En la década de los noventa y los dos mil, la disciplina de Relaciones Internacionales presenció ... more En la década de los noventa y los dos mil, la disciplina de Relaciones Internacionales presenció un giro del realismo de las relaciones interestatales hacia marcos liberales de la política global; poco después, la década de dos mil diez marcó un alejamiento de las interpretaciones universales, modernistas o lineales del poder y la agencia. A través de la construcción de esta interpretación del mundo más compleja, contingente y relacional, centrada en la identificación de crisis y tipping points, las concepciones tradicionales se ven alteradas, y las consecuencias imprevistas parecen más relevantes que las buenas intenciones. Paralelamente, el foco metodológico ha virado desde la pretensión de comprender la esencia del objeto de estudio, pasando a privilegiar el análisis de relaciones, redes y contextos. Un elemento clave en este proceso han sido los debates centrados en el cambio climático y el calentamiento global, que han problematizado la construcción de estos como amenazas externas a la vida buena—lo que requiere de un proceso de securitización— y han planteado un cuestionamiento de asunciones de partida que conciben el mundo de manera binaria, discriminando entre dentro/fuera, humanidad/naturaleza, soluciones/problemas y referentes/ amenazas. Ello plantea formas de pensamiento muy diferentes, cuyas implicaciones pueden no ser siempre fáciles de comprender. Este artículo busca proporcionar una base necesaria para abordar este apasionante y emergente ámbito de estudio, que influirá de manera fundamental en los enfoques de la política global y las problemáticas de las Relaciones Internacionales. Este artículo se divide en tres secciones. En primer lugar, introduciremos el concepto de “Antropoceno”. Nos referimos a este como la “condición en la que estamos insertos”, más que como un “complejo externo de problemas a los que debemos confrontar”. Por tanto, el Antropoceno no es una cuestión meramente relativa a la aparición de nuevos y más apremiantes problemas, como el cambio climático o eventos climáticos extremos, sino que tiene que ver con las herramientas y conocimientos disponibles a nuestro alcance. En otras palabras, es una cuestión de cómo planteamos el conocimiento —epistemología—, y también de qué entendemos que conforma el mundo —ontología—. La segunda sección proporciona cierto contexto a la historia de las Relaciones Internacionales, buscando señalar brevemente la importancia de pensar el Antropoceno en relación con la historia de la propia disciplina, que podría ser entendida como el paso de un enfoque internacional, o centrado en el estado durante la guerra, a un conjunto de preocupaciones globales mucho más amplias desde la década de los ochenta hasta los años dos mil; a un mayor interés por el Antropoceno, entendido como un desafío planetario hacia las concepciones liberales universales que siguieron al declive de la hegemonía realista. El tercer apartado se entrará en las implicaciones del Antropoceno en torno a tres ejes temáticos: conocimiento, gobernanza y seguridad.
Proposals for large-scale technical interventions into the Earth system to mitigate global warmin... more Proposals for large-scale technical interventions into the Earth system to mitigate global warming-or climate engineering-have sparked considerable debate about their potential implications for international security and global governance. The article furthers this debate by bringing it into dialogue with the literature on visual global politics to develop a more 'imagistic' concept of climate engineering imaginaries. Based on a novel visual dataset, three major visual clusters in the public discourse on climate engineering are identified: images of the human-nature relationship, of climate engineering as tangible infrastructure, and of the actors involved in climate engineering projects. The analysis shows how images and other visuals do not only shape the dominant understanding of climate engineering but also competing imaginaries of future political orders in which such approaches might be deployed. Three main results of this analysis stand out. First, dominant ways of seeing climate engineering can further reinforce already dominant discursive frames by adding 'visual proof ' to their underlying claims. Second, climate engineering visuality can also enable the politicisation of climate engineering by rendering concrete projects visible and hence contestable. Third, climate engineering images can paradoxically limit the scope of imagination as they often revolve around powerful visual icons and symbols of the past and present.
Digital visual technologies have become an important tool of humanitarian governance. They allow ... more Digital visual technologies have become an important tool of humanitarian governance. They allow the monitoring of crises from afar, making it possible to detect human rights violations and refugee movements, despite a crisis area being inaccessible. However, the political effects of such “digital humanitarianism” are understudied. This article aims to amend this gap by analyzing which forms of seeing, showing, and governing refugee camps are enabled by digital technologies. To this end, the article combines scholarship on the politics of the refugee camp with the emerging body of work on digital humanitarianism. It proposes the notion of a “visual assemblage of the refugee camp” to conceptualize the increasing adoption of visual technologies in refugee camp governance. Using the two paradigmatic cases of Zaatari and Azraq, two refugee camps for displaced Syrians in Jordan, the text outlines how this visual assemblage enacts the refugee camp in different ways—thus bringing about different versions of the camp. The case study reveals three such enactments of therefugee camp—as a technology of care and control; as a political space; mand, as a governmental laboratory—and discusses how these interact and clash in everyday camp life.
The article furthers the debate on security in the Anthropocene by scrutinizing
one crucial aspec... more The article furthers the debate on security in the Anthropocene by scrutinizing one crucial aspect of it – that is: the relation between knowledge, technology and security. For this, it takes the emerging debate in International Relations and Critical Security Studies to a space that it has so far neglected: the global ocean. Focusing on countermeasures against rising jellyfish blooms – from early-warning systems to autonomous killer robots – the article studies how digital technologies are increasingly being deployed to cope with anthropogenic environmental risks. Conceptually, the article develops the notion of the Anthropocene ocean. This concept is used to show how complex and entangled phenomena – such as jellyfish blooms – challenge existing regimes of security as well as underlying forms of knowledge production. The analysis shows how attempts to control risks in the ocean space are replaced by experimental forms of governance that are enabled by digital technologies including big data, machine learning and sensors of different kinds. The final part of the article argues that such forms of technological experimentation and related knowledge practices are underwritten by a logic of geopolitics and war.
