Austral:

Austral:Brazilian
Brazilian
Journal
Journal ofof
Strategy
Strategy
&&International
International Relations
Relations
e-ISSN
e-ISSN2238-6912
2238-6912| v.10,
| v.10,
n.20,
n.20,
Jul./Dec.
Jul./Dec.
2021
2021
| p.230-249
| p.x-x

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES:

ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENT AND
CONTENDING APPROACHES
Ali Muhammad1
Sugeng Riyanto2

Introduction

Security Studies, also known as International Security Studies (IIS), is

an academic sub-field within the wider discipline of International Relations
that studies organized violence, military conflict and national security.
Stephen Walt (1991) points out that the intellectual field’s boundaries are
flexible and hence any attempt to draw and define the precise field of study
is arbitrary. However, the basic aim of Security Studies remains simple to
define: ‘it is the phenomena of war’ as security studies assert that conflict
between governments is always possible and that the use of force has far-
reaching consequences for states and societies. Thus, Security Studies can
basically be characterized as ‘the study the threat, use and control of military
force’ (Nye and Lynn Jones 1988).
Security Studies as a sub-field within International Relations emerged
following the end of World War II, notably in the 1950s, with the onset of the
Cold War between the Eastern and Western blocs. Security was inextricably
linked to the military aspect, as most countries strive to maximize their
military strength in order to ensure their security and survival against all
intended threats, including attempts to subjugate their existence to another
state, terrorist organization, or other armed group. As with IR, this sub-field
of study is primarily a Western subject—mostly conducted in North America,
Europe, and Australia, with all of the associated Western-centrisms. There

1 Lecturer from Department of International Relations at Universitas Muhammadiyah

Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
2 Lecturer from Department of International Relations at Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

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 Ali Muhammad and Sugeng Riyanto

is a pre-World War II literature that can be broadly classified as war studies,

military and grand strategy, and geopolitics. ‘Security’ became its watchword
(Yergin 1978), both defining it and setting it apart from older disciplines such
as War Studies and Military History. Security evolved as a unifying notion for
an increasingly diverse range of research programs.
Since the end of World War II, four central questions have guided
debates in the field of Security Studies (see Buzan and Hansen 2009, 10-13).
The first issue is whether to elevate the state to the status of ‘referent object.’
Security is about establishing anything that requires protection: a nation, a
state, an individual, an ethnic group, the environment, or the planet itself.
Whether as ‘national security’ or subsequently as traditionalist ‘international
security,’ the nation/state served as the analytical and normative reference
point. International security was not intended to supplant state security with
the security of humanity, or of individuals or minorities within or across
state borders. Securing the state was viewed as the most effective method
of protecting other referent objects instrumentally. ‘National security’ should
have been renamed ‘state security,’ but what the Cold War idea of ‘national
security’ actually involved was a fusion of state and country security: the
nation backed a strong state, which in turn reciprocated by loyally preserving
its society’s values and interests.
The second point to consider is whether to include both internal and
external threats. Because security is inextricably linked to state discourse,
it is also about situating threats in relation to territorial borders. Wolfers
characterized ‘national security’ as an ‘ambiguous symbol’ and compared the
post-1945 political atmosphere to the interwar American economic slump,
arguing that the ‘shift from a welfare to a security interpretation of the symbol
“national interest” is reasonable. Wolfers remarked at the start of the Cold
War, ‘Today, rather than depression and social reform, we are living under the
influence of Cold War and external aggression’ (Wolfers 1952, 482). ‘National
security’ has evolved away from internal economic concerns and toward
exterior challenges posed by ideologically opposing, and so presumed hostile,
states (Neocleous 2006). As this transition became institutionalized, the
concept of ‘international security’ began to coexist with, but not replace, the
concept of ‘national security,’ and eventually played a larger role in naming
the subject, thus International rather than National Security Studies.
Thirdly, should security be expanded beyond the military sector and
the use of force? Because ‘Security Studies ‘ was developed during the Cold
War, and the Cold War was so predominately about the military capabilities of
adversaries, friends, and Self, the term ‘national security’ became practically
synonymous with military security. This is not to say that other capacities were

