450747 43410.

1177/0967010612450747NunesSecurity Dialogue

Article

Security Dialogue

Reclaiming the political:

43(4) 345­–361
© The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permission: sagepub.
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DOI: 10.1177/0967010612450747
in security studies sdi.sagepub.com

João Nunes
Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK

Abstract
The critical security studies literature has been marked by a shared commitment towards the politicization
of security – that is, the analysis of its assumptions, implications and the practices through which it is (re)
produced. In recent years, however, politicization has been accompanied by a tendency to conceive security
as connected with a logic of exclusion, totalization and even violence. This has resulted in an imbalanced
politicization that weakens critique. Seeking to tackle this situation, the present article engages with
contributions that have advanced emancipatory versions of security. Starting with, but going beyond, the
so-called Aberystwyth School of security studies, the argument reconsiders the meaning of security as
emancipation by making the case for a systematic engagement with the notions of reality and power. This
revised version of security as emancipation strengthens critique by addressing political dimensions that have
been underplayed in the critical security literature.

Keywords
critical security studies, security as emancipation, power, feminist security studies, materiality, immanent critique

Introduction
These are crucial times for the critical security literature – or critical security studies.1 Fifteen years
after the idea of a ‘critical’ engagement with security was first advanced (Krause and Williams,
1997b), this body of work has succeeded in showing the limitations and dangers of predominant
ways of thinking and practising security. The popularity of critical approaches has grown exponen-
tially in many academic circles, so that critical security studies is no longer at the margins. In fact,
securitization theory, one of the foremost critical approaches, can be argued to be ‘about as main-
stream as it is possible to get’ (Croft, 2007: 508) – at least outside the United States. This has hap-
pened in a context of proliferation of the critical label within the discipline of international relations.
But, will the popularity of critical security studies blunt its critical edge? In what ways is it still

Corresponding author:
João Nunes
Email: [email protected]; [email protected].

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346 Security Dialogue 43(4)

relevant to speak of a critique of security? Are there still critical goals to achieve? If so, how can
critical security studies be strengthened to perform its tasks? Prompted by these questions, this
article sets out to examine the present situation and future prospects of critical security studies,
focusing on the role that emancipatory notions of security can play within it.
The argument begins by providing a new ‘map’ of critical security studies, organized around a
core commitment shared by all approaches: the intention of challenging ideas and practices of secu-
rity by seeing them as inherently political. The article then asks how critical security studies has lived
up to this commitment. It shows that while there has been immense progress in destabilizing taken-
for-granted assumptions and in questioning security policies, there are still important limitations in
critical security studies. Specifically, there has been a tendency to conceive security as connected
with a logic of exclusion, totalization, undemocratic politics and even violence. Meanwhile, there has
been a relative lack of theoretical innovation within the strands of critical security studies that seek
to identify alternative visions of security. As a result of this, the accomplishments of critical security
studies are arguably modest in what pertains to engaging with practical transformative politics.
In order to address this situation, the present article revisits emancipatory notions of security.
Starting with, but going beyond, the ‘Aberystwyth School’ of security studies, the argument advances
a revised version of ‘security as emancipation’, one focused on an in-depth engagement with the
political dimension of reality and with the multifaceted character of power. This new version of secu-
rity as emancipation brings politics back into some of the blind spots of critical security studies. It
tackles the current imbalance in the politicization of security, thereby strengthening critique.

Critical security studies and politicization

In a recent survey of the field, Columba Peoples and Nick Vaughan-Williams (2010) have argued
that the way we understand critical security studies depends on the map that is superimposed upon
it. Maps are narratives that construct reality in specific ways – illuminating some issues and render-
ing others invisible. While some maps may have detrimental effects, others can be beneficial for
the critical security field, by helping to identify problems or by realizing untapped potential.
The map of critical security studies suggested here is based on the notion of the ‘politicization’
of security (Fierke, 2007: 33). It is possible to argue that the challenge posed by critical security
studies to the dominance of realism was achieved primarily by framing security, and the study of
it, as political phenomena. This meant seeing security as something more than a natural response
to a self-evident threat, and security studies as something more than just the provider of expert
knowledge to tackle threats ‘out there in the world’.
Since its inception during the postwar period, security studies had been connected to politics
only insofar as it reacted to changing political circumstances and served as an instrument of
policymaking.2 This ‘reactive’ period of security theory overlooked deeper connections between
security and politics. For Karin Fierke (2007: 25), ‘the demise of the political’ in security theory
was brought about by the prominence of neorealism, which ‘in the search for elegance and parsi-
mony … removed any traces of the human, the political and the cultural from international rela-
tions’. The debates on the redefinition of security from the 1980s onwards also suffered from the
same problem: for Barry Buzan (2000: 3), they were primarily driven by policymakers and ‘people
on the ground arguing that contemporary conditions make economic, environmental and/or
societal threats more important than military ones’.
Importantly, however, in the 1980s security studies also witnessed what has been termed a
‘return to theory’ (Wæver and Buzan, 2007). The influence of post-positivism and critical interna-
tional relations theory, as well a growing realization that the study of security had normative

