ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER TEORİLERİ II - Deneme Sınavı - 11

Critical security studies are inspired from the Peace Studies that has started to focus on “positive peace” concept in addition to “negative peace” since the 1980s. The answer is A.

Critical security studies emerged firstly with the article of “Security and Emancipation” written by Ken Booth in 1991, and then Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases edited by Keith Krause and Michael C. Williams in 1997 helped the development process of it. The most important characteristics of Aberystwyth School can be summarized as follows: 

1. Addressing the security as derivative concept, 

2. Claim for necessity of widening of security agenda,

3. Privileging of individual as the referent object of security,

4. Regarding security problematique in the context of emancipation concept, 

5. Considering the threats in a socially constructed manner, 

6. Examining the relationships between self and other.

The answer is E.

The most obvious point over which Frankfurt School and Marxism converge is the human-centred security approach. Since the state is regarded as a tool of duration of sovereign class hegemony in Marxist theory, it is stated that it is an important misconception to comprehend state-centric security policies as part of pervasive protectionist policies for the sake of society. That is why, for Marxism, the real threats that individuals and society face are emanated from an unequal system based on material interests, not from obvious enmities. The answer is A.

For Aberystwyth School, priority is not about how security will be ensured, but the sources of security issues. Hence, it is not sufficient to undertake security as a negative security situation. The answer is C.

Many threats to individual security include environmental degradation, socio-economic problems, ethnic conflict, disease, poverty, political repression, human rights violations and organized crime rather than military powers of other states. The answer is D.

Since the state is perceived as the provider of security of its citizens, it has become the dominant referent object of security within the competitive and conflictual structure of sovereign state system. Therefore, state-centric traditional security conception has tended to ignore the cruciality of non-state actors in its theoretical and conceptual frameworks for a long time. As a result of this attitude, the effects of sub-state actors on state behaviors and choices have to remain highly limited within national and international arenas. The answer is B.

Aberystwyth School claims that a theory should be there for the ‘voiceless, the unrepresented and the powerless’ (Jones, 1999: 159). In this context, Aberystwyth School states that it should be focused on the needs and interests of most ‘vulnerable’ ones instead of concerns of state security. The answer is D.

It is claimed that social contract theory would emancipate the individual from state of nature conditions in which all is against all. In this context, critical theory can be viewed as a rediscovery of modernization theory’s emancipatory attempt. However, in contrast to military-based, statecentric and zero-sum game logic of traditional security conception produced by modernism, Aberystwyth School regards the human
emancipation as the main research agenda. The answer is C.

Through European Security Strategy of 2003, the EU has launched an initiative to integrate the human security concept with the Union’s foreign and security policy. Moreover, some states such as Canada, Norway and Japan have become the leading countries for promotion of growing importance of human security conception for world security. The answer is A.

Positive peace thinking directs the peace studies to address new issues such as health, education, socio-economic welfare and environment, whereas negative peace refers to the absence of violence. When, for example, a ceasefire is enacted, a negative peace will ensue.

Ken Booth and Richard Wyn Jones, as two important representatives of the Aberystwyth School, not only criticize the traditional security conception in terms of deepening and widening of it, but also argue for reconceptualization of security studies by focusing on emancipation of human beings. According to Booth and Wyn Jones, realist security conception in the sense of ‘power’ and ‘order’ does not lead to a ‘real’ security. For these two scholars, sovereign state is not the main provider of security, but is one of the main reasons of insecurity.

Security conception of critical security studies is also affected by Marxist theory, Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony conception, critical social theory Frankfurt School, critical theory of International Relations discipline developed by Robert Cox and post-positivist perspectives in international relations theories.

The most important argument of Aberystwyth School is to comprehend security as “emancipation” that requires the abolishment of all limitations such as poverty, violence and political pressure for realization of human potential.

Jurgen Habermas, Theodore Adorno, Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer are the most important representatives of Frankfurt School.

A problem-solving theory takes the nature of international politics into consideration as given. According to this view, there are specific actors and issues that should be focused on. In Security Studies, this actor is the state and the main problem that should be solved is the inter-state war.

It can be argued that the most important challenge of Aberystwyth School to traditional security conception is to deal with security as a political phenomenon.

Emile Durkheim argues that the state becomes stronger and more active as the individual becomes freer.

In United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 1994 Human Development Report, it is stated that the most important concerns for human security are grounded in socio-economic problems and human rights violations. Accordingly, the concepts of personal security, community security, economic security, food security, environmental security, political security and health security are described as categories of human security.

In economic security, threats are defined in the following ways; working conditions, employment opportunities, wage and income conditions, poverty, homelessness and job security, etc.

Critical perspectives on security have intensively benefited from sociology, social psychology, philosophy and social anthropology.