise of modern international order
George Lawson
This chapter examines the rise of modern international order. It begins with a discussion of international orders before the modern period, focusing on how trade and transport helped to link diverse parts of the world. It then considers debates about the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, along with nineteenth-century developments such as industrialization and imperialism. It also explores the main ideas that underpinned modern international order, the ‘shrinking of the planet’ that arose from the advent of new technologies, the emergence of intergovernmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations, and the advent of a radically unequal international order. The chapter concludes with case studies on the dual character of international law and imperialism in China.
Chapter
3. Empire, Cold War, and Decolonization, 1945–53
This chapter examines decolonization and the changes that took place within the European empires during the early years of the Cold War. Decolonization constituted a crucial element of the new international order after the Second World War and formed part of the broader shift in the global balance of power. The war marked the end of the European-dominated system of nation states and was followed by the decline of the major European powers, with international dominance lying for a quarter of a century with the United States, challenged only by the Soviet Union. The chapter considers the challenges to colonial rule that were evident in both Africa and Asia during the inter-war years. It also discusses the imperialism and the struggles against it that have formed part of a post-war landscape in the Middle East.
Book
Edited by Michael Goodhart
Human Rights:
Theory and Practice provides in-depth theoretical content and features
coverage of human rights issues in practice, with a wide range of case studies
showing true-to-life examples from around the world. This fourth edition brings
the text up to date with new readings centred on recent and relevant issues. It
is an interdisciplinary examination of human rights, rather than strictly
political science-centric. The first part of the book looks at theory and
includes chapters on the philosophical foundations of human rights,
international law, politics, and feminist approaches to human rights. There are
also chapters that cover imperialism, social life, and performative practice.
The second part looks at practice. Here chapters cover genocide, humanitarian
intervention, transitional justice, and treaties and enforcement. There are also
chapters on political democracy and state repression, migration, refugees, the
environment, indigenous rights, and language sovereignty. This part also looks
at social movements, issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity,
religion, and the human right to water. The final chapter in the second part
examines the SDGs and economic rights.
Chapter
5. Marxism And International Relations
The chapter tackles the interplay between Marxism and international relations (IR). It then discusses how Marxism grew relevant in line with the emergence of the Third World as an international political force. Unlike realism, Marxism is a progressive political philosophy, but it radically parts company with liberalism on how significant change might come about and the extent of the change needed. The chapter mentions that Marxist and Marxist-influenced scholarship became more visible during the aftermath of the Cold War era. The chapter also looks into the key concepts of capitalism, imperialism, dependency theory, world systems theory (WST), neo-Gramscianism, and critical theory.
Chapter
9. Postcolonialism
Mark Laffey and Suthaharan Nadarajah
This chapter introduces postcolonialism as a set of increasingly influential positions and perspectives within the wider discipline of International Relations and sketches its implications for security studies. It begins with postcolonialism’s genealogies, tracing its emergence in a set of transnational debates about the mutually constitutive relations between knowledge and imperialism. The chapter then lays out the standard account of world history as organized around Westphalian sovereignty which informs security studies and shows how postcolonialism puts it in question, forcing the international to be reconceived as the context within which security is defined, practised, and studied. Third, the chapter puts postcolonialism to work and discusses what it might mean to decolonize security studies. In a short conclusion, it returns to the question of the tense relations between security studies and postcolonialism itself.
Chapter
9. Marxism
Alexander Anievas
This chapter examines why and how Marxist theory matters for the study of international relations. It explicates core Marxist concepts and arguments and shows their relevance for understanding of various processes in international politics, from power, hegemony, and inequality to imperialism. The chapter first provides an overview of historical materialism and the meaning of dialectical theory, with particular emphasis on Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism. The chapter then discusses the myths and misunderstandings of Marxism, Marxist theories of imperialism and world systems theory, followed by a discussion of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and the idea of uneven and combined development. The case study puts forward a Marxist interpretation of the transformations during the era of the two world wars (1914–45) showing how multidimensional forces highlighted by Marxist concepts played a crucial role in the dynamics of this time.