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Nunes: Emancipation and critique in security studies 347

implications, led some authors to see the field as something more than a repository of accumulated
findings. Research in security studies gradually became aware of the political origins of its con-
cepts and of its own connection to political arrangements. Buzan (1991: 7–11) pioneered this new
take on the relationship between security theory and politics by arguing that security was a politi-
cally and ideologically contested concept.
Critical security studies can be seen as the corollary of this tendency to see security research as
a political process in which claims are produced and practices are imagined and legitimized.
Critical security studies sought to go beyond previous ‘broadening’ and ‘deepening’ moves by
reconsidering the concepts and methodologies hitherto used in security studies (Krause and
Williams, 1996). This was supplemented by an analysis of the politics behind the construction of
security knowledge: ideas of security were seen as political insofar as they result from interpreta-
tion, contestation and struggle between actors.
Critical security studies also set out to explore the connection between security theory and the
wider political order, by showing that the ways in which we conceptualize security cannot be sepa-
rated from our ideas about how politics works or should work. For Keith Krause and Michael C.
Williams, the stepping stone for rethinking security should be ‘making the definition of the politi-
cal a question rather than an assumption’ (Krause and Williams, 1997a: xi, emphasis in original).
In this context, critical security studies also drew attention to the impact of understandings and
practices of security upon social relations and, more broadly, upon the constitution of the political
order. This has led critical security studies to conceive security theory as a political activity in its
own right.
Critical security studies is thus the result of a growing recognition of the political dimensions of
security: the assumptions and struggles that underlie ideas and practices; the context in which these
are located; the processes through which they are framed and reproduced; and their political impli-
cations. One can see the development of critical security studies as an attempt to add further depth
and sense of purpose to the politicization of security. Critical security studies signals the moment
in which the study of security became self-consciously political, and in which the politics of secu-
rity began to be approached in a more systematic way.
Organizing a map of critical security studies around the notion of politicization has clear advan-
tages in relation to existing narratives about the field, which have been described by Peoples and
Vaughan-Williams (2010: 3) in the following manner:

the first is an intellectual narrative based on the negative definition of critical approaches to security
against more ‘traditional’ approaches. The second is a range of temporal narratives used to make claims
about the trajectory of the development of critical security studies in relation to historical events…. The
third concerns a set of spatial narratives that emphasises the emergence of different ‘schools of thought’,
each anchored by a geographical reference point.

Seeing critical security studies as the corollary of a tendency towards the politicization of security
provides a narrative that is arguably more nuanced than the binary view provided by the ‘intellec-
tual narrative’. By highlighting the ways in which security theory is constitutive of the political
process, the prism of politicization also shows that critical security studies was not merely reactive
to political events, as ‘temporal narratives’ suggest. Moreover, using politicization as a gravita-
tional centre for different trajectories in critical security studies preserves the network-like spirit of
the ‘spatial narratives’ while helping to stave off artificial divisions.3 Importantly for the purposes
of this article, looking at critical security studies through the prism of politicization allows one to
shed light upon its current limitations.

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348 Security Dialogue 43(4)

Politicization and the limits of critical security studies

The politicization of security has been interpreted and pursued differently in the critical security
studies literature. Some authors have focused on the ways in which ‘security’ comes about. This
has been done by highlighting the role of language in the definition of ideas and practices of
security (Wæver, 1995). The exploration of ‘how security is done’ has also been achieved by
looking more broadly at context and practices. Authors have explored how vocabularies and
rationalities of security are introduced or withdrawn – or, in other situations, emerge and
disappear – via social interactions, bureaucratic processes and institutional dynamics (Bigo,
2002; Huysmans, 2006; see also Balzacq, 2011). Here, instead of being the result of an overt
political intention manifesting itself in a securitizing move, security emerges through the articu-
lation of different elements.
Politicization has also been pursued by looking at the political effects of security – in other
words, ‘what security does’. In this respect, the critical literature has considered the relationship
between the securitization of issues and political procedure. While some authors have focused on
exceptional consequences (Buzan et al., 1998), others have highlighted surreptitious facets (Bigo,
2007). The broader effects of security upon the political order have also been considered. For Jef
Huysmans, for example, security contributes to defining the character of political and social rela-
tions within a given society. By presupposing ‘a process of political identification’ and ‘construct-
ing political agencies’, security understandings and policies effectively ‘open a space within which
a political community can represent and affirm itself’ (Huysmans, 1998: 238).
But, the politicization of security has also meant something else. Going beyond this ‘negative
or deconstructive’ stance – which seeks to expose the contingency and effects of existing security
arrangements – some authors have offered a more ‘positive or reconstructive’ stance (Krause and
Williams, 1997a: xiii).4 This latter stance has focused on the normative assessment of security
arrangements, that is, on a judgment about the desirability of ideas and practices – in other words,
‘what security should be’. It has also sought to provide alternative versions of security and to con-
tribute to change. As will be explored below, this version of politicization has been pursued by
authors advancing emancipatory visions of security.
The development of critical security studies has benefited from the interplay of different takes
on politicization. In particular, fruitful dialogue has occurred around the exploration of ‘how secu-
rity is done’ and ‘what security does’. Synergies between critical approaches – for example,
between securitization theory and post-structuralism – have been established. At the same time,
however, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the normative judgment and political transforma-
tion of security have not witnessed the same level of engagement and collaboration. It can indeed
be argued that the reconstructive side of the critical literature has failed to keep up with the great
theoretical development of the deconstructive side. This has resulted in a politicization of security
that is arguably imbalanced: while critical security studies has been successful in contesting pre-
dominant security arrangements, its achievements when it comes to providing a normative agenda
and informing political change are arguably more modest.
Different explanations could be advanced for this. One could point to the pitfalls of defining
alternatives or programmes for change in cases that are not always clear (Neufeld, 2004). The
reluctance to engage with ‘what security should be’ could thus simply be explained by caution.
However, it is possible to identify deeper reasons for this imbalance in politicization, which relate
to the ways in which security itself has come to be understood in the critical field. The reconstruc-
tive agenda in critical security studies has clashed with the growth of a radical understanding of
critique as the permanent questioning of security. According to this view, the task of critical