In recent years satellite imagery, previously restricted to the defense and intelligence communit... more In recent years satellite imagery, previously restricted to the defense and intelligence communities, has been made available to a range of non-state actors as well. Non-governmental organizations, journalists, and celebrities like George Clooney now use remote sensing data like digital Sherlock Holmeses to investigate and reveal human rights abuses, political violence, environmental destruction, and eco-crimes from a distance. It is often said that the increasing availability and applicability of remote sensing technologies has contributed to the rise of what can be called 'satellite-based activism' empowering non-state groups to challenge state practices of seeing and showing. In this article we argue that NGO activism is not challenging the sovereign gaze of the state but, on the contrary, actually reinforcing it. We will bolster our arguments in this regard in two prominent fields of nongovernmental remote sensing: human rights and environmental governance.
The article furthers the debate on environmental security by highlighting the role of visual tech... more The article furthers the debate on environmental security by highlighting the role of visual technologies such as satellite remote sensing in the construction of threats and risks. It provides a rereading of the critical literature on environmental security through the lens of Actor-Network Theory and argues for understanding environmental security as a form of ontological politics. A theoretical framework around the notion of visual assemblage is developed that accounts for the hybrid, socio-technical character of visual technologies like satellite remote sensing, and shows how these render environmental risks and threats visible, intelligible, and thereby governable. Equipped with this framework, the article traces the development of a visual assemblage of satellite remote sensing from the early days of the Cold War until today and reveals its close co-evolution with environmental security discourses and practices. Three major contemporary remote sensing projects are analyzed to reveal how this global visual assemblage enacts multiple versions of environmental security: as resilience of local populations and ecosystems, as a series of local risk factors that become manageable through market-based risk management, and through a ‘meteorology of security’ based on the collection, harmonization, and automated analysis of big (environmental) data from multiple sources.
The research article critically investigates recent European policy proposals that promote migrat... more The research article critically investigates recent European policy proposals that promote migration as an adaptation strategy to increase the resilience of communities vulnerable to the environmental crisis. Such proposals have been welcomed for breaking with alarmist discourses that framed climate-induced migration as a threat to national or international security. The present article seeks to contribute to this ongoing debate by bringing in a fresh perspective that has so far been neglected: the perspective of gender. Drawing on a poststructuralist perspective on gender the article reveals that policy debates on climate-induced migration take place within highly gendered discourses. Applying this perspective to recent policy reports on climate change, migration and resilience, the article helps to paint a more nuanced picture of the highly criticized notion of resilience. The analysis shows that, on the one hand, resilience thinking helped overcoming a masculinized discourse of security as control. On the other hand, it reproduces a series of 'gender myths' about the role of women in the so-called Global South.
This article seeks to examine and explain the recent rise of resilience thinking in climate secur... more This article seeks to examine and explain the recent rise of resilience thinking in climate security discourse and practice. Using the paradigmatic case of the UK, we put a focus on practitioners' understandings of resilience and show how these actors use a resilience lens to rearticulate earlier storylines of climate conflict in terms of complexity, decentralisation and empowerment. As our analysis proves, practitioners in the climate security field tend to reinterpret resilience in line with their established routines. As a result, climate resilience storylines and practices turn out to be much more diverse and messy than is suggested in conceptual literature. Building on these findings, we seek to explain the recent success of resilience thinking in climate security discourse. We show how climate resilience – not despite but due to its messiness – is able to bring together a wide range of actors, traditionally standing on opposite ends of the climate security debate. Through resilience storylines, climate security discourse becomes something that a wide range of actors, ranging from security to the development field, can relate to.
English abstract:
This article seeks to further the debate about a »new materialism« in Internati... more English abstract: This article seeks to further the debate about a »new materialism« in International Relations (IR), which so far has been largely ignored by the German IR-literature. Drawing on the example of the EU earth observation program, Copernicus, the article investigates the role of material things and technologies in processes of securitization. The study reveals how global climate change is turned into a security problem through practices of satellite surveillance and highlights the role of nonhuman actants in this process. The article provides novel insights into the securitization of climate change by discussing the political implications of earth observation beyond the field of environmental politics. I show how the particular visualization of climate risks through »Copernicus« corresponds with a depoliticization of environmental problems, including climate-induced migration, resource conflicts or natural disasters. The techno-scientific rationalization abstracts from the local context of phenomena under surveillance and obscures everything that cannot be visualized and digitized. As a result the socio-economic sources of – and political responsibilities for – the current environmental crises become blurred.
Climate-induced migration (CIM) has become a symbol for the dangers to be expected in warming wor... more Climate-induced migration (CIM) has become a symbol for the dangers to be expected in warming world. Yet at the same time, this human face of global warming is symbolized through news, magazines reports and maps. Focusing on Western projections of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this article investigates the political implications of the little visual security nothings that construct CIM in that region. We show that the ingrained European idea of MENA as buffer zone against external dangers is challenged by imaginations of an increasingly complex and uncertainty Mediterranean region. MENA is cast as hotspot of mixing social, political and ecological problems, populated by racialized, helpless and passive victims, exposed to an erratic and dangerous climate change. In the words of Deleuze and Guattari, the nomadic figure of the climate migrant/refugee transforms MENA into smooth space that threatens the striated space of the EU.
Introduction to the Special Issue: Climate change and migration: from geopolitics to biopolitics, Critical Studies on Security Volume 2, Issue 2, 2014
This article serves as the introduction to this special issue in Critical Studies on Security. It... more This article serves as the introduction to this special issue in Critical Studies on Security. It begins with a brief overview of the academic debate and policy context concerning climate change and human migration. The principal claim is that critical evaluation of the security dimensions of climate change and migration must begin with the epistemological challenge that knowledge about climate change and human migration is speculative and future-conditional. This introductory piece then provides short synopses of each article included in the special issue.
