Routledge New Security Studies – serie

This multi-disciplinary book conceptualizes, maps, and analyses ongoing standardization processes of risk issues across various sectors, processes, and practices.Standards are not only technical specifications and guidelines to support efficient risk governance, but also contain social, political, economic, and organizational aspects. This book presents a variety of standardization processes and applications of standards that may influence our judgements of risk, the organizing of risk governance, and, accordingly, our behaviour. Standardization and standards can impact risk governance in different ways. The most important lessons drawn from the present volume can be summarized in three areas: (1) how standardization might impact on power relations and interests; (2) how standardization may change flexibility in decision-making, communication, and cooperation; and (3) how standardization could (re)direct attention and risk perception.The volume’s aim is to present an analysis of standardization processes and how it affects our thinking about risk, how we organize risk governance, and how standardization may influence risk management. In so doing, it contributes to a more informed discourse regarding the use of standards and standardization in contemporary risk management.Standardization and Risk Governance will be of great interest to students of risk, standardization, global governance, and critical security studies.The Open Access version of this book, available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429290817, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

The present volume engages visuality in security from a variety of angles and explores what the subfield of Visual Security Studies might be.To structure this experimentation, and to encourage a more careful and multifaceted approach to visuality and security, the main conceptual move in this volume is to envision three different transversal meeting points between security and visuality: visuality as a modality (active in representations and signs of security), visuality as practice (active in enacting security), and visuality as a method (active in investigating security). These three approaches structure the book together with three areas in which we see visuality as especially pertinent in relation to security: in security technologies that (en)vision security and are themselves the objects of visions of security; in spectacles of security and security spectatorship; and in ways of making security visible. In this way, the volume works to sensitize International Relations research to visual forms of knowledge and practice by examining visual aspects of security. At the same time, it allows for debate on how this particular modality of the sensible not only affects what is visible and what is not, but also how authority and truth-claims come about, and how they are compared and evaluated. Through engagement with security via the ‘language’ or ‘code’ of the visual, it is possible to interrogate how scholars in the field understand visuality as well as the economy, grammar, and performativity of visual articulation and the production of knowledge. The volume also examines how visuality can be used as a method in doing research, and as a way of presenting research results.Visual Security Studies is not a new theory of security or its study; instead, the present volume suggests that visuality should be envisioned as an aspect of security studies that can be incorporated into pre-existing approaches. The aim is to highlight how much of contemporary practice is visual and to foster an increased attentiveness to visuality in security politics, security practice, and to the possibilities of employing visual research methods in security scholarship. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security, media studies, surveillance studies, visual sociology, and IR in general.