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Nunes: Emancipation and critique in security studies 349

scholars is to incessantly question ideas and practices by showing that they are neither natural nor
necessary – insofar as they result from political processes and serve certain purposes. If one could
speak of a result of this process, it would be the permanent disruption of what is taken for granted.
This understanding sees critique as something that must constantly begin anew, in order to avoid
the risk of falling back into essentialized thinking.
This take on critique has impacted upon the way in which politicization is pursued by many in
the critical field. Since the inception of critical security studies, the idea of critique has rested
primarily upon the destabilization of realist, ‘traditional’ or predominant ways of thinking and
doing security. This was followed by the problematization of the very reality of security. In the
wake of securitization theory, according to which security is a modality for dealing with issues and
not something ‘out there’, the attention of critical security studies was increasingly diverted to the
claims and practices through which security is constructed. Securitization theory set the scene for
this engagement by refusing to assume that security was ‘a good to be spread to ever more sectors’
(Buzan et al., 1998: 35). Instead, security was deemed to entail the bypassing of democratic deci-
sionmaking. Numerous studies have shown that security is often connected with undemocratic
practices of control, surveillance and sometimes coercion (for an example, see Bigo et al., 2006).
Meanwhile, the problematization of securitizing practices is seen to confirm a wider malaise
with the very idea of security. The continuum between the critique of securitization (in specific
cases) and the critique of security (in itself) is present in a recent statement by Ole Wæver, in which
he highlights ‘the inevitable effects of any securitization’ in the form of a ‘logic of necessity, the
narrowing of choice, the empowerment of a smaller elite’ (2011: 469), before arguing that ‘the
concept of security is Schmittian, because it defines security in terms of exception, emergency and
a decision’ (2011: 478, emphasis in original).
In fact, a profound distrust towards security is present in the work of Michael Dillon, who
understands security as a ‘generative principle of formation’ (1996: 127), a register of meaning that
entails a politics of calculability, closure, exclusion and violence. Dillon (1996: 130) identifies
within Western thought a ‘metaphysical politics of security’ that makes ‘politics a matter of com-
mand; membership of a political community a matter of obedience; love synonymous with a polic-
ing order; order a function of discipline; and identity a narcissistic paranoia’. Similar concerns are
present in the work of Didier Bigo, for whom security is a liberal political register that strives to
make the world calculable, ‘makes a fantasy of homogeneity and seeks the end of any resistances
or struggles’ (2008: 109). Mark Neocleous (2011: 186) takes these concerns in a more radical
direction by linking security to fascism.
In the works of these authors, one can identify a tendency to see security as inherently con-
nected to exclusion, totalization and even violence. The idea of a ‘logic’ of security is now widely
present in the critical security studies literature. Claudia Aradau (2008: 72), for example, writes of
an ‘exclusionary logic of security’ underpinning and legitimizing ‘forms of domination’. Rens van
Munster (2007: 239) assumes a ‘logic of security’, predicated upon a ‘political organization on the
exclusionary basis of fear’. Laura Shepherd (2008: 70) also identifies a liberal and highly problem-
atic ‘organizational logic’ in security.
Although there would probably be disagreement over the degree to which this logic is inescap-
able, it is symptomatic of an overwhelmingly pessimistic outlook that a great number of critical
scholars are now making the case for moving away from security. The normative preference for
desecuritization has been picked up in attempts to contest, resist and ‘unmake’ security (Aradau,
2004; Huysmans, 2006; Bigo, 2007). For these contributions, security cannot be reconstructed and
political transformation can only be brought about when security and its logic are removed from
the equation (Aradau, 2008; Van Munster, 2009; Peoples, 2011).

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350 Security Dialogue 43(4)

This tendency in the literature is problematic for the critique of security in at least three ways.
First, it constitutes a blind spot in the effort of politicization. The assumption of an exclusionary,
totalizing or violent logic of security can be seen as an essentialization and a moment of closure.
To be faithful to itself, the politicization of security would need to recognize that there is nothing
natural or necessary about security – and that security as a paradigm of thought or a register of
meaning is also a construction that depends upon its reproduction and performance through prac-
tice. The exclusionary and violent meanings that have been attached to security are themselves the
result of social and historical processes, and can thus be changed.
Second, the institution of this apolitical realm runs counter to the purposes of critique by fore-
closing an engagement with the different ways in which security may be constructed. As Matt
McDonald (2012) has argued, because security means different things for different people, one
must always understand it in context. Assuming from the start that security implies the narrowing
of choice and the empowerment of an elite forecloses the acknowledgment of security claims that
may seek to achieve exactly the opposite: alternative possibilities in an already narrow debate and
the contestation of elite power.5 In connection to this, the claims to insecurity put forward by indi-
viduals and groups run the risk of being neglected if the desire to be more secure is identified with
a compulsion towards totalization, and if aspirations to a life with a degree of predictability are
identified with violence.
Finally, this tendency blunts critical security studies as a resource for practical politics. By over-
looking the possibility of reconsidering security from within – opting instead for its replacement
with other ideals – the critical field weakens its capacity to confront head-on the exceptionalist
connotations that security has acquired in policymaking circles. Critical scholars run the risk of
playing into this agenda when they tie security to exclusionary and violent practices, thereby fail-
ing to question security actors as they take those views for granted and act as if they were inevita-
ble. Overall, security is just too important – both as a concept and as a political instrument – to be
simply abandoned by critical scholars. As McDonald (2012: 163) has put it,