Desertec has become known as a label for a keen vision: the large-scale installation of solar the... more Desertec has become known as a label for a keen vision: the large-scale installation of solar thermal and wind-power plants in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East to power this region and Europe with clean energy. In recent years, this vision has received considerable political attention. Especially strong was the project’s resonance at the level of the European Union, which integrated the idea of a renewable energy partnership as one of six priority projects into the Union for the Mediterranean founded in 2008. This article explores the question of how and why the private initiative of a few German scientists and minor solar businesses could finally be translated into a political project taken up by the EU. Applying the logics of critical explanations framework to the case of Desertec, this article studies the discursive strategies and storylines backing this project. It qualifies the success of the Desertec vision by studying its perception in public discourses on both sides of the Mediterranean and it discusses the impact of the recent political upheavals in the region. In doing so, it charts new ground by showing the merit of a discourse-analytical approach in a policy field seemingly dominated by strong material interests, such as energy policy.
The recent global climate change discourse is a prominent example of a securitization of environm... more The recent global climate change discourse is a prominent example of a securitization of environmental issues. While the problem is often framed in the language of existentialism, crisis or even apocalypse, climate discourses rarely result in exceptional or extraordinary measures, but rather put forth a governmental scheme of piecemeal and technocratic solutions often associated with risk management. This article argues that this seeming paradox is no accident but follows from a politics of apocalypse that combines two logics – those of security and risk – which in critical security studies are often treated as two different animals. Drawing on the hegemony theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, however, this article shows that the two are inherently connected. In the same way as the Christian pastorate could not do without apocalyptic imageries, today’s micro-politics of risk depends on a series of macro-securitizations that enable and legitimize the governmental machinery. This claim is backed up by an inquiry into current global discourses of global climate change regarding mitigation, adaptation and security implications. Although these discourses are often framed through the use of apocalyptic images, they rarely result in exceptional or extraordinary measures, but rather advance a governmental scheme of risk management. Tracing the relationship between security and risk in these discourses, we use the case of climate change to highlight the relevance of our theoretical argument.
Current international climate governance from a risk-political perspective points to a paradox-ic... more Current international climate governance from a risk-political perspective points to a paradox-ical moment of world risk-society. While the probability of negative climate impacts increases and we can see the emergence of a common risk-perception among international decision-makers, national states in the international climate regime fail to agree on preventive measures that could mitigate the harming effects of global warming. This was not even changed by a recent securitisation of climate change in Western discourses. The focus in in-ternational climate governance remains on voluntary measures and market-based instruments, which until today have proven to be ineffective to prevent climate change. Drawing on dis-course-theory this paradox can be explained as the outcome of a discursive struggle in climate politics. Risk, in this perspective is a political technology to govern the future that is embed-ded within broader political rationalities. Until 2007, risk-management in climate governance was established as a form of advanced liberal government based on individualisation and re-sponsibilisation. The growing consensus on dangerous climate change ultimately reinforces this advanced liberal risk-management by presenting climate change as a ‘naturalised’ de-bounded risk and blurring its socio-economic causes.
In: Horst, Jakob, Jünemann, Annette and Delf Rothe 2013. Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the ... more In: Horst, Jakob, Jünemann, Annette and Delf Rothe 2013. Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring - Persistence in Times of Change, Farnham: Ashgate, 283-204.
Introduction to the edited volume: Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring - Persisten... more Introduction to the edited volume: Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring - Persistence in Times of Change, edited by Jakob Horst, Annette Jünemann and Delf Rothe, 2013, Farnham: Ashgate
Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict
Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Sec... more Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace Volume 8, 2012, pp 243-258
En la década de los noventa y los dos mil, la disciplina de Relaciones Internacionales presenció ... more En la década de los noventa y los dos mil, la disciplina de Relaciones Internacionales presenció un giro del realismo de las relaciones interestatales hacia marcos liberales de la política global; poco después, la década de dos mil diez marcó un alejamiento de las interpretaciones universales, modernistas o lineales del poder y la agencia. A través de la construcción de esta interpretación del mundo más compleja, contingente y relacional, centrada en la identificación de crisis y tipping points, las concepciones tradicionales se ven alteradas, y las consecuencias imprevistas parecen más relevantes que las buenas intenciones. Paralelamente, el foco metodológico ha virado desde la pretensión de comprender la esencia del objeto de estudio, pasando a privilegiar el análisis de relaciones, redes y contextos. Un elemento clave en este proceso han sido los debates centrados en el cambio climático y el calentamiento global, que han problematizado la construcción de estos como amenazas externas a la vida buena—lo que requiere de un proceso de securitización— y han planteado un cuestionamiento de asunciones de partida que conciben el mundo de manera binaria, discriminando entre dentro/fuera, humanidad/naturaleza, soluciones/problemas y referentes/ amenazas. Ello plantea formas de pensamiento muy diferentes, cuyas implicaciones pueden no ser siempre fáciles de comprender. Este artículo busca proporcionar una base necesaria para abordar este apasionante y emergente ámbito de estudio, que influirá de manera fundamental en los enfoques de la política global y las problemáticas de las Relaciones Internacionales. Este artículo se divide en tres secciones. En primer lugar, introduciremos el concepto de “Antropoceno”. Nos referimos a este como la “condición en la que estamos insertos”, más que como un “complejo externo de problemas a los que debemos confrontar”. Por tanto, el Antropoceno no es una cuestión meramente relativa a la aparición de nuevos y más apremiantes problemas, como el cambio climático o eventos climáticos extremos, sino que tiene que ver con las herramientas y conocimientos disponibles a nuestro alcance. En otras palabras, es una cuestión de cómo planteamos el conocimiento —epistemología—, y también de qué entendemos que conforma el mundo —ontología—. La segunda sección proporciona cierto contexto a la historia de las Relaciones Internacionales, buscando señalar brevemente la importancia de pensar el Antropoceno en relación con la historia de la propia disciplina, que podría ser entendida como el paso de un enfoque internacional, o centrado en el estado durante la guerra, a un conjunto de preocupaciones globales mucho más amplias desde la década de los ochenta hasta los años dos mil; a un mayor interés por el Antropoceno, entendido como un desafío planetario hacia las concepciones liberales universales que siguieron al declive de la hegemonía realista. El tercer apartado se entrará en las implicaciones del Antropoceno en torno a tres ejes temáticos: conocimiento, gobernanza y seguridad.