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overlooked, such as the requirement to combine economic vitality, political

stability, energy supplies, research and technology, as well as food and natural
resources. These were to be incorporated because they had an effect on ‘the
use, threat, and control of force,’ and hence on military security, rather than
because they were to be deemed separate security concerns (International
Security 1976, 2).
Fourthly, is security irrevocably linked to a dynamic of risks, dangers,
and urgency? ‘National security’ evolved amid a political atmosphere in which
the US, and the West more broadly, perceived themselves as threatened by an
adversarial adversary. As Herz (1950) defined the security dilemma, ‘security’
referred to attacks, enslavement, domination, and – when taken to its logical
conclusion - annihilation. This would encourage groups to develop further
capabilities, so making their adversary insecure and driving both parties to
participate in a ‘vicious spiral of security and power build-up’ (Herz 1950,
157). Security was concerned with the extreme and extraordinary, with those
situations that would not only cause annoyance, but would also threaten to
destroy one’s society (Williams 2003). This appeared quite plain sense to
the mainstream of Security Studies during the Cold War: the Soviet Union
posed a clear threat, and nuclear weapons were justified to dissuade the Soviet
Union from initiating a first attack.

The Cold War: The Dominance of Realism/Neo-Realism

Since the beginning of the Cold War realist approaches to security

have dominated Security Studies. Much of the thinking and writing on the
subject is based on a limited definition of ‘security.’ As with hanging, practical
considerations of imminent risk naturally focused the attention of security
experts and decision makers on physical survival threats. Interstate conflict
was a focal point of energy, particularly the East-West rivalry and the US-
Soviet nuclear balance. These worries were later expanded to the developing
countries as part of the superpower struggle’s continuation (Kolodziej 1992).
As the Cold War matured, the gradual ascendancy of realist approaches
to international relations over previous idealist and legal conceptions of
international security, which were particularly strong in the US, provided a
normative justification for a state-centric approach to international policies
and security (Morgenthau 1985). With Europe as the central objective, the
East-West conflict was seen simply as a continuation of millennia of state
competition for regional and global control. This state-centric perspective on
war was then further limited in the 1960s, as analysts shifted away from what
Hans Morgenthau termed Politics among Nations and toward assessments of

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deterrence as the central strategic idea justifying the Cold War and regional
wars (Schelling 1963). Using microeconomics, systems analysis, and game
theory as a starting point, deterrence was examined as a strategic notion that
lends itself to rigorous, logical study (Kolodziej 1992).
The most salient elements of the Cold War agenda were gradually
characterized as a special problem in deterrence (Kolodziej 1992, 1). The
East-West conflict and its complex and widely divergent regional stakes have
frequently been reduced to competitors’ and allies’ commitment tactics
and to studies of nuclear and conventional stability (Freedman 1990). The
state-as-actor morphed into the state-as-unitary actor, whose behaviour was
thought to be guided by power maximization considerations. A strategy was
developed in conjunction with the use of threats to sway rivals’ behaviour
in desired directions. Extensive arguments between different schools of
nuclear deterrence and esoteric conversations between experts over the
relative benefits of various nuclear weapons systems in maintaining the
balance of terror dominated strategic research and policymaking. Of course,
conventional deterrence and the balance of power in regional confrontations
remained critical issues. The avalanche of literature about the center front’s
stability in Europe is instructive (Butterworth 1989). What is significant for
this perspective is that threat manipulation and force projection have become
the major, virtually exclusive, concerns of security studies. While the topic was
undoubtedly urgent and extensive, the issues highlighted were necessarily
constrained, technical, and managerial in nature (Chimbala 1991).
The late 1970s rise of neo-realism further narrowed the intellectual and
normative viewpoint of Security Studies (Waltz 1991). The broad normative
concerns of conventional realist thought were downplayed in an attempt to
establish a scientific foundation for the realism worldview (Waltz 1979). By
design, Security studies shifted away from an explanation of what states really
did in the name of security and toward a study of their behaviour that, based
on deductive reasoning, professed to be consistently relevant across time
and historical context. Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Hobbes all expressed
their rich and historically informed realism in proto-scientific propositional
language. A lean set of assumptions now established the security dilemma:
nation-states inhabiting an anarchic environment, each seeking survival, and
guided by a structure defined by the distribution of military capabilities across
units (Waltz 1979).
The theory was intrinsically provable, as its assumptions could always
be proved through selective observations that corresponded to its predicted
state behaviour. Deviations from expected norms - for example, democratic
restraints on state power maximization or bandwagoning and concert

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formations rather than balancing - were not so much denied as disregarded

as of minor or irrelevant theoretical interest. Subtle changes were made to the
delicate causal and sequential relationship between theory and observation.
Rather than the converse, theory validated observation (Kolodziej 1992).
In short, throughout the Cold War, realist/neo-realist approaches to
security dominated Security Studies. However, with the end of the Cold War,
the landscape of international political environment changed dramatically,
and the realists’ dominance in this field of study began to be questioned. Some
scholars have also interrogated even the fundamental concept of ‘security,’
while others have questioned the realist dominance in Security Studies and
offered alternative perspectives.