If security is politically powerful, is the foundation of political legitimacy for a range of actors, and
involves the articulation of our core values and the means of their protection, we cannot afford to allow
dominant discourses of security to be confused with the essence of security itself.

In sum, the trajectory that critical security studies has taken in recent years has significant limi-
tations. The politicization of security has made extraordinary progress in problematizing pre-
dominant security ideas and practices; however, it has paradoxically resulted in a depoliticization
of the meaning of security itself. By foreclosing the possibility of alternative notions of security,
this imbalanced politicization weakens the analytical capacity of critical security studies, under-
mines its ability to function as a political resource and runs the risk of being politically counter-
productive. Seeking to address these limitations, the next section revisits emancipatory
understandings of security.

Emancipation in critical security studies: Reclaiming the

political
The idea that security and emancipation are connected has been developed most explicitly by Ken
Booth and Richard Wyn Jones, two authors commonly identified with the ‘Welsh School’ (Smith,
2005) or ‘Aberystwyth School’ (Wæver, 2004) of security studies.6 Leaving aside the question of
whether one can speak of a ‘school’ in this case – or even whether it is useful to speak of schools

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Nunes: Emancipation and critique in security studies 351

at all – the work of these two authors represents perhaps the most influential example of how ‘secu-
rity as emancipation’ has been theorized in critical security studies.7 Booth has conceived security
as the removal (or at least alleviation) of constraints upon the lives of individuals and groups; he
argues that emancipation encompasses ‘lifting people as individuals and groups out of structural
and contingent oppressions’ that ‘stop them from carrying out what they would freely choose to do,
compatible with the freedom of others’ (Booth, 2007: 110, 112).8 ‘Oppressions’, or threats, can
range from ‘direct bodily violence from other humans (war), through structural political and eco-
nomic forms of oppression (slavery), into more existential threats to identity (cultural imperial-
ism)’ (Booth, 1999: 49).
Security as emancipation is supported by three ideas that have the potential to address the
imbalance of politicization currently impairing the critical project. The first is the wish to engage
in a comprehensive way with the ‘reality’ of security. This approach sets out to engage with the
conditions of existence of ‘real people in real places’ (Wyn Jones, 1996: 214) by taking two ana-
lytical steps. On one hand, the individual is seen as the irreducible unit of political life and thus the
ultimate referent of security. On the other hand, security as emancipation begins its exploration of
security, not from an envisaged condition of being free from care, but with actual insecurity as a
‘life-determining condition’ (Booth, 2007: 101). The meaning of security is not based on a univer-
sal, a priori notion of what being secure is, but rather stems from the experiences of insecurity of
real people in real places.
This should not be mistaken for the desire to present security as self-evident. Security as eman-
cipation sees knowledge about security as a social product and process, which derives from politi-
cal interests, reflects existing opportunities and constraints, results from power struggles, and is
oriented towards political goals. Understandings of security are embedded in a social setting in
which facts are established by political negotiation and sometimes struggle.9
This discussion points towards a second idea in the security-as-emancipation framework: the
fact that it assumes a thoroughly politicized notion of security and thus sees itself as a form of
praxis committed to political change – specifically, the transformation of arrangements that are
implicated in the (re)production of insecurities. Thus, on the one hand, security is underpinned by
political and ethical assumptions. It is a ‘derivative concept’, insofar as ‘security outcomes (poli-
cies, situations, etc.) derive from different underlying understandings of the character and purpose
of politics’ (Booth, 2007: 109, emphasis in original). On the other hand, understandings of security
have important implications for politics. Reality is supported – or can alternatively be challenged
– by existing versions of it. The condition of insecurity can be transformed not only by social
struggles, but also by ideas that shape these struggles. Theories draw the boundaries of political
imagination and possibility; they are appropriated by actors and help to constitute their self-percep-
tion and behaviour. By being constitutive of reality, security theory is ultimately a form of
politics.
It thus becomes clear that, for emancipatory approaches, critique is not the questioning of secu-
rity in the general sense. Predominant ideas and practices of security do deserve close scrutiny and,
very often, fierce opposition. However, by emphasizing the insecurities affecting people, this
approach moves beyond the idea that ‘security’ is merely a representation of reality or a modality
for dealing with issues. Rather, critique sets out to impact upon political actors’ perceptions and
actions, so as to pave the way for a reconstruction of security along more open, inclusive and
democratic lines. Critique strives to redress immediate insecurities and to work towards the long-
term objective of a life less determined by unwanted and unnecessary constraints.
This leads to a third idea: the reconstructive agenda of emancipatory approaches is supported by
a practical strategy for transformation. Booth (2007: 6) has advanced the term ‘emancipatory