Proposals for large-scale technical interventions into the Earth system to mitigate global warmin... more Proposals for large-scale technical interventions into the Earth system to mitigate global warming-or climate engineering-have sparked considerable debate about their potential implications for international security and global governance. The article furthers this debate by bringing it into dialogue with the literature on visual global politics to develop a more 'imagistic' concept of climate engineering imaginaries. Based on a novel visual dataset, three major visual clusters in the public discourse on climate engineering are identified: images of the human-nature relationship, of climate engineering as tangible infrastructure, and of the actors involved in climate engineering projects. The analysis shows how images and other visuals do not only shape the dominant understanding of climate engineering but also competing imaginaries of future political orders in which such approaches might be deployed. Three main results of this analysis stand out. First, dominant ways of seeing climate engineering can further reinforce already dominant discursive frames by adding 'visual proof ' to their underlying claims. Second, climate engineering visuality can also enable the politicisation of climate engineering by rendering concrete projects visible and hence contestable. Third, climate engineering images can paradoxically limit the scope of imagination as they often revolve around powerful visual icons and symbols of the past and present.
Digital visual technologies have become an important tool of humanitarian governance. They allow ... more Digital visual technologies have become an important tool of humanitarian governance. They allow the monitoring of crises from afar, making it possible to detect human rights violations and refugee movements, despite a crisis area being inaccessible. However, the political effects of such “digital humanitarianism” are understudied. This article aims to amend this gap by analyzing which forms of seeing, showing, and governing refugee camps are enabled by digital technologies. To this end, the article combines scholarship on the politics of the refugee camp with the emerging body of work on digital humanitarianism. It proposes the notion of a “visual assemblage of the refugee camp” to conceptualize the increasing adoption of visual technologies in refugee camp governance. Using the two paradigmatic cases of Zaatari and Azraq, two refugee camps for displaced Syrians in Jordan, the text outlines how this visual assemblage enacts the refugee camp in different ways—thus bringing about different versions of the camp. The case study reveals three such enactments of therefugee camp—as a technology of care and control; as a political space; mand, as a governmental laboratory—and discusses how these interact and clash in everyday camp life.
The article furthers the debate on security in the Anthropocene by scrutinizing
one crucial aspec... more The article furthers the debate on security in the Anthropocene by scrutinizing one crucial aspect of it – that is: the relation between knowledge, technology and security. For this, it takes the emerging debate in International Relations and Critical Security Studies to a space that it has so far neglected: the global ocean. Focusing on countermeasures against rising jellyfish blooms – from early-warning systems to autonomous killer robots – the article studies how digital technologies are increasingly being deployed to cope with anthropogenic environmental risks. Conceptually, the article develops the notion of the Anthropocene ocean. This concept is used to show how complex and entangled phenomena – such as jellyfish blooms – challenge existing regimes of security as well as underlying forms of knowledge production. The analysis shows how attempts to control risks in the ocean space are replaced by experimental forms of governance that are enabled by digital technologies including big data, machine learning and sensors of different kinds. The final part of the article argues that such forms of technological experimentation and related knowledge practices are underwritten by a logic of geopolitics and war.
In recent years satellite imagery, previously restricted to the defense and intelligence communit... more In recent years satellite imagery, previously restricted to the defense and intelligence communities, has been made available to a range of non-state actors as well. Non-governmental organizations, journalists, and celebrities like George Clooney now use remote sensing data like digital Sherlock Holmeses to investigate and reveal human rights abuses, political violence, environmental destruction, and eco-crimes from a distance. It is often said that the increasing availability and applicability of remote sensing technologies has contributed to the rise of what can be called 'satellite-based activism' empowering non-state groups to challenge state practices of seeing and showing. In this article we argue that NGO activism is not challenging the sovereign gaze of the state but, on the contrary, actually reinforcing it. We will bolster our arguments in this regard in two prominent fields of nongovernmental remote sensing: human rights and environmental governance.
The article furthers the debate on environmental security by highlighting the role of visual tech... more The article furthers the debate on environmental security by highlighting the role of visual technologies such as satellite remote sensing in the construction of threats and risks. It provides a rereading of the critical literature on environmental security through the lens of Actor-Network Theory and argues for understanding environmental security as a form of ontological politics. A theoretical framework around the notion of visual assemblage is developed that accounts for the hybrid, socio-technical character of visual technologies like satellite remote sensing, and shows how these render environmental risks and threats visible, intelligible, and thereby governable. Equipped with this framework, the article traces the development of a visual assemblage of satellite remote sensing from the early days of the Cold War until today and reveals its close co-evolution with environmental security discourses and practices. Three major contemporary remote sensing projects are analyzed to reveal how this global visual assemblage enacts multiple versions of environmental security: as resilience of local populations and ecosystems, as a series of local risk factors that become manageable through market-based risk management, and through a ‘meteorology of security’ based on the collection, harmonization, and automated analysis of big (environmental) data from multiple sources.
