Politics 320: The Politics of Global Security

In the study of international relations, the concept of security is almost always tethered to the nation-state through the central signifier of “national security”.  Even studies of private security, cyber warfare, or drone technology, all of which raise some complex questions about the changing parameters of modern warfare, rarely stray too far from a focus on the state. The purpose of this course is to both understand the motivations for and the effects of this linkage and open up different ways to think of the concept and the referents of security. Using a variety of different approaches through which global security has been studied, the course will ask who is made secure and/or insecure by statist security, what kinds of apparatuses of power are created in the provision of security, what sorts of affective investments are involved in projects of security, and what political possibilities and risks are inherent in imagining a world beyond security. Topics covered may include: practices and technologies of war-making, the military-industrial complex, nuclear proliferation, surveillance and the securitization of everyday life, and military disarmament and peace movements.