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352 Security Dialogue 43(4)

realism’ to denote the grounding of security as emancipation upon the real condition of insecurity
and, simultaneously, the wish to transform it. In fact, emancipatory realism draws on immanent
critique as an analytical method and a political strategy. Immanent critique was one of the stepping
stones of Frankfurt School Critical Theory: for Max Horkheimer, philosophy should highlight
contradictions and unlock potentialities in current arrangements. In his words, ‘philosophy con-
fronts the existent, in its historical context, with the claim of its conceptual principles, in order to
criticize the relation between the two and thus transcend them’ (Horkheimer [1947] 1974: 182).
Immanent critique follows logically from the acknowledgment of the insecurities of individuals
and groups, and plays into the normative and political agenda of security as emancipation. This is
because the immanent method is at once analytical and connected to political praxis: it ‘engages
with the core commitments of particular discourses, ideologies or institutional arrangements on
their own terms, in the process locating possibilities for radical change within a particular existing
order’ (McDonald, 2012: 60). The internal contradictions of predominant security arrangements,
made visible by immanent critique, constitute fault-lines where alternative visions of security can
be fostered. Immanent critique also entails the identification of transformative possibilities in the
form of ideas and actors in particular contexts that have the potential to contribute to change.
Taken together, these three ideas – insecurity as the starting point, theory as praxis and imma-
nent critique – constitute a promising stepping stone for reclaiming the political in critical security
studies. They show that it is possible to avoid the closure inherent in pessimistic views of security:
security is ultimately about the experiences of real people in real places, and predominant versions
of security can be challenged and eventually transformed. These ideas also help to reclaim the
political by strengthening the capacity of critical security studies to recognize political complexity.
By drawing attention towards insecurities, emancipatory approaches add further layers in which
the political construction of security can be scrutinized – thus allowing for a better understanding
of the meanings attached to security in particular historical and social contexts. Finally, these ideas
can help reclaim the political in critical security studies by bringing this field closer to practical
transformative politics. Immanent critique allows for judgments to be made in relation to existing
understandings and practices of security, in the light of how they respond to the needs of the most
vulnerable. Simultaneously, the identification of contradictions and potentialities offers concrete
steps for change.
In sum, security as emancipation has the potential to address the current imbalance in the politi-
cization of security. There are, however, important issues that need to be addressed if this approach
is to constitute a viable resource for critical security studies.

Rethinking emancipation
Security as emancipation has been met with some suspicion. It has been criticized for being idealis-
tic (Eriksson, 1999); for wishing to impose Western values (Ayoob, 1997; Barkawi and Laffey,
2006); because of its connection to ‘liberalism’ (Shepherd, 2008: 70); and for assuming an essential-
ized individuality (Sjoberg, 2011). It has been accused of relying on an abstract moral framework
that ignores contemporary security (McCormack, 2010); and it has even been connected with
Western military interventionism (Chandler, 2006). These criticisms seem to rely on the assumption
that security as emancipation is but an expression of the modern, universalist Enlightenment narra-
tive of emancipation (analysed, among others, by Pieterse, 1992; Laclau, 1996). This has resulted in
the lack of a sustained engagement with what the proponents of security as emancipation have actu-
ally written (but see Aradau, 2008).

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Nunes: Emancipation and critique in security studies 353

However, the work of Booth and Wyn Jones shows that security as emancipation does not
assume an abstract individual or an essentialized human. In addition to highlighting the corporeal,
concrete nature of the referent of security, Booth (2007: 210) has defined ‘human sociality’ as one
of the mainstays of his approach: according to this idea, being human is an open condition based
on the capacity to invent oneself as human. Responding to the ethnocentrism charge, Pinar Bilgin
(2012) argued that the idea that some values ‘originate’ in a particular culture is itself based on
essentialized views. Moreover, far from presupposing a blueprint to be imposed or a unidirec-
tional path towards an emancipated end-state, this literature has painstakingly argued that eman-
cipation only makes sense when seen as a localized and unfinished process. The meaning of
emancipation can only be determined by local stakeholders, when faced with concrete choices
between more or less emancipatory options for a given situation.10 A passage in Booth’s (2007:
113) work shows the extent to which this approach has successfully dealt with the most common
criticisms:

False emancipation … is any conception that understands emancipation as timeless or static (whether in
relation to ideas, institutions, or situations); undertakes emancipatory politics at the expense of others
(making the emancipatory goals of others impossible); or uses emancipation as a cloak for the power of
‘the West’ or any other entity claiming to have the monopoly of wisdom.

It can be said that the persistence of a climate of suspicion towards the idea of emancipation –
conjoined with the growing tendency to see security as something to be avoided – has led to critical
security studies being, in the current situation, particularly inhospitable to notions of security as
emancipation.11 This has impaired the theoretical development of emancipatory approaches, which
have devoted a substantial amount of their energies to the defensive reiteration of their own
assumptions. Moreover, this development has been detrimentally affected by the fact that security
as emancipation is still commonly identified with the Aberystwyth School – which, in turn, has
shown some reluctance to engage with contributions from other critical approaches to security.12
The prominent position of the Aberystwyth School in the emancipation literature has also meant
that discussions are overwhelmingly centred on – and limited by – a view of emancipation as the
removal or alleviation of constraints upon the lives of individuals and groups.
There is, however, scope for nudging the debate in a more productive direction – one that allows
for a deeper engagement with the actual shortcomings of security as emancipation and that, as a
result, enables its potential to be fully realized. In fact, while Booth and others have done much
work on fine-tuning the account of what emancipation is, not enough attention has been given to
the complexities of what one is to be emancipated from. Here, the literature has remained at a
rather unspecified level: in order to justify the need for emancipation, Booth has either referred to
the experiences of the ‘victims’ of insecurity (2007: 160) or described a global historical crisis
characterized by