The research article critically investigates recent European policy proposals that promote migrat... more The research article critically investigates recent European policy proposals that promote migration as an adaptation strategy to increase the resilience of communities vulnerable to the environmental crisis. Such proposals have been welcomed for breaking with alarmist discourses that framed climate-induced migration as a threat to national or international security. The present article seeks to contribute to this ongoing debate by bringing in a fresh perspective that has so far been neglected: the perspective of gender. Drawing on a poststructuralist perspective on gender the article reveals that policy debates on climate-induced migration take place within highly gendered discourses. Applying this perspective to recent policy reports on climate change, migration and resilience, the article helps to paint a more nuanced picture of the highly criticized notion of resilience. The analysis shows that, on the one hand, resilience thinking helped overcoming a masculinized discourse of security as control. On the other hand, it reproduces a series of 'gender myths' about the role of women in the so-called Global South.
This article seeks to examine and explain the recent rise of resilience thinking in climate secur... more This article seeks to examine and explain the recent rise of resilience thinking in climate security discourse and practice. Using the paradigmatic case of the UK, we put a focus on practitioners' understandings of resilience and show how these actors use a resilience lens to rearticulate earlier storylines of climate conflict in terms of complexity, decentralisation and empowerment. As our analysis proves, practitioners in the climate security field tend to reinterpret resilience in line with their established routines. As a result, climate resilience storylines and practices turn out to be much more diverse and messy than is suggested in conceptual literature. Building on these findings, we seek to explain the recent success of resilience thinking in climate security discourse. We show how climate resilience – not despite but due to its messiness – is able to bring together a wide range of actors, traditionally standing on opposite ends of the climate security debate. Through resilience storylines, climate security discourse becomes something that a wide range of actors, ranging from security to the development field, can relate to.
English abstract:
This article seeks to further the debate about a »new materialism« in Internati... more English abstract: This article seeks to further the debate about a »new materialism« in International Relations (IR), which so far has been largely ignored by the German IR-literature. Drawing on the example of the EU earth observation program, Copernicus, the article investigates the role of material things and technologies in processes of securitization. The study reveals how global climate change is turned into a security problem through practices of satellite surveillance and highlights the role of nonhuman actants in this process. The article provides novel insights into the securitization of climate change by discussing the political implications of earth observation beyond the field of environmental politics. I show how the particular visualization of climate risks through »Copernicus« corresponds with a depoliticization of environmental problems, including climate-induced migration, resource conflicts or natural disasters. The techno-scientific rationalization abstracts from the local context of phenomena under surveillance and obscures everything that cannot be visualized and digitized. As a result the socio-economic sources of – and political responsibilities for – the current environmental crises become blurred.
Climate-induced migration (CIM) has become a symbol for the dangers to be expected in warming wor... more Climate-induced migration (CIM) has become a symbol for the dangers to be expected in warming world. Yet at the same time, this human face of global warming is symbolized through news, magazines reports and maps. Focusing on Western projections of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this article investigates the political implications of the little visual security nothings that construct CIM in that region. We show that the ingrained European idea of MENA as buffer zone against external dangers is challenged by imaginations of an increasingly complex and uncertainty Mediterranean region. MENA is cast as hotspot of mixing social, political and ecological problems, populated by racialized, helpless and passive victims, exposed to an erratic and dangerous climate change. In the words of Deleuze and Guattari, the nomadic figure of the climate migrant/refugee transforms MENA into smooth space that threatens the striated space of the EU.
Introduction to the Special Issue: Climate change and migration: from geopolitics to biopolitics, Critical Studies on Security Volume 2, Issue 2, 2014
This article serves as the introduction to this special issue in Critical Studies on Security. It... more This article serves as the introduction to this special issue in Critical Studies on Security. It begins with a brief overview of the academic debate and policy context concerning climate change and human migration. The principal claim is that critical evaluation of the security dimensions of climate change and migration must begin with the epistemological challenge that knowledge about climate change and human migration is speculative and future-conditional. This introductory piece then provides short synopses of each article included in the special issue.
Desertec has become known as a label for a keen vision: the large-scale installation of solar the... more Desertec has become known as a label for a keen vision: the large-scale installation of solar thermal and wind-power plants in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East to power this region and Europe with clean energy. In recent years, this vision has received considerable political attention. Especially strong was the project’s resonance at the level of the European Union, which integrated the idea of a renewable energy partnership as one of six priority projects into the Union for the Mediterranean founded in 2008. This article explores the question of how and why the private initiative of a few German scientists and minor solar businesses could finally be translated into a political project taken up by the EU. Applying the logics of critical explanations framework to the case of Desertec, this article studies the discursive strategies and storylines backing this project. It qualifies the success of the Desertec vision by studying its perception in public discourses on both sides of the Mediterranean and it discusses the impact of the recent political upheavals in the region. In doing so, it charts new ground by showing the merit of a discourse-analytical approach in a policy field seemingly dominated by strong material interests, such as energy policy.
The recent global climate change discourse is a prominent example of a securitization of environm... more The recent global climate change discourse is a prominent example of a securitization of environmental issues. While the problem is often framed in the language of existentialism, crisis or even apocalypse, climate discourses rarely result in exceptional or extraordinary measures, but rather put forth a governmental scheme of piecemeal and technocratic solutions often associated with risk management. This article argues that this seeming paradox is no accident but follows from a politics of apocalypse that combines two logics – those of security and risk – which in critical security studies are often treated as two different animals. Drawing on the hegemony theory of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, however, this article shows that the two are inherently connected. In the same way as the Christian pastorate could not do without apocalyptic imageries, today’s micro-politics of risk depends on a series of macro-securitizations that enable and legitimize the governmental machinery. This claim is backed up by an inquiry into current global discourses of global climate change regarding mitigation, adaptation and security implications. Although these discourses are often framed through the use of apocalyptic images, they rarely result in exceptional or extraordinary measures, but rather advance a governmental scheme of risk management. Tracing the relationship between security and risk in these discourses, we use the case of climate change to highlight the relevance of our theoretical argument.