The Post Cold War: Traditionalists vs. Wideners-Deepeners

The end of the Cold War is normally considered as the start of a

fundamentally new political environment in world politics both in a real
as well as in a theoretical sense. This has been particularly acute within
Security Studies, where demand to redefine its central concept, ‘security,’ has
become a preoccupation during that time. As a result, several academics have
reconsidered what is, and what should be, included within this concept and
whether a broader definition constitutes a more accurate depiction of reality
(Tarry 1999).
The primary source of contention was the growing movement among
scholars to broaden the definition of Security Studies beyond ‘the study of the
threat, use, and control of military force’ (Walt 1991, 212). Realists strongly
maintained that the security landscape had not changed sufficiently to
require an adjustment to Waltz’s definition, and thus argued for continuing
to approach security through the lens of the nation-state and interstate
war, ostensibly for the sake of conceptual clarity and theoretical parsimony
(Mearsheimer 1995). However, the wideners have augmented the military
threats that dominated classical studies in this topic with economic, societal,
political, and environmental risks (Buzan 1991). The deepeners, frequently
the same individuals as the wideners, are concerned with expanding the
traditional state-centric view of security by explicitly introducing the concept
of five levels of depth: international systems, international subsystems, units,
subunits, and individuals (Buzan et al. 1998).
To those attempting to broaden the definition of security, the military
state-centric agenda presented analytical, political, and normative difficulties.
The peaceful end of the Cold War, the increase in intra-state conflict, Western

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cultures’ dread of immigration, the deteriorating environment, and the

escalation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic all indicated that traditionalism was
incapable of meeting the post-Cold War. Wideners and deepeners contended
that the 1990s lacked a defining military event or defining Great Power conflict
that traditionalists could say should take center stage. Thus, the post–Cold
War landscape was defined by discussion not only between traditionalists and
the widening–deepening division, but also within the widening–deepening
camp (Buzan and Hansen 2009, 187).
In essence, widener–deepeners argued for broadening the referent
object beyond the state, expanding the idea of security beyond the military,
emphasizing both internal and transnational concerns, and allowing for
a modification of the Realist logic of international security. While they
were unified in their opposition to military state-centrism, the widening–
deepening stance was comprised of such disparate methods that nearly
as much time was spent debating disagreements within the widening–
deepening position as on the traditionalist–expansionist divide. Thus, a
significant feature of intra-widening debates in the 1990s and 2000s was the
rapid growth of labels indicating a distinct widening–deepening perspective:
Constructivism, Human Security, Postcolonialism, Critical Security Studies,
and the Copenhagen School are added to post-structuralism and Feminism
(see Buzan and Hansen 2009, 187).
In terms of driving forces, widening–deepening debates were
influenced by great power politics inasmuch as the Cold War’s demise altered
both the security agenda and the actors who could engage in it, allowing
for a longer list of events to have an impact on Security Studies debates.
When it comes to methods, technology played a large role in some, such as
Poststructuralism’s preoccupation with the impact of new media technology
but played a lesser role in others. Internal intellectual arguments had the
most influence. This impulse had a number of effects, not the least of which
was that it made the discussion of schools and labels, rather than events or
technologies, the organizing dynamic (see Buzan and Hansen 2009, 188).
These school conversations were influenced in three ways by internal
academic debate dynamics (Buzan and Hansen 2009, 188). Firstly, they
were affected by intellectual and methodological conflicts in international
relations, as was the convergence of negative peace researchers and strategists.
Secondly, there was a significant difference in the extent to which specific
broadening–deepening approaches emerged from the Peace Research
agenda of the 1970s and 1980s or were introduced to ‘Security Studies’ via
IR debates or social and political theory. Thirdly, there was a distinction in
the degree to which they emphasized and discussed the concept of security.

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These strategies incorporated both broadening and deepening. That segment

of the expanding debate comprised the mostly empirical recommendations
for tackling economic and, particularly, environmental challenges as part of
international security in the 1970s and 1980s.
Since the late 1980s, broadening and deepening have been entwined
in the explicit arguments concerning the notion of security that have become
popular within Security Studies, paving the way for a far more in-depth
discussion of this term than occurred during the Cold War. The manner
in which schools broadened and widened security–or did not–introduced
a broader agenda centered on economic, environmental, sociological, and
regional security, as well as a deepening of the referent object outside the
state. While there was an earlier literature on environmental security, for
example, there was no such thing as an environmental security school; rather,
there were numerous ways in which environmental security was included
into or excluded from various methods. Regarding broadening, it is worth
noting that broadening security requires considering distinct non-military
sectoral dynamics as phenomena. Economic issues, energy supply, food and
natural resources all have an effect on the military force, which widens the list
(Buzan and Hansen 2009, 189).
As a leading scholar in Security Studies and proponent of deepener-
widener, Buzan (1983; 1991) in People, States, and Fear, has also examined the
meaning of security by focusing on the question of how states and societies
pursue freedom from threat in the context of competitive relations across
the political, economic, military, societal, and environmental landscapes.
He focuses the analysis on the interplay of threats and vulnerabilities, the
policy consequences of overemphasizing one or the other, and the existence
of contradictions within and between ideas about security. Buzan strongly
argues that ‘the national security problem cannot be understood without
reference to factors at all three levels of analysis—individual level, state level,
and international level.’ Although the term ‘national security’ suggests a
phenomenon on level 2 (state level), the connections between that level and
levels 1 (individual level) and 3 (international level) are too numerous and
too strong to deny. The concept of security binds together individuals, states
and the international system so closely that it demands to be treated in a
holistic perspective. His thought-provoking book was clearly a solid challenge
to the dominance of realism and provoke the rise of alternative approaches to
Security Studies.

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Constructivist Perspective

Social Constructivism as an approach to international relations

encompasses a diverse spectrum of ideas. However, conventional
constructivism provides analysis that essentially criticizes traditional Security
Studies, most notably Neorealism, at a number of grounds. One collection of
publications examined international norms, focusing on those that appear
to contradict Neorealism and Neoliberalism’s idea that states are rational,
self-help players in an anarchic environment. These studies were frequently
framed around a Realist conundrum: why do nations accept limits on their
ability to conduct warfare, such as providing help to the wounded in accordance
with the Geneva Conventions (Finnemore 1996)? Why are chemical weapons
rarely employed, despite the fact that they are potentially effective, and
militaries are willing to use them (Price 1995)? Or why is assassination of
political and military leaders seen inappropriate, despite the fact that it may
be more effective, simple to carry out, and morally preferable than waging
war against an entire army or populace (Thomas 2000)? These concerns
cannot be addressed by Realist materialist explanations, but only through an
ideational investigation of the origins and growth of standards. Richard Price
(1995) contends that the prohibition of chemical weapons during the Second
World War was linked to a constitution distinguishing between ‘civilized’ and
‘uncivilized’ states. Whereas the ‘civilised’ found chemical weapons morally
repugnant, it was their own (manufactured) ‘civility’ that permitted them to
deploy chemical weapons against ‘non-civilised’ peoples.
A second body of constructivist work advanced from the level of the
international system to the level of nations or institutions’ foreign policies.
Additionally, these studies identify events that cannot be described by
Neorealist theories at the level of the international structure, suggesting that
they require an explanation at the level of foreign policy and the inclusion of
an ideational component. For instance, analysis of French military doctrine,
the choice between offensive and defensive doctrines can be explained only
by a mix of civilian worries about the military’s power and the military culture
itself (Kier 1995, 68). Using constructivist perspective on the study of Japan
foreign policy, Katzenstein and Okawara (1993) also argue that because the
international framework has changed, but Japan’s perception of security
has not, domestic considerations must be considered (Berger 1993; 1996).
Turning from states to international organizations, Risse-Kappen (1996) also
powerfully argues that neorealism’s failure to account for NATO’s post-Cold
War survival is due to the theory’s omission of ideational factors such as values
and identity. Rather than being built in response to an external threat and