the combustible interplay of interstate conflict, globalization, population growth, extremist ideologies,
apparently unstoppable technological momentum, terrorism, consumerism, tyranny, massive disparities of
wealth, rage, imperialism, nuclear-biological-chemical weapons, and brute capitalism – as well as more
traditional cultural threats to peoples’ security as a result of patriarchy and religious bigotry (Booth, 2005b: 1–2).

A thorough understanding of the condition of insecurity requires that we go beyond simple enu-
meration – as extensive as it might be. How exactly are these situations a threat? How do they

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354 Security Dialogue 43(4)

constitute impediments to life? How do they translate into claims for security and emancipation?
Looking at the claims themselves does not solve the problem, particularly when one is faced with
conflicting claims, or when one begins to question the ways in which the ‘victims of insecurity’ are
defined. In order to provide a convincing account of the need for emancipation and devise practical
steps to achieve it, emancipatory approaches need to include a sophisticated account of what the
problem is. The condition of insecurity upon which visions of emancipation are to be predicated
must not be taken for granted.
Two themes, largely overlooked by Booth and Wyn Jones, can help to specify the condition of
insecurity. By improving its capacity to understand the political intricacies of the ‘reality’ of secu-
rity and the different dimensions of its power, security as emancipation would be in a better posi-
tion to contribute to the critical security field.
To begin with, security as emancipation has much to gain from fully taking on board the ways in
which the reality of security is traversed by politics – even in reality’s most ‘material’ core. More
precisely, this approach needs to shift from an unquestioned reliance upon material individuals (or
bodies) suffering insecurity towards an analysis of the politics of materialization. The work of
Michael C. Williams shows that an engagement with materialization is essential for understanding
the modern politics of security. He argues that the security understandings that constitute the modern
sovereign state were underpinned by a transformation of the way in which the individual was con-
ceived. This transformation implied the materialization of the individual: that is, the ‘reduction of the
“referent objects” of security to abstract, individual persons, rendered as atomistic, material bodies
united through a political authority’ (Williams, 1998b: 438; see also Williams, 1998a). Thus, instead
of a truthful depiction of reality, the focus on material individuals is the result of political practices.
Judith Butler has explored materialization by arguing that bodies also need to be understood
politically. She maintains that gender is not an essential biological characteristic of the body but
rather an organizing principle. In her words, gender ‘does not describe a prior materiality, but pro-
duces and regulates the intelligibility of the materiality of bodies’ (Butler, 1992: 17; see also Butler,
1993). She gives the example of the practice of coercive surgery on infants and children with sexu-
ally indeterminate or hermaphroditic anatomy, which aims at normalizing their bodies in accor-
dance with idealized morphologies. For her, the body is always embedded within culturally and
historically specific processes of materialization.
Williams and Butler highlight the importance of questioning what is taken for granted as ‘real’
– even when this reality appears to us as embodied and material. Their contributions are important
for emancipatory approaches because unpacking the politics of reality is an essential step towards
a detailed and nuanced view of the insecurities that justify emancipation. It provides the opportu-
nity to conceptualize insecurities beyond the enumeration of threats, namely by identifying the
social relations and structures that constitute the condition of insecurity.
Emancipatory accounts in the feminist security literature (Tickner, 1995; Hoogensen and
Rottem, 2004; Lee-Koo, 2007; Basu, 2011) provide indications of how insecurity can be specified
along these lines. Starting from the analysis of the gendered practices that place certain individuals
and groups in situations of vulnerability, feminist approaches have helped to unpack situations of
insecurity by highlighting some of the social relations, political structures and institutional settings
that produce and perpetuate it. The gender–security nexus scrutinized by feminist authors – with
the aid of a series of innovative research methodologies (see, for example, Ackerly et al., 2006) –
shows that it is possible to go beyond the enumeration of threats and conduct an analytically rigor-
ous critique of important aspects of insecurity. Security as emancipation can be strengthened by
expanding on these insights and exploring in greater depth gender-based relations and structures of

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Nunes: Emancipation and critique in security studies 355