This book compares and contrasts publicly espoused security concepts in the Nordic region, and explores the notion of societal security.Outside observers often assume that Nordic countries take similar approaches to the security and safety of their citizens. This book challenges that assumption and traces the evolution of ‘societal security’, and its broadly equivalent concepts, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The notion of societal security is deconstructed and analysed in terms of its different meanings and implications for each country, through both country- and issue-focused studies. Each chapter traces the evolution of key security concepts and related practices, allowing for a comparison of similarities and differences between these four countries. Using discourses and practices as evidence, this is the first book to explore how different Nordic nations have conceptualised domestic security over time. The findings will be valuable to scholars from across the geographical and theoretical spectrum, while highlighting how Nordic security discourses and practices may deviate from traditional assumptions about Nordic values.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, Nordic politics and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Nordic-Societal-Security-Convergence-and-Divergence/Larsson-Rhinard/p/book/9780367492922, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book compares and contrasts publicly espoused security concepts in the Nordic region, and explores the notion of societal security.Outside observers often assume that Nordic countries take similar approaches to the security and safety of their citizens. This book challenges that assumption and traces the evolution of ‘societal security’, and its broadly equivalent concepts, in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The notion of societal security is deconstructed and analysed in terms of its different meanings and implications for each country, through both country- and issue-focused studies. Each chapter traces the evolution of key security concepts and related practices, allowing for a comparison of similarities and differences between these four countries. Using discourses and practices as evidence, this is the first book to explore how different Nordic nations have conceptualised domestic security over time. The findings will be valuable to scholars from across the geographical and theoretical spectrum, while highlighting how Nordic security discourses and practices may deviate from traditional assumptions about Nordic values.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, Nordic politics and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.routledge.com/Nordic-Societal-Security-Convergence-and-Divergence/Larsson-Rhinard/p/book/9780367492922, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book analyses securitization processes outside of the West, with a focus on Africa. The aim of the volume is to develop an original analytical framework to explain the securitization-neo-patrimonialism dynamics in West Africa, drawing upon insights from securitization theory, sociology and psychology. Among critical voices, securitization has become the gold standard for analysing emerging challenges, such as migration, terrorism, and human security. Yet, despite its broadening agenda, the framework has also been accused of bias, with a Western political context and democratic governance structure at its heart. This book aims to re-conceptualise the framework in a way that suits non-Western contexts better, notably by re-conceptualising the securitization-neopatrimonialism nexus in Africa, which gives us significant new insights into non-Western political contexts. It analyses the securitization processes among the political elites under neo-patrimonial statehood, and further stretches the conceptualisation of securitization into African statehood, which is characterised by a blurred line between the leader and the state. The volume explores the processes of securitizing threats in Liberia, Sierra Leone and wider West Africa, as well as the neo-patrimonial regimes of these states. In doing so, it explores the influence these states’ neo-patrimonial regimes have on the processes of threat securitization. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, African politics and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book analyses securitization processes outside of the West, with a focus on Africa. The aim of the volume is to develop an original analytical framework to explain the securitization-neo-patrimonialism dynamics in West Africa, drawing upon insights from securitization theory, sociology and psychology. Among critical voices, securitization has become the gold standard for analysing emerging challenges, such as migration, terrorism, and human security. Yet, despite its broadening agenda, the framework has also been accused of bias, with a Western political context and democratic governance structure at its heart. This book aims to re-conceptualise the framework in a way that suits non-Western contexts better, notably by re-conceptualising the securitization-neopatrimonialism nexus in Africa, which gives us significant new insights into non-Western political contexts. It analyses the securitization processes among the political elites under neo-patrimonial statehood, and further stretches the conceptualisation of securitization into African statehood, which is characterised by a blurred line between the leader and the state. The volume explores the processes of securitizing threats in Liberia, Sierra Leone and wider West Africa, as well as the neo-patrimonial regimes of these states. In doing so, it explores the influence these states’ neo-patrimonial regimes have on the processes of threat securitization. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, African politics and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book investigates the way that the molecular sciences are shaping contemporary security practices in relation to the governance of biological threats.In response to biological threats, such as pandemics and bioterrorism, governments around the world have developed a range of new security technologies, called medical countermeasures, to protect their populations. This book argues that the molecular sciences’ influence has been so great that security practices have been molecularised. Focusing on the actions of international organisations and governments in the past two decades, this book identifies two contrasting conceptions of the nature or inherent workings of molecular life as driving this turn. On the one hand, political notions of insecurity have been shaped by the contingent or random nature of molecular life. On the other, the identification of molecular life’s constant biological dynamics supports and makes possible the development and stockpiling of effective medical countermeasures. This study is one of the few to take seriously the conceptual implications that the detailed empirical workings of biotechnology have on security practices today.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, bio-politics, life sciences, global governance, and International Relations in general.

This book investigates the way that the molecular sciences are shaping contemporary security practices in relation to the governance of biological threats.In response to biological threats, such as pandemics and bioterrorism, governments around the world have developed a range of new security technologies, called medical countermeasures, to protect their populations. This book argues that the molecular sciences’ influence has been so great that security practices have been molecularised. Focusing on the actions of international organisations and governments in the past two decades, this book identifies two contrasting conceptions of the nature or inherent workings of molecular life as driving this turn. On the one hand, political notions of insecurity have been shaped by the contingent or random nature of molecular life. On the other, the identification of molecular life’s constant biological dynamics supports and makes possible the development and stockpiling of effective medical countermeasures. This study is one of the few to take seriously the conceptual implications that the detailed empirical workings of biotechnology have on security practices today.This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, bio-politics, life sciences, global governance, and International Relations in general.