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hence doomed to disintegrate when the threat faded, NATO was founded on
a set of democratic, liberal values that would ensure the institution’s longevity.
Thirdly, Critical Constructivism emerged in the latter half of the
1990s, distinguishing itself from Conventional Constructivism by focusing
on discourses and the connections between the historical and discursive
construction of identities on the one hand, and security measures on the
other (Katzenstein et al. 1998, 677). According to Critical Constructivists,
Conventional Constructivism still reified the state as the object of analysis,
implying a normative preference for the state as the preferred referent object
for security (Zehfuss 2001). Critical Constructivists resisted Conventional
Constructivism’s growing embrace of positivism epistemologically (Laffey
and Weldes 1997).
The Constructivists did not expressly call for an expansion of the
referent object outside the state or for a theory that transcended the military-
political sphere. This is not to argue that Constructivism cannot be critical:
demonstrating the capacity to transcend the Realist vision of security
politics and interstate relations is at the heart of the Security Studies field’s
fundamental normative arguments. However, Constructivism’s scope is
narrower than other theories that expressly address the issue of security. This
section discusses the latter, particularly those that argued for a need to expand
the referent outside the (Western) state: postcolonial approaches (to which
some Critical Constructivists contributed), Human Security, Critical Security
Studies, and Feminism. This expansion of the referent object resulted in an
expansion of the sectors or areas to which security analysis should be applied,
including development, the environment, economics, and social-welfare
concerns.

Post-Colonialism

Since the 1970s, ‘Security Studies ‘ has focused on the status of the
[Western] state. Mohamed Ayoob (1984) emphasized the Third World’s
particularities while emphasizing the importance of a strong state and
retaining it as the referent object. Critical Peace Researchers, on the other
hand, applied Marxist and dependencia ideas to their examination of the
Liberal international order’s economic, political, and cultural exploitation. In
the 1990s, calls for a critical examination of the Western-centric view of the
state at the heart of ‘Security Studies ‘ increased in frequency, and an explicit
Post-colonial ‘Security Studies ‘ perspective crystallised. This was partly as a
result of the emergence and growth of post-colonialism in the social sciences
and humanities more broadly (Said 1978; Spivak 1999), and partly as a result

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of the overlap between post-colonialism and other broadening approaches

that drew on one another to generate critical momentum.
Post-colonial theory encompasses a diverse range of perspectives
(Grovogui 2007), and one body of Post-colonial Security Studies drew
parallels with social theory and historical sociology, and thus with Critical
Constructivism, in emphasizing the importance of Third World-specific
security conceptualisations. Krause (1996), for example, that the state-centric
definition of security supported by orthodox Realist methods was founded
on a specific European history of state development. The European state
was founded on an external threat-oriented understanding of security and
based on a ‘strong identification of the state’s security with the security of its
citizens (Krause 1996, 320). This view of security indicates that state-centric
conceptions of security do not provide an analytical or normative framework
for identifying the hazards that regimes may pose to their own citizens.
Post-colonialism maintains that the non-Western state has taken a
different path but rejects the label of ‘failed’ or ‘underdeveloped’. The ‘failed’
state as being deficient in several areas in comparison to the West and hence
in need of ‘catching up’. Post-colonialists claim that these ‘failures’ are the
‘after-effects of the unequal encounter with Western colonialism’ (Barkawi
and Laffey, 2006) and that the West and the rest of the world have a repeating
economic, social, and military imbalance. This branch of Postcolonial Security
Studies emphasizes ‘the material and ideological conflicts of historically
placed agents in a neoliberal international system’ (Agathangelou and Ling
2004, 518), which is consistent with both critical IPE and Marxist Peace
Researchers’ perspectives.

Human Security

Post-colonial perspectives emphasize the peculiarities of the non-

Western state, global economic structures, and thus development difficulties.
The United Nations Development Programme’s notion of ‘Human Security’
(1994) provided a more straightforward enlargement of security to incorporate
development. Human Security, like Common Security in the early 1980s,
benefits from a strong institutional foundation and integrates political-activist
and scholarly aims. The original UNDP model favored a multidimensional
approach to security. Beyond territorial defense, national interests, and nuclear
deterrence, the ‘logic of security’ should encompass ‘universal concerns and
conflict prevention, but most importantly, a concerted global effort to alleviate
poverty and underdevelopment (UNDP 1994, 22).