insecurity – in addition to other aspects that have been largely overlooked, such as class and eco-
nomic relations (Herring, 2010).
The security-as-emancipation literature can also benefit greatly from a more developed under-
standing of power. Despite mentioning the term frequently, Booth has remained at a very abstract
level when it comes to pinning down what power is and does. No indication is given as to how
power operates; no systematic analysis is provided of its effects. Even though a Gramscian under-
standing of hegemony is present in Wyn Jones’s writings, his critical approach to security has
not included a detailed engagement with the power of predominant security understandings and
practices. How can these be seen as instances of power? How do they reflect and reproduce exist-
ing relations and structures? An engagement with these questions is essential if security as eman-
cipation is to provide a sophisticated analysis of existing insecurities. At the same time, an
emancipatory approach must be based upon a solid diagnosis of the power relations and structures
in which claims for emancipation and possibilities for transformation are embedded.
The understanding of power in security as emancipation can be enhanced, first, by the incorpo-
ration of Michel Foucault’s notion of power as government. So far, security as emancipation has
overwhelmingly relied on the assumption that security understandings and practices work through
the determination of action – that is, by encroaching upon and restricting what would otherwise be
free decision and action. This latter view is present in the work of Steven Lukes, for whom power
consists in ‘the ability to constrain the choices of others, coercing them or securing their compli-
ance, by impeding them from living as their own nature and judgment dictate’ (2005: 85). Action
can be constrained by coercion, threat, by the delimitation of acceptable and desirable behaviour,
or by foreclosing dissent and alternatives.
The idea of power as government (Dean, 1999) introduces important revisions to this model. It
sees power as not merely constraining but also productive. For Foucault, government signals a
shift, from the exclusive concern with the protection of the sovereign towards the optimization of
the natural capacities of individuals and populations – in the name of an efficient economic and
political organization. This means that power does not just repress and stifle subjects, but plays a
fundamental role in constituting them (Foucault, [1982] 2000). Seeing power as productive of
subjects enables a recognition of its multiple instances and sites: power becomes a network of rela-
tions between various nodes – such as schools, hospitals, prisons and armies – that interact in the
management of actions and dispositions.
Incorporating this view of power into the security-as-emancipation framework has decisive
implications for the latter’s ability to recognize the effects of predominant security arrangements
and to act upon them. It allows this approach to analyse in detail how security is involved in the
constitution of subjects. In addition to these analytical benefits, power as government can also
reinforce the political agenda of security as emancipation: after all, in order to be truly effective,
the identification of opportunities for resisting and transforming security arrangements requires a
recognition of their power, its multiple sites and modalities, and the way it runs through the fabric
of society in the form of social relations.
While adding the notion of governmentality would help security as emancipation catch up with
recent developments in the critical security field, a further revision of the understanding of power
assumed by this approach would enable it to ‘give something back’. It is surprising that an approach
that has drawn from the Marxist tradition to highlight the global production of inequality is yet to
include an in-depth account of the domination side of power – and, concomitantly, of understand-
ings and practices of security as instances of domination. Domination can be conceived as ‘a con-
dition experienced by persons or groups to the extent that they are dependent on a social relationship

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356 Security Dialogue 43(4)

in which some other person or group wields arbitrary power over them’ (Lovett, 2010: 2). Iris
Marion Young’s work supplements this definition: for her, the groups themselves must be seen as
collective experiences and ‘forms of social relations’ ([1990] 2011: 44), and not entities reified
around shared attributes. Thus, rather than a binary confrontation between a dominating and a
dominated group, domination is at once a structural phenomenon and the result of fluid and com-
plex relations. Young ([1990] 2011: 38) writes:

Domination consists in institutional conditions which inhibit or prevent people from participating in
determining their actions or the conditions of their actions. Persons live within structures of domination if
other persons or groups can determine without reciprocation the conditions of their action, either directly
or by virtue of the structural consequences of their actions.

Young recognizes that the existence of a dominated group does not necessarily imply a con-
sciously dominating one. Nonetheless, a situation of domination does mean that one group is sys-
tematically privileged in relation to another. Put differently, to be dominated means to be involved
in an unequal relationship, the terms of which are not fully controlled by all groups involved. The
terms of the relationship force some groups to be subordinate or deferential ‘in order to secure
reasonably good outcomes or results’ (Lovett, 2010: 47). Determination of action is thus embedded
in a broader relational and structural context.
In addition to there being imbalance or inequality, domination also means that a certain degree
of arbitrariness is present. Arbitrary power implies that decisions are made or effects are pro-
duced to the benefit of certain groups, without the constraint of effective rules and procedures
and not reflecting the interests of all parties affected. Dominated groups are thus vulnerable to
decisions and outcomes with a high impact upon their life, and which they cannot control or
predict.
This notion of power as domination advances the emancipatory agenda by taking further the
idea of power as determination of action and by allowing for a specification of the ‘oppressions’
that Booth mentions in his definition of emancipation. Domination allows for an enquiry into the
context-specific, structurally constrained relations through which life chances are curtailed for
some and through which vulnerability is intertwined with the systematic production of disadvan-
tage. Simultaneously, domination is also useful in that it supplements governmentality: first, it
allows for an analysis of the connections between structures, disadvantaged subject-positions and
their accompanying subjectivities; second, it adds a normative edge that, as has been noted
(O’Malley et al., 1997), is often lacking in governmentality studies. More precisely, it provides a
clearer direction for the transformation of existing power relations in the transformation of unequal
subject-positions. By incorporating into its account of power the notions of governmentality and
domination – with the former’s focus on the fluid production of subjects and the latter’s emphasis
on systematic disadvantage in subject-positions – security as emancipation has the potential to
make an important contribution to critical security debates.
In sum, the reconsideration of security as emancipation advanced here is based upon a view of
the reality of security as a politically shaped ensemble of relations and structures. It sees the power
of security ideas and practices as entailing the constitution of subjects and political possibilities via
governmental strategies and, often, via practices of domination. This revised version of security as
emancipation yields a more detailed view of the condition of insecurity, a more substantiated
assessment of the need for emancipation, and a more grounded judgment on the potential and strat-
egies for alternative security arrangements.