Current international climate governance from a risk-political perspective points to a paradox-ic... more Current international climate governance from a risk-political perspective points to a paradox-ical moment of world risk-society. While the probability of negative climate impacts increases and we can see the emergence of a common risk-perception among international decision-makers, national states in the international climate regime fail to agree on preventive measures that could mitigate the harming effects of global warming. This was not even changed by a recent securitisation of climate change in Western discourses. The focus in in-ternational climate governance remains on voluntary measures and market-based instruments, which until today have proven to be ineffective to prevent climate change. Drawing on dis-course-theory this paradox can be explained as the outcome of a discursive struggle in climate politics. Risk, in this perspective is a political technology to govern the future that is embed-ded within broader political rationalities. Until 2007, risk-management in climate governance was established as a form of advanced liberal government based on individualisation and re-sponsibilisation. The growing consensus on dangerous climate change ultimately reinforces this advanced liberal risk-management by presenting climate change as a ‘naturalised’ de-bounded risk and blurring its socio-economic causes.
In: Horst, Jakob, Jünemann, Annette and Delf Rothe 2013. Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the ... more In: Horst, Jakob, Jünemann, Annette and Delf Rothe 2013. Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring - Persistence in Times of Change, Farnham: Ashgate, 283-204.
Introduction to the edited volume: Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring - Persisten... more Introduction to the edited volume: Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring - Persistence in Times of Change, edited by Jakob Horst, Annette Jünemann and Delf Rothe, 2013, Farnham: Ashgate
Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict
Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Sec... more Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace Volume 8, 2012, pp 243-258
This book explores the reasons for a recent securitization of climate change, and reveals how the... more This book explores the reasons for a recent securitization of climate change, and reveals how the understanding of climate change as a security threat fuels resilience as a contemporary political paradigm.
Since 2007, political and public discourse has portrayed climate change in terms of international or national security. This increasing attention to the security implications of climate change is puzzling, however, given the fact that linkages between climate change and conflict or violence are heavily disputed in the empirical literature. This book explains this trend of a securitization of global warming and discusses its political implications. It traces the actor coalition that promoted the idea of climate change as a security issue and reveals the symbols, narratives and storylines that make up this discourse. Drawing on three detailed case studies at the international level of the United Nations, the regional level of the Euro-Mediterranean and the national level of the UK, the book reveals how climate change is turned into a non-linear and unpredictable threat. The resulting complexity discourse prevents the adoption of any exceptional measures and instead presents resilience as the only way to cope with the climate threat. This book shows that we can only grasp the complexity of the securitization process and its implications in the climate change case by comparing it at different political levels over a longer period. By developing a securitization framework the book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on security and resilience in critical security studies.
This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, resilience, environmental studies, global governance and IR in general.
Global climate change is perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for international politics... more Global climate change is perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for international politics in the 21st century. This work seeks to fuse a global governance perspective together with different interpretive approaches, offering a novel way of looking at international climate politics. Equipped with a common interpretive tool-kit, the authors examine different issue-areas and excavate the contours of an overall pattern – the depoliticisation of climate governance. It is this concept which represents the overarching theme connecting the different contributions, addressing issues such as how the securitization of climate change conceals its socio-economic roots; how highly political decisions and value-judgements are couched in the terms of science; how the reframing of climate change as a matter of economic calculation and investment narrows the scope of political action; and how the prevailing concentration on technological solutions to climate change turns it into a mere administrative issue to be tackled by experts. Highlighting the depoliticisation of highly political issues provides a means to bring the political back into one of the most important issue areas of 21st century world politics. The editors have assembled a series of 14 interpretive inquiries into discourses of global climate governance which aim to flesh out an interpretive methodology, demonstrating the value it offers to those seeking to achieve a better understanding of global climate governance.
The ‘Arab Spring’ triggered paradigmatic shifts but, despite these changes, much in the Euro-Medi... more The ‘Arab Spring’ triggered paradigmatic shifts but, despite these changes, much in the Euro-Mediterranean region remains the same. Utilising ‘Logics of Action’, an innovative theoretical framework designed to capture the complexity of political interaction in one of the fastest changing regions in the world, this book discusses developments in the region before and after the Arab Spring that can be characterised by a continuation of the norm. Expert contributors identify patterns of interaction between governmental institutions, economic entrepreneurs, religious groups and other diverse actors that withstood these historical changes and explore why these relationships have proved so robust. Connecting a unique sample of case studies on changing and persistent ‘Logics of Action’ within the Euro-Mediterranean space this book provides a pivotal contribution to our understanding of political interaction between North Africa, the Middle East and the European Union. Offering a completely new perspective on the events of the ‘Arab Spring’ it identifies something that seems paradoxical at first sight; persistence in times of radical change
Global climate change is perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for international politics... more Global climate change is perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for international politics in the 21st century. This work seeks to fuse a global governance perspective together with different interpretive approaches, offering a novel way of looking at international climate politics. Equipped with a common interpretive tool-kit, the authors examine different issue-areas and excavate the contours of an overall pattern – the depoliticisation of climate governance. It is this concept which represents the overarching theme connecting the different contributions, addressing issues such as how the securitization of climate change conceals its socio-economic roots; how highly political decisions and value-judgements are couched in the terms of science; how the reframing of climate change as a matter of economic calculation and investment narrows the scope of political action; and how the prevailing concentration on technological solutions to climate change turns it into a mere administrative issue to be tackled by experts. Highlighting the depoliticisation of highly political issues provides a means to bring the political back into one of the most important issue areas of 21st century world politics. The editors have assembled a series of 14 interpretive inquiries into discourses of global climate governance which aim to flesh out an interpretive methodology, demonstrating the value it offers to those seeking to achieve a better understanding of global climate governance.
