The ‘Western-Centrism’ of Security Studies: ‘Blind Spot’ or Constitutive Practice?

Bilgin, Pınar

doi:10.1177/0967010610388208

Cited by 104 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In that sense, we do side with nontraditionalists who have fought to be recognized as doing work not only on 'their own agenda' but on 'security' proper. As Bilgin (2010) points out in her contribution on the Western-centrism of international security studies, this means that The Evolution of International Security Studies devotes more space to non-traditionalist approaches than these take up on the terrain of international security studies, whether measured in terms of how much is published or how much attention and citation is generated. The question of how much and who are included is one side of the normative coin; the other is whether a conflictual or a dialogical history is brought out.…”

Section: Special Section On the Evolution Of International Security Smentioning

confidence: 96%

Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?

Buzan

Hansen

2010

Security Dialogue

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This article provides a reply to the other contributions to this special section of Security Dialogue on The Evolution of International Security Studies. Our response cuts across the special section as a whole, focusing on the following questions: What does it mean to take a critical stance towards the history of international security studies? Does micro-sociology provide the way forward? How do the main analytical distinctions laid out in The Evolution of International Security Studies work? And, what are the challenges and suggestions for a more thorough study of traditionalism?Keywords international security studies I N WRITING THE EVOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES, our ambition was to heed the call made by Nye & Lynn-Jones (1988) for an intellectual history of international security studies, and the contributions in this special issue of Security Dialogue give us confidence that we have at least provided a good foundation for further discussion. Our goal was never to write the only book that could be written, so we welcome what we see as a series of suggestions for how subsequent volumes might further explore the trajectory of international security studies. Our response cuts across the special section as a whole in terms of the following questions: What does it mean to take a critical stance towards the history of international security studies? Would micro-sociology provide the way forward? How do the main analytical distinctions -that is, the four questions and the five driving forces -laid out in The Evolution of International Security Studies work? And, what are the challenges for a more thorough study of traditionalism?Special Section on The evoluTion of inTernaTional SecuriTy STudieS

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Section: Special Section On the Evolution Of International Security Smentioning

confidence: 96%

Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?

Buzan

Hansen

2010

Security Dialogue

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“…Bilgin 2010). This course has been taught at our University since 2011, but it is only with the introduction of audio-visual assignments that many students devised projects which dealt directly with our city and immediate surroundings.…”

Section: This Connected To the Course's Theoretical Investigations Onmentioning

confidence: 99%

re-visualising international relations: audio-visual projects and direct encounters with the political in security studies

Obradović-Wochnik

Hayes

2017

Eur Polit Sci

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In this paper we discuss how an innovative audio-visual project was adopted to foster active, rather than declarative learning, in critical international relations. Firstly, we explore the aesthetic turn in IR, to contrast this with forms of representation that have dominated International Relations scholarship. Representation is the 'very location of politics' (Bleiker, 2001: 510). Therefore, to confront this and also to provide students with the opportunity to explore their own insights through aesthetic ad non-written formats, we describe secondly, how student groups were asked to record short audio or video projects. Thirdly, we explain how these projects are understood to be deeply embedded in social science methodologies, citing inspiration from The Sociological 2 Imagination (C Wright Mills, 1959) as a way to counterbalance a 'marketised' slant in HE, in a global economy where students are often encouraged to consume, rather than produce knowledge. Finally, we draw conclusions in terms of deeper forms of student engagement leading to new ways of thinking and presenting new skills and new connections between theory and practice.

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“…Over the past years an increasing body of literature has developed that deals with the important question of how to decentre the study of international relations (IR) (see, for example, Bilgin, 2010;Nayak and Selbin, 2010;Sabaratnam, 2013). Building on a critique of the Western-centric character of much IR scholarship, Nayak and Selbin (2010: 4) called for research with 'different "starting" points', Sabaratnam (2013: 260) for a 'repoliticization of assumptions of "difference"' and Bilgin (2010) for a treatment of said Western-centrism not merely as 'blind spot', but as having important constitutive effects. A 2007 study by Finkel, Pérez Liñan and Seligson provides us with a good example of conventional IR scholarship on the topic of democracy promotion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marketing parliament: The constitutive effects of external attempts at parliamentary strengthening in Jordan

Schuetze¹

2018

Cooperation and Conflict

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The Jordanian parliament is widely recognised as a patronage provider and means for authoritarian upgrading. Despite, or precisely because of this, it has over the past years become a linchpin of US and European attempts at parliamentary strengthening. The parliament's highly marginalised position notwithstanding, this article suggests that such efforts provide us with an insightful opportunity to better understand the reconfiguration of authoritarian power via external intervention in the name of democracy. Discussing the contradictory effects of parliamentary strengthening programmes in Jordan, the article tries to shift the discussion of democracy promotion away from a concern with policy, conceptual debates and intentions to one with democracy promotion's constitutive effects. As such, the article investigates the framing of Jordanian politics within a market rationale as central mechanism for the de-politicisation of uneven power relations. Further, it explores the ways in which democracy promotion serves to seemingly reconfirm interveners' desired self-understandings via the maintenance of assumptions of cultural 'difference'. Ultimately, it is suggested that decentring the study of democracy promotion by paying more attention to its constitutive effects provides us with a better understanding of why and how increasing democracy promotion portfolios have, in Jordan, had the effect of strengthening authoritarianism.

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The ‘Western-Centrism’ of Security Studies: ‘Blind Spot’ or Constitutive Practice?

Cited by 104 publications

References 17 publications

Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?

Beyond The Evolution of International Security Studies?

re-visualising international relations: audio-visual projects and direct encounters with the political in security studies

Marketing parliament: The constitutive effects of external attempts at parliamentary strengthening in Jordan

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