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For the sake of human security, the referent object must be shifted
away from nation-states and toward ‘people.’ To be ‘people-centred’ was to
be ‘interested with how people live and breathe in a society, how freely they
exercise their numerous options, how much market and social opportunity
they have – and whether they live in conflict or peace’ (UNDP 1994, 23).
This entailed a dramatic expansion of the types of risks and sectors to which
security applied, including food, health, the environment, population growth,
gaps in economic opportunity, migration, drug trafficking, and terrorism.
Human Security as conceptualized by the UNDP is perhaps the
most expansive enlargement of the notion since Galtung began structural
violence, as it attempted to incorporate development and North–South issues.
Human Security, regrettably, has also been criticized for being so wide that it
becomes intellectually and politically meaningless (Special Section of Security
Dialogue 2004). As Roland Paris rightly puts it, ‘if human security means
almost anything, it means virtually nothing’ (2001, 93). Other critics dispute
the idea of adding ‘security’ to what they believe is basically a human rights
agenda (Buzan 2004) and point out how easily regimes adopt Human Security
rhetoric without changing their behaviour (Booth 2007, 321–7).

Critical Security Studies

Human Security was also adopted by Critical Security Studies, which

shared the former’s emphasis on ‘people’ rather than states and envisioned
a more just and peaceful world order. Although statistically small, Critical
Security Studies has achieved a surprising degree of institutionalization
within the European Security Studies community. Critical Security Studies
is sometimes defined as the work of Booth and Wyn Jones and their
Aberystwyth students and colleagues that is inspired by the Frankfurt School
(Booth 1991; 2007). Critical Security Studies has had a considerable impact
on the expanding debates because it was the perspective that most openly
embraced the Frankfurt School legacy of Critical Theory that was a part of
Peace Research in the 1970s. This occurred, however, not as a result of a
deliberate engagement with the latter literature, but rather as a result of a
reading of the Frankfurt School.
Critical Security Studies maintained that ‘individual humans are
the ultimate referent for security,’ because states are unreliable providers
of security and too heterogeneous to support a ‘complete theory of security’
(Booth 1991, 319–20). According to Wyn Jones (1995, 309), Critical Security
Studies entails ‘centering our agenda on the experience of those men and
women and communities for whom the current world system is a source

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of insecurity rather than security.’ Additionally, Critical Security Studies ‘

vocal advocacy for an individual referent object is connected to an empirical–
political assessment of interstate war as far less real and threatening than
‘environmental security, food security, and economic security,’ and to a view
of the majority of states as generating insecurity rather than stability and
prosperity (Wyn Jones 1995, 310).

Feminist Perspective

Feminist Security Studies is subdivided into sub-approaches that

employ a variety of referent objects, epistemologies, and techniques. With
the exception of typical military-state-centric methods that ignore gender and
security, Feminist Security Studies can be viewed as a microcosm of Security
Studies itself. The most pressing issues on the post-Cold War Feminist
Security Studies agenda included the following: first, how to further develop
the standpoint Feminist approach associated with J. Ann Tickner and Cynthia
Enloe, particularly how to address issues surrounding its epistemology of
experience; second, how to integrate a new set of events; and third, how to
respond to Constructivism and quantitative Feminism.
In terms of whatever conceptualization of security is used and how it is
introduced in most textbooks, the Tickner method has been the most common
within Feminist Security Studies (Pettman 2005). This approach shares
significant similarities with Critical Security Studies and Human Security in
that it advocates for expanding the referent object to include ‘women’ and
nonmilitary security sectors (Hoogensen and Rottem 2004). According to
Tickner, feminists use a ‘multidimensional, multilevel approach’ committed
to ‘emancipatory conceptions of security’ that strive to ‘understand how
violence, both physical and systemic, undermines the security of individuals
and groups at all levels (Tickner 2001, 48). As a result, feminist analysis has
‘usually followed a bottom-up approach, studying the microlevel impact of
conflict’ (Tickner 2001, 48), expanded the referent object and the sectors to
which security applies.
The appeal of an experience-based epistemology for Feminist Security
Studies is that it includes subjects who have been marginalized by state-centric
– and other collective – notions of security, such as victims of wartime rape or
sex trafficking (Jackson 2006). However, the shortcoming of an experiential
epistemology is that it is founded on perspective feminism’s idea of women
as constituting a distinct subject from ‘men’. As a result, numerous feminists
developed diversity feminism, which views identity as shaped not only by
gender but also by ethnicity, class, and race (Dietz 2003, 408). This increased

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the diversity of gendered referent objects and experiences available, but also
raised the challenge of uniting a feminist movement and consciousness
across diverse experiences. The issue was that ‘Feminist epistemology in the
sphere of international security must either decide to exclude all “women’s
experiences” or acknowledge, as other fields have, that judgment and selection
are necessary, even within the feminist perspective’ (Grant 1992, 95).

The Copenhagen School: Securitization

Jahn et al. (1987) note that Barry Buzan and Ole Waever’s work on
regional security complex theory, European security, and the relationship
between regions and global security are at the heart of the Copenhagen School.
In terms of the expanding–deepening debate, most distinctive contributions
of this school have been the ideas of ‘societal security’ and ‘securitisation.’ In
keeping with the gap between the US and Europe in terms of the degree to
which the issue of security is overtly addressed, the Copenhagen School has
received far greater attention in Europe than in the US, despite the fact that it
is increasingly being applied to non-Western countries (Jackson 2006).
In addition, the notion of ‘societal security’ was introduced in Identity,
Migration, and the New Security Agenda in Europe (Waever et al. 1993) and
was initially conceived in reaction to a series of national crises, most notably
in Yugoslavia, but also in Transylvania and the former Soviet Union (Roe
2005). It added a distinct sectoral dimension to the earlier broadening
literatures of the 1980s, which were primarily concerned with economic and
environmental issues. Increased integration inside the EU posed a challenge
to national constituencies fearful of losing political sovereignty as well as
cultural autonomy in Western Europe, and immigration was also portrayed
as a threat to national identity.
‘Social security’ was described as ‘a society’s capacity to retain its
core character in the face of changing circumstances and potential or real
dangers’ (Waever et al. 1993, 23). While the state was the reference point for
political, military, environmental, and economic security, the reference point
for societal security was ‘society’ (Waever et al. 1993, 26). This paved the way
for the study of ‘identity security,’ highlighting instances in which the state
and society diverged, such as when national minorities faced challenges from
‘their’ state, or when the state or other political actors mobilized society to
combat internal or external threats.
The Copenhagen School clearly defined this as a position in the midst
between conventional state-centrism on the one hand and similarly traditional
appeals for ‘individual’ or ‘global’ security on the other. The term ‘societal

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security’ constrained the conceivable referent object to two collective units,

the state and society, while excluding the individual and the globe. According
to Waever, ‘it appears sensible to remain conservative along this [referent
object] axis, recognizing that “security” is significantly influenced by person
and system dynamics, but not by propagating ambiguous concepts such as
individual and global security’ (Waever 1995, 49).
Security ‘contextualizes the issue as a distinct type of politics or
as something above politics’ and thus a spectrum of public issues can be
defined, ranging from non-politicised (‘the state does not deal with it and it is
not made a subject of public debate and decision’) to politicized (‘the issue is
part of public policy, requiring government decision and resource allocations
or, more rarely, some other form of communal governance’) to securitised
(‘the issue is no longer debated as a political question, but is dealt with as a
security issue’) (Buzan et al. 1998, 23). Securitising actors are described as
‘actors who securitize matters by proclaiming something – a referent object –
existentially threatened’, while referent objects are defined as ‘things that are
perceived to be existentially threatened and have a genuine claim to survival’
(Buzan et al. 1998, 36).
This appears to be a highly open conception of security, but the
Copenhagen School deliberately positioned securitisation as a means of
containing excessive security broadening, thus responding to a critical
conservative critique of the wideners (Buzan et al. 1998, 1–5). While
securitisation theory was theoretically available to anybody, in practice
the most common securitising actors are ‘political leaders, bureaucrats,
governments, lobbyists, and pressure organizations,’ with referent objects
typically middle-range collectivities (Buzan et al. 1998, 40–41). Recently, the
School has extended its thinking beyond the middle-range referent object to
macro-securitisations, which seek to structure world politics on a broader
scale (Buzan and Waever 2009).
At least in Europe, ‘securitisation’ has been a fairly effective idea. As a
result, it has drawn criticism, particularly from those who urge a more radical
broadening of the concept of security. Critical Security Studies has been one
of the most significant challengers, arguing that the Copenhagen School does
not go far enough in the direction of ‘real people in real places,’ that it conflates
security and survival, and that it is state-centric, elite-centric, discourse-
dominated, conservative, politically passive, and neither progressive nor
radical (Booth 2005, 271). Because the Copenhagen School is a constitutive,
non-causal theory, criticism has focused on the school’s analytical, political,
and normative implications rather than on its ability to explain phenomena in
a positivist (American) social science sense.