This book analyzes energy security dynamics in Europe through the prism of security logics.Drawing on the literature on securitization, security logics and security contexts, it scrutinizes energy security debates and policy developments in Germany, Poland and Ukraine, focusing on the pipeline politics, nuclear energy and renewables sector. The contextualized analysis accounts for the wider historical, socio-economic and cultural background from which energy policies emerge and gives a voice to the different stakeholders—from policymakers to the local NGO sector. The book sheds light on the root causes of different energy policy decisions and illustrates that European energy security is currently driven by four security logics—war, subsistence, risk and emancipation. The logic of emancipation is a newly emergent phenomenon embraced by many bottom-up citizens’ initiatives and manifested in their drive to self-reliance, the rhetoric of liberation and local practices of energy production. The conceptualization and analysis of the emancipatory logic vis-à-vis other energy security logics help to explain European energy context most effectively—with its background conditions, emerging trends and often controversial national policy approaches.This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, energy policy and European politics in general.

This book offers an analysis of privacy impacts resulting from and reinforced by technology and discusses fundamental risks and challenges of protecting privacy in the digital age.Privacy is among the most endangered "species" in our networked society: personal information is processed for various purposes beyond our control. Ultimately, this affects the natural interplay between privacy, personal identity and identification. This book investigates that interplay from a systemic, socio-technical perspective by combining research from the social and computer sciences. It sheds light on the basic functions of privacy, their relation to identity, and how they alter with digital identification practices. The analysis reveals a general privacy control dilemma of (digital) identification shaped by several interrelated socio-political, economic and technical factors. Uncontrolled increases in the identification modalities inherent to digital technology reinforce this dilemma and benefit surveillance practices, thereby complicating the detection of privacy risks and the creation of appropriate safeguards. Easing this problem requires a novel approach to privacy impact assessment (PIA), and this book proposes an alternative PIA framework which, at its core, comprises a basic typology of (personally and technically) identifiable information. This approach contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of privacy impacts and thus, to the development of more effective protection standards.This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of critical security studies, surveillance studies, computer and information science, science and technology studies, and politics.

This book examines current debates about the politics of technology and the future of democratic practices in the digital era.The volume centres on the debates on digital encryption in Germany and the USA, during the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks, which revolved around the value of privacy and the legitimacy of surveillance practices. Using a discourse analysis of mass media and specialist debates, it shows how these are closely interlinked with technological controversies and how, as a result, contestation emerges not within one public sphere but within multiple expert circles. The book develops the notion of ‘publicness’ in order to grasp the political significance of these controversies, thereby making an innovative contribution to Critical Security Studies by introducing digital encryption as an important site for understanding the broader debates on cyber security and surveillance.This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, science and technology studies, and International Relations.

This book examines the possibility of socially responsible innovation in security, using an interdisciplinary approach. Responsible innovation in security refers to a comprehensive approach that aims to integrate knowledge related to stakeholders operating at both the demand and the supply side of security – technologists, citizens, policymakers and ethicists. Security innovations can only be successful in the long term if all the social, ethical and ecological impacts, and threats and opportunities, both short term and long term, are assessed and prioritized alongside technical and commercial impacts. The first part of this volume focuses on security technology innovation and its perception and acceptance by the public, while the second part delves deeper into the processes of decision-making and democratic control, raising questions about the ethical implications of security ruling.This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, sociology, technology studies and IR in general.