Although sustainable consumption as a guiding principle of a sustainabili- ty transition seems to... more Although sustainable consumption as a guiding principle of a sustainabili- ty transition seems to be more and more accepted, actual consumption practices within Western societies are only gradually changing. Consum- ing sustainably implies a fundamental change of established social rou- tines and individual habits. The question of how to promote sustainable consumption has not only occupied politicians and civil society, but has also been increasingly discussed within academia in recent years. This chapter introduces the contributions of an interdisciplinary edited volume bridging economic, sociological, political, legal, philosophical, pedagogi- cal and natural sciences perspectives on prospects, problems and funda- mental conflicts of sustainable consumption. It discusses institutional fac- tors, policy instruments and civil society initiatives that push for sustain- able consumption. The chapter assesses policy innovations and regulatory instruments, observes current institutional changes in the field of sustain- able consumption, and critically reflects the emergence of novel actors and initiatives. In doing so, it seeks to initiate a dialogue between the multiple disciplines in sustainable consumption research. Given its interdisciplinary nature, the contribution seeks to show up new avenues for cooperation in research on sustainable consumption.
This article furthers the debate on the political implications of the Anthropocene-the most recen... more This article furthers the debate on the political implications of the Anthropocene-the most recent geological epoch marked by catastrophic environmental change-by engaging it through the lens of political theology. The article starts from the observation that discourses on the Anthropocene and related political projects are deeply influenced by a linear temporality and a common orientation towards the threat of the end of time. It distinguishes three competing discourses of the Anthropocene, eco-catastrophism, eco-modernism and planetary realism. The article analyses how these discourses invoke and update key symbols, images, and storylines of Christian political theology. Furthermore, it studies how each discourse mobilises these secularised Christian motifs to promote competing planet political projects. Each of these projects develops a different position towards the unfolding planetary crisis and the related threat of the end of time. Eco-catastrophism calls for a planetary emergency management, eco-modernism promotes ongoing experimentation with the planet, whereas planetary realism translates into what could be called a 'realpolitik of resilience'. Revealing the Western theological roots of the Anthropocene and planet politics is essential if the emerging literature on the Anthropocene wants to live up to its promise of pluralising and decolonising IR. ¿Gobernando los últimos tiempos? La política del planeta y la escatología secular del Antropoceno Resumen Este artículo busca profundizar el reciente debate sobre las repercusiones políticas del Antropoceno, como la era geológica más reciente, marcada por el catastrófico cambio
Misleading claims about mass migration induced by climate change continue to surface in both acad... more Misleading claims about mass migration induced by climate change continue to surface in both academia and policy. This requires a new research agenda on ‘climate mobilities’ that moves beyond simplistic assumptions and more accurately advances knowledge of the nexus between human mobility and climate change.
‘The Anthropocene epoch,’ as Claire Colebrook describes it, ‘appears to mark as radical a shift i... more ‘The Anthropocene epoch,’ as Claire Colebrook describes it, ‘appears to mark as radical a shift in species awareness as Darwinian evolution effected for the nineteenth century’ (Colebrook 2017). The recent outpouring of ontological speculation on the Anthropocene across the humanities and social sciences certainly testifies to such a radical shift. Dipesh Chakrabarty’s insights about the Anthropocene are emblematic (Chakrabarty 2009). The Anthropocene, he argues, marks not only the moment in which the human, Anthropos, becomes fully expressed in the Earth System, but also, paradoxically, the moment in which we lose our ability to grasp what it means to be human. Such a perspective captures well a sense in which the Anthropocene marks our passage into a geohistorical interregnum. As we depart from the geologic stability of the Holocene, so we leave behind the conceptual certainties of modernism, not least the fraught separation of Nature and Culture that has underpinned Euro-Western humanism from at least the fifteenth century onwards. Entering now an epoch in which the entanglements of social and geologic life are more and more ratified by the geosciences, it is no wonder that the social sciences and humanities have responded to the Anthropocene thesis by turning to ontological speculation. The Anthropocene is a scary business. Yet while the Anthropocene carries such far-reaching ontological consequences, those writing about it have had surprisingly little to say about the ontological primacy of mobility and movement, the ever-presence of movement in social life, and the insight that mobility is political and thus a fundamental mechanism of social stratification (although notable exceptions include Clark and Yusoff 2017; Colebrook 2017). This is unexpected given that the Anthropocene concept, by re-embedding human ontological awareness in deep time, draws us into ever closer proximity to Earth’s geomorphology, its dynamism, its fluidity, the inherent mobility of the Earth system, or what Bronislaw Szerszynski calls ‘planetary mobility’ (Szerszynski 2016). One of the aims of this special issue of Mobilities on ‘Anthropocene Mobilities’ is to add to this speculative moment by positioning ‘mobility’ as a key term of reference for thinking with, through and against, the Anthropocene as either a philosophical problem, a political concept, a material condition, or an epoch of deep time.
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Papers by Delf Rothe
Este artículo se divide en tres secciones. En primer lugar, introduciremos el concepto de “Antropoceno”. Nos referimos a este como la “condición en la que estamos insertos”, más que como un “complejo externo de problemas a los que debemos confrontar”. Por tanto, el Antropoceno no es una cuestión meramente relativa a la aparición de nuevos y más apremiantes problemas, como el cambio climático o eventos climáticos extremos, sino que tiene que ver con las herramientas y conocimientos disponibles a nuestro alcance. En otras palabras, es una cuestión de cómo planteamos el conocimiento —epistemología—, y también de qué entendemos que conforma el mundo —ontología—. La segunda sección proporciona cierto contexto a la historia de las Relaciones Internacionales, buscando señalar brevemente la importancia de pensar el Antropoceno en relación con la historia de la propia disciplina, que podría ser entendida como el paso de un enfoque internacional, o centrado en el estado durante la guerra, a un conjunto de preocupaciones globales mucho más amplias desde la década de los ochenta hasta los años dos mil; a un mayor interés por el Antropoceno, entendido como un desafío planetario hacia las concepciones liberales universales que siguieron al declive de la hegemonía realista. El tercer apartado se entrará en las implicaciones del Antropoceno en torno a tres ejes temáticos: conocimiento, gobernanza y seguridad.