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Poststructuralism

During the Cold War, poststructuralism was already a unique position

in Security Studies. Poststructuralism was harsh on Security Studies for
adopting a state-centric military notion of security without questioning
its historical, normative, and political implications. Yet, like Realism,
Poststructuralists saw themselves as owed to the Classical Realist heritage
and claimed that state sovereignty and security were not easily transformable.
Due to the connections between Poststructuralism and Realism,
whilst Constructivists arrived to security mostly through general international
relations debates, Poststructuralists have been active in peace and security
debates since the early 1980s. Although it was critical of Western security
policy, Cold War Poststructuralism always retained the potential of rethinking
security, and hence was not confronted with the crisis of traditional approaches
following the Cold War’s end. However, if not a ‘meta-event,’ the Cold War’s
conclusion was a constitutive event that called into question some of its key
analytical assumptions.
The primary issue that Poststructuralism tackled following the
Cold War was whether nations required adversaries. Campbell’s analysis of
American discourses of danger from ‘its’ discovery through the conclusion
of the Cold War served as the major book in this argument. Campbell’s 1992
book Writing Security explicitly emphasized the importance of the Other –
that is, the construction of states, groups, and other non-Selves – arguing
that, while state identity could theoretically be constituted through relations
of difference, the pressure to transform difference into radical, threatening
Otherness was overwhelming in practice (Connolly 1991, 64–65; 209–210).
Campbell’s idea (1992) had the flaw of reifying state identity (‘the state
need enemies’) and effectively adopting Realism’s view of the state (‘the state
is surrounded by prospective adversaries’). Both approaches presupposed an
ontological inseparability of states and adversaries, as well as a monolithic
and frightening Other (Hansen 2006, 38–39). The methodological difficulty
with assuming state identity as radical Otherness was that if this were
assumed to be the only possible form of identity for states, this would be
what was identified in empirical studies, despite the possibility of less radical
forms of identity, such as being ‘Nordic’ (Hansen 2006, 38–41). Because
the Poststructuralist conception of security is contingent on the production
of identity, once identity is established, security is established as well, and
Poststructuralism is unable to escape Realist security.

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Final Remarks

This article has explored the rise and development of Security Studies
from its inception until the end of the Cold War. Security Studies developed out
of post-World War II arguments about how to defend the state from external
and internal threats. This article has shown that, as a subfield of international
relations, Security Studies was dominated by realist paradigm throughout the
Cold War. By the Cold War’s end, the concept of ‘security’ had become a source
of disagreement between traditionalist versus ‘wideners’ and ‘deepeners.’
Not only has the fundamental concept of ‘security’ been questioned, but a
variety of alternative theoretical approaches, including as constructivism,
critical theory, feminism, human security, and postcolonialism, have also
arisen to challenge the dominant (realist/liberal) paradigm. Finally, it also has
shown that significant differences existed in how those alternative approaches
defined referent objects, the sectors to which security can be applied, and
their epistemological foundations. The basic idea of this paper is mainly
derived from Buzan and Hansen (2009) in The Evolution of International
Security Studies

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v.10, n.20, Jul./Dec. 2021
 Ali Muhammad and Sugeng Riyanto

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to examine the history and development of Security
Studies from its inception through the end of the Cold War. Security Studies developed
out of post-1945 arguments about how to protect the state from external and internal
threats. Throughout the Cold War, Security Studies as a subfield of international
affairs was dominated by a realist perspective. By the end of the Cold War, the
fundamental concept of ‘security’ had become a point of disagreement between
traditionalists versus ‘wideners’ and ‘deepeners. Not only has the core concept of
‘security’ been contested, but a range of other perspectives, including constructivism,
critical theory, feminism, human security, and postcolonialism, have developed to
critically challenge (realist/liberal) paradigm. There were major distinctions in how
the contesting perspectives defined referent objects, the sectors to which security can
be applied, and the epistemological foundations of their respective perspectives. The
basic idea of this paper is mainly derived from Buzan and Hansen (2009) in The
Evolution of International Security Studies.

KEY WORDS
Security; Security Studies; Cold War; post-Cold War; Contending Approaches.

Received on August 1st, 2021

Approved on November 09, 2021

249