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Nunes: Emancipation and critique in security studies 357

With these revisions in place, security as a form of emancipation can be understood as the trans-
formation of structures, relations and processes of subject-constitution that entail systematic disad-
vantage and vulnerability; this transformation is enabled by the creation of spaces in people’s lives
in which they can make decisions and act beyond the basic necessities of survival.13

Conclusion
This article advanced three main arguments. First, the commitment to politicization that constitutes
the cornerstone of critical security studies has been detrimentally affected by a tendency to con-
ceive security as having an undesirable logic. This happens at a time when critique is blunted by
the proliferation of the ‘critical’ label and by the successes of critical security studies in highlight-
ing the problems with predominant ways of thinking and doing security.
Next, it was argued that security as emancipation can potentially provide a platform for reclaim-
ing the political in critical security studies. By taking insecurity as its starting point, by conceiving
theory as a form of praxis and by mobilizing immanent critique, this approach promises to address
the current blind spots of politicization.
Finally, the article provided a revision of security as emancipation that addresses the shortcom-
ings of the versions provided by Booth and Wyn Jones. Two themes are central to this revised
version: recognition of the political relations and structures underpinning the reality of security,
and engagement with the multifaceted nature of power as determination of action, government and
domination.
This article has suggested that a re-engagement with – as well as reconsideration of – security
as emancipation is crucial for addressing the current impasse in critical security studies. As in
previous moments in the development of this field, there is much to gain from dialogue between
approaches. However, this discussion also suggests that it is perhaps time to abandon the idea of
a division of labour between the deconstructive and reconstructive sides of critical security stud-
ies. This was at the heart of the Copenhagen School’s reluctance to consider at length the trans-
formative potential of its work.14 It was also accepted by Booth, for whom deconstructing
security is runs the risk of becoming a conservative stance that diverts attention from the ‘real’
condition of insecurity.
In contrast with this division of labour, this article has begun to show the fruitfulness of a cumu-
lative vision of critique. Indeed, the reconsideration of security as emancipation proposed here
points towards a notion of critique that is committed to deconstruction but also unashamedly
reconstructive. It brings together insights that for too long have been kept apart in the critical litera-
ture, and introduces other insights that so far have been insufficiently considered: that security has
no fundamental logic; that a detailed analysis of its assumptions and effects can be achieved by
problematizing its reality and by working with a broad notion of power; that one can make judg-
ments about the desirability of security arrangements by considering structures and relations of
vulnerability and disadvantage; and that, on the basis of this, it is possible to identify potential for
transformation and devise strategies to achieve it. The conjunction of these insights can help real-
ize the promise of the critical security literature and provide critique with a renewed strength and
sense of purpose.

Acknowledgements
For their engagement with previous versions of this article, the author would like to thank Claudia Aradau,
Soumita Basu, Stuart Croft, Ed Frettingham, Columba Peoples and the three anonymous reviewers.

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358 Security Dialogue 43(4)

Funding
The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of a Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded by the
Economic and Social Research Council (United Kingdom).

Notes
1. This designation is used in Krause and Williams (1997b) and Peoples and Vaughan-Williams (2010).
2. See the overviews provided in Neocleous (2008) and Buzan and Hansen (2009: 66–100).
3. A spatial narrative of critical security studies was provided by Wæver (2004), who identified three
‘schools’ of thought – Copenhagen, Aberystwyth and Paris. As has been argued (Sylvester, 2007;
Mutimer, 2009), these readings may lead to exclusionary and essentializing boundary delimitations.
4. One should not overplay the separation between the two agendas: deconstruction has a normative outlook
and reconstruction depends upon deconstructive moves. Nonetheless, these agendas have been priori-
tized differently.
5. In this context, Matti Jutila (2006) and Rita Floyd (2010) have argued for a context-specific approach to
securitization/desecuritization.
6. There are other approaches advancing emancipatory visions of security. Some authors have used the
concept of emancipation when discussing human security – see, for example, Thomas ([2001] 2007) and
Gibson (2007). The next section will engage with contributions to the feminist security literature that also
have a strong emancipatory component.
7. Their work has inspired the theoretical and empirical pursuits of other authors, such as Alker (2005),
Ruane and Todd (2005), Bilgin (2008), and Toros and Gunning (2009).
8. An earlier definition can be found in Booth (1991: 319).
9. For Booth (2007: 246), ‘there is an “out there” which can only be engaged through the theories “in here,”
but what is in our minds is only part of reality, never its whole. A critical theory of security is therefore
empirical without being empiricist’.
10. Wyn Jones has written about ‘realizable’ (1999: 77) and ‘concrete utopias’ (2005).
11. Neocleous (2008: 5) sums up this environment when he claims – without further explanation – that Booth
is ‘as mistaken as one can possibly be about security’.
12. See the observations in Booth (2005a: 269–71; 2007: 40–1).
13. See, in this respect, Basu and Nunes (forthcoming).
14. ‘[An emancipatory approach] can do what we voluntarily abstain from, and we can do what it is unable
to do’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 35).

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João Nunes is a Research Fellow at the department of Politics and International Studies of the University
of Warwick. He is the author of Security, Emancipation and the Politics of Health: A New Theoretical Per-
spective (Routledge, forthcoming) and one of the editors of Critical Theory in International Relations and
Security Studies: Interviews and Reflections (Routledge, 2012).

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