Critical Security Studies

Offers a comprehensive introduction to critical security studies. This textbook locates critical security studies within the broader context of social and political theory. It evaluates fundamental theoretical positions in critical security studies against backdrop of various security challenges.

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Critical Security Studies introduces students of Politics and International Relations to the sub-field through a detailed yet accessible survey of emerging theories and practices.


Written in an accessible and clear manner, this textbook:








offers a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to critical security studies
locates Critical Security Studies within the broader context of social and political theory
evaluates fundamental theoretical positions in critical security studies against backdrop of new security challenges.


The book is divided into two main parts. The first part, `Approaches’, surveys the newly extended and contested theoretical terrain of Critical Security Studies, and the different schools within the subdiscipline, including Feminist, Postcolonial and Poststructuralist viewpoints. The second part, `Issues’, will then offer examples of how these various theoretical approaches have been put to work against the backdrop of a diverse range of issues in contemporary security practices, from environmental, human and homeland security to border security and the War on Terror.


The historical and geographical scope of the book is deliberately broad and readers will be introduced to a number of key illustrative case studies. Each of the chapters in Part II will act to concretely illustrate one or more of the approaches discussed in Part I, with clear internal referencing allowing the text to act as a holistic learning tool for students.


This book will be essential reading for upper level students of Critical Security Studies, and an important resource for students of International/Global Security, Political Theory, and IR in general.


Columba Peoples is Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics, University of Bristol, UK.


Nick Vaughan-Williams is Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK.