Ontological Insecurity in the European Union

Ontological Insecurity in the European Union PDF

Author: Catarina Kinnvall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-21

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0429559402

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The European Union (EU) faces many crises and risks to its security and existence. While few of them threaten the lives of EU citizens, they all create a sense of anxiety and insecurity about the future for many ordinary Europeans. This comprehensive volume explores the concept of ‘ontological security’ which was introduced into international relations over a decade ago to better understand the ‘security of being’ found in feelings of fear, anxiety, crisis, and threat to wellbeing. The authors make use of this concept to explore how narratives of European integration have been part of public discourses in the post-war period and how reconciliation dynamics, national biographical narratives and memory politics have been enacted to create ontological security. Within this context, they also discuss the anxiety of the ‘remainers’ in the Brexit referendum and the consequences of its failure to address the ontological anxieties and insecurities of remain voters. The book also explores: how European security firms market ontological security and provide an ontological security-inspired reading of the EU’s relations with post-communist states; the EU and NATO’s engagement with hybrid threats; and the EU as an anxious community. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal European Security.

Conflict Resolution and Ontological Security

Conflict Resolution and Ontological Security PDF

Author: Bahar Rumelili

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1317750160

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This volume highlights the ways in which the prospect of peace can generate anxieties and consequently set in motion social and political processes that reproduce and reactivate conflicts. In analysing this issue, the volume builds on the notion of ontological security and its recent applications to international relations theory. Although conflicts threaten the physical security of the parties involved, they also help settle existential questions about basic parameters of life, being, and identity, and thus over time become sources of ontological security. The prospect of peace, through the resolution or transformation of conflict, threatens to unsettle the stability and consistency of self-narratives, and their associated routines and habits at the individual, group, and state levels. The contributors argue two key points: 1) that ontological insecurity may set in motion political and social processes that reproduce and reactivate conflicts; 2) that coping with peace anxieties necessitates the formulation of alternative self-narratives at the individual, societal, and state levels that re-situate the Self in relation to Other and to the world at large. Consequently, the book analyses the ways in which, and the conditions under which, conflict resolution induces ontological insecurity, and the different ways in which ontological insecurity has prevented the successful culmination of peace processes in different conflict contexts, including Cyprus, Israel-Palestine and Northern Ireland. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, conflict resolution, peace and conflict studies, social theory and IR in general.

The Politics of Insecurity

The Politics of Insecurity PDF

Author: Jef Huysmans

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-09-27

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1134234473

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The act of violence of 9/11 changed the global security agenda, catapulting terrorism to the top of the agenda. Weapons of mass destruction grabbed public interest and controlling the free movement of people became a national security priority. In this volume, Jef Huysmans critically engages with theoretical developments in international relations and security studies to develop a conceptual framework for studying security. He argues that security policies and responses do not appear out of the blue, but are part of a continuous and gradual process, pre-structured by previous developments. He examines this process of securitization and explores how an issue, on the basis of the distribution and administration of fear, becomes a security policy. Huysmans then applies this theory to provide a detailed analysis of migration, asylum and refuge in the European Union. This theoretically sophisticated, yet accessible volume, makes an important contribution to the study of security, migration and European politics.

The Routledge Handbook of EU-Africa Relations

The Routledge Handbook of EU-Africa Relations PDF

Author: Toni Haastrup

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-30

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 135169328X

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This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the changing dynamics in the relationship between the African continent and the EU, provided by leading experts in the field. Structured into five parts, the handbook provides an incisive look at the past, present and potential futures of EU-Africa relations. The cutting-edge chapters cover themes like multilateralism, development assistance, institutions, gender equality and science and technology, among others. Thoroughly researched, this book provides original reflections from a diversity of conceptual and theoretical perspectives, from experts in Africa, Europe and beyond. The handbook thus offers rich and comprehensive analyses of contemporary global politics as manifested in Africa and Europe. The Routledge Handbook of EU-Africa Relations will be an essential reference for scholars, students, researchers, policy makers and practitioners interested and working in a range of fields within the (sub)disciplines of African and EU studies, European politics and international studies. The Routledge Handbook of EU-Africa Relations is part of the mini-series Europe in the World Handbooks examining EU-regional relations and established by Professor Wei Shen.

Fear and Uncertainty in Europe

Fear and Uncertainty in Europe PDF

Author: Roberto Belloni

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-08-02

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 3319919652

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Russia’s intervention in the Ukraine, Donald Trump’s presidency and instability in the Middle East are just a few of the factors that have brought an end to the immediate post-Cold War belief that a new international order was emerging: one where fear and uncertainty gave way to a thick normative and institutional architecture that diminished the importance of material power. This has raised questions about the instruments we use to understand order in Europe and in international relations. The chapters in this book aim to assess whether foreign policy actors in Europe understand the international system and behave as realists. They ask what drives their behaviour, how they construct material capabilities and to what extent they see material power as the means to ensure survival. They contribute to a critical assessment of realism as a way to understand both Europe’s current predicament and the contemporary international system.

Constructing Europe's Identity

Constructing Europe's Identity PDF

Author: Lars-Erik Cederman

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781555878726

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The authors assess not only the benefits, but also the costs of attempts to assert a European identity. Referring to debates about the respective merits of deepening and widening, they address the equally important associated tradeoffs between exclusion and dilution: they point to the risks on the one hand of a Europe that excludes foreign goods, immigrants and entire countries, and on the other of an unfocused definition of Europe that may dilute the very values that a "European identity" is intended to protect.

Ontological Security in International Relations

Ontological Security in International Relations PDF

Author: Brent J. Steele

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-03-10

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 113598008X

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The central assertion of this book is that states pursue social actions to serve self-identity needs, even when these actions compromise their physical existence. Three forms of social action, sometimes referred to as ‘motives’ of state behaviour (moral, humanitarian, and honour-driven) are analyzed here through an ontological security approach. Brent J. Steele develops an account of social action which interprets these behaviours as fulfilling a nation-state's drive to secure self-identity through time. The anxiety which consumes all social agents motivates them to secure their sense of being, and thus he posits that transformational possibilities exist in the ‘Self’ of a nation-state. The volume consequently both challenges and complements realist, liberal, constructivist and post-structural accounts to international politics. Using ontological security to interpret three cases - British neutrality during the American Civil War (1861-1865), Belgium’s decision to fight Germany in 1914, and NATO’s (1999) Kosovo intervention - the book concludes by discussing the importance for self-interrogation in both the study and practice of international relations. Ontological Security in International Relations will be of particular interest to students and researchers of international politics, international ethics, international relations and security studies.

Europeanization of National Security Identity

Europeanization of National Security Identity PDF

Author: Pernille Rieker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-05-09

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1134180365

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This new book tackles two key questions: 1) How is the EU functioning as a security actor? 2) How and to what extent is the EU affecting national security identities? Focusing on the four largest Nordic states (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), this incisive study analyzes how and to what extent the EU affects national security identities. It shows how the EU has developed into a special kind of security actor that, due to its level of political integration, has an important influence on national security approaches and identities. This new analysis applies a fresh combination of integration theory, security studies and studies of Europeanization. The main argument in this book is that, rather than adapting to the changing conditions created by the end of the Cold War, the Nordic states changed their security approaches in response to the European integration process. It shows how different phases in the post Cold War European integration process have influenced the national security approaches of Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. While all four security approaches seem to have been Europeanized, the speed and the character of these changes seem to vary due to a combination of differing ties to the EU and differing security policy traditions. This new book will be of great interest to all students of European Defence, national security and of security studies in general.

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