one crucial aspect of it – that is: the relation between knowledge,
technology and security. For this, it takes the emerging debate in
International Relations and Critical Security Studies to a space that it has
so far neglected: the global ocean. Focusing on countermeasures against
rising jellyfish blooms – from early-warning systems to autonomous killer
robots – the article studies how digital technologies are increasingly being
deployed to cope with anthropogenic environmental risks. Conceptually,
the article develops the notion of the Anthropocene ocean. This concept
is used to show how complex and entangled phenomena – such as
jellyfish blooms – challenge existing regimes of security as well as underlying
forms of knowledge production. The analysis shows how attempts to
control risks in the ocean space are replaced by experimental forms of
governance that are enabled by digital technologies including big data,
machine learning and sensors of different kinds. The final part of the
article argues that such forms of technological experimentation and
related knowledge practices are underwritten by a logic of geopolitics
and war.
This article seeks to further the debate about a »new materialism« in International Relations (IR), which so far has been largely ignored by the German IR-literature. Drawing on the example of the EU earth observation program, Copernicus, the article investigates the role of material things and technologies in processes of securitization. The study reveals how global climate change is turned into a security problem through practices of satellite surveillance and highlights the role of nonhuman actants in this process. The article provides novel insights into the securitization of climate change by discussing the political implications of earth observation beyond the field of environmental politics. I show how the particular visualization of climate risks through »Copernicus« corresponds with a depoliticization of environmental problems, including climate-induced migration, resource conflicts or natural disasters. The techno-scientific rationalization abstracts from the local context of phenomena under surveillance and obscures everything that cannot be visualized and digitized. As a result the socio-economic sources of – and political responsibilities for – the current environmental crises become blurred.
Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace Volume 8, 2012, pp 243-258
Este artículo se divide en tres secciones. En primer lugar, introduciremos el concepto de “Antropoceno”. Nos referimos a este como la “condición en la que estamos insertos”, más que como un “complejo externo de problemas a los que debemos confrontar”. Por tanto, el Antropoceno no es una cuestión meramente relativa a la aparición de nuevos y más apremiantes problemas, como el cambio climático o eventos climáticos extremos, sino que tiene que ver con las herramientas y conocimientos disponibles a nuestro alcance. En otras palabras, es una cuestión de cómo planteamos el conocimiento —epistemología—, y también de qué entendemos que conforma el mundo —ontología—. La segunda sección proporciona cierto contexto a la historia de las Relaciones Internacionales, buscando señalar brevemente la importancia de pensar el Antropoceno en relación con la historia de la propia disciplina, que podría ser entendida como el paso de un enfoque internacional, o centrado en el estado durante la guerra, a un conjunto de preocupaciones globales mucho más amplias desde la década de los ochenta hasta los años dos mil; a un mayor interés por el Antropoceno, entendido como un desafío planetario hacia las concepciones liberales universales que siguieron al declive de la hegemonía realista. El tercer apartado se entrará en las implicaciones del Antropoceno en torno a tres ejes temáticos: conocimiento, gobernanza y seguridad.
one crucial aspect of it – that is: the relation between knowledge,
technology and security. For this, it takes the emerging debate in
International Relations and Critical Security Studies to a space that it has
so far neglected: the global ocean. Focusing on countermeasures against
rising jellyfish blooms – from early-warning systems to autonomous killer
robots – the article studies how digital technologies are increasingly being
deployed to cope with anthropogenic environmental risks. Conceptually,
the article develops the notion of the Anthropocene ocean. This concept
is used to show how complex and entangled phenomena – such as
jellyfish blooms – challenge existing regimes of security as well as underlying
forms of knowledge production. The analysis shows how attempts to
control risks in the ocean space are replaced by experimental forms of
governance that are enabled by digital technologies including big data,
machine learning and sensors of different kinds. The final part of the
article argues that such forms of technological experimentation and
related knowledge practices are underwritten by a logic of geopolitics
and war.
This article seeks to further the debate about a »new materialism« in International Relations (IR), which so far has been largely ignored by the German IR-literature. Drawing on the example of the EU earth observation program, Copernicus, the article investigates the role of material things and technologies in processes of securitization. The study reveals how global climate change is turned into a security problem through practices of satellite surveillance and highlights the role of nonhuman actants in this process. The article provides novel insights into the securitization of climate change by discussing the political implications of earth observation beyond the field of environmental politics. I show how the particular visualization of climate risks through »Copernicus« corresponds with a depoliticization of environmental problems, including climate-induced migration, resource conflicts or natural disasters. The techno-scientific rationalization abstracts from the local context of phenomena under surveillance and obscures everything that cannot be visualized and digitized. As a result the socio-economic sources of – and political responsibilities for – the current environmental crises become blurred.
Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace Volume 8, 2012, pp 243-258
Since 2007, political and public discourse has portrayed climate change in terms of international or national security. This increasing attention to the security implications of climate change is puzzling, however, given the fact that linkages between climate change and conflict or violence are heavily disputed in the empirical literature. This book explains this trend of a securitization of global warming and discusses its political implications. It traces the actor coalition that promoted the idea of climate change as a security issue and reveals the symbols, narratives and storylines that make up this discourse. Drawing on three detailed case studies at the international level of the United Nations, the regional level of the Euro-Mediterranean and the national level of the UK, the book reveals how climate change is turned into a non-linear and unpredictable threat. The resulting complexity discourse prevents the adoption of any exceptional measures and instead presents resilience as the only way to cope with the climate threat. This book shows that we can only grasp the complexity of the securitization process and its implications in the climate change case by comparing it at different political levels over a longer period. By developing a securitization framework the book makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate on security and resilience in critical security studies.
This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, resilience, environmental studies, global governance and IR in general.