This book scrutinizes how contemporary practices of security have come to rely on many different translations of security, risk, and danger.Institutions of national security policies are currently undergoing radical conceptual and organisational changes, and this book presents a novel approach for how to study and politically address the new situation. Complex and uncertain threat environments, such as terrorism, climate change, and the global financial crisis, have paved the way for new forms of security governance that have profoundly transformed the ways in which threats are handled today. Crucially, there is a decentralisation of the management of security, which is increasingly handled by a broad set of societal actors that previously were not considered powerful in the conduct of security affairs. This transformation of security knowledge and management changes the meaning of traditional concepts and practices, and calls for investigation into the many meanings of security implied when contemporary societies manage radical dangers, risks, and threats. It is necessary to study both what these meanings are and how they developed from the security practices of the past. Addressing this knowledge gap, the book asks how different ideas about threats, risk, and dangers meet in the current practices of security, broadly understood, and with what political consequences.This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, anthropology, risk studies, science and technology studies and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at: https://www.routledge.com/Translations-of-Security-A-Framework-for-the-Study-of-Unwanted-Futures/Berling-Gad-Petersen-Waever/p/book/9781032007090 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This book scrutinizes how contemporary practices of security have come to rely on many different translations of security, risk, and danger.Institutions of national security policies are currently undergoing radical conceptual and organisational changes, and this book presents a novel approach for how to study and politically address the new situation. Complex and uncertain threat environments, such as terrorism, climate change, and the global financial crisis, have paved the way for new forms of security governance that have profoundly transformed the ways in which threats are handled today. Crucially, there is a decentralisation of the management of security, which is increasingly handled by a broad set of societal actors that previously were not considered powerful in the conduct of security affairs. This transformation of security knowledge and management changes the meaning of traditional concepts and practices, and calls for investigation into the many meanings of security implied when contemporary societies manage radical dangers, risks, and threats. It is necessary to study both what these meanings are and how they developed from the security practices of the past. Addressing this knowledge gap, the book asks how different ideas about threats, risk, and dangers meet in the current practices of security, broadly understood, and with what political consequences.This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, anthropology, risk studies, science and technology studies and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at: https://www.routledge.com/Translations-of-Security-A-Framework-for-the-Study-of-Unwanted-Futures/Berling-Gad-Petersen-Waever/p/book/9781032007090 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This book presents an original interdisciplinary approach to the study of the so-called ‘recovery phase’ in disaster management, centred on the notion of repairing.The volume advances thinking on disaster recovery that goes beyond institutional and managerial challenges, descriptions and analyses. It encourages socially, politically and ethically engaged questioning of what it means to recover after disaster. At the centre of this analysis, contributions examine the diversity of processes of repairing through which recovery can take place, and the varied meanings actors attribute to repair at different times and scales of such processes. It also analyses the multiple arenas (juridical, expert, political) in which actors struggle to make sense of the "what-ness" of a disaster and the paths for recovery. These struggles are interlinked with interest-based and power-based struggles which maintain structural inequality and exploitation, existing social hierarchies and established forms of marginality. The work uses case studies from all over the world, cutting-edge theoretical discussions and original empirical research to put critical and interpretative approaches in social sciences into dialogue, opening the venue for innovative approaches in the study of environmental disasters.This book will be of much interest to students of disaster management, sociology, anthropology, law and philosophy.

This book presents an original interdisciplinary approach to the study of the so-called ‘recovery phase’ in disaster management, centred on the notion of repairing.The volume advances thinking on disaster recovery that goes beyond institutional and managerial challenges, descriptions and analyses. It encourages socially, politically and ethically engaged questioning of what it means to recover after disaster. At the centre of this analysis, contributions examine the diversity of processes of repairing through which recovery can take place, and the varied meanings actors attribute to repair at different times and scales of such processes. It also analyses the multiple arenas (juridical, expert, political) in which actors struggle to make sense of the "what-ness" of a disaster and the paths for recovery. These struggles are interlinked with interest-based and power-based struggles which maintain structural inequality and exploitation, existing social hierarchies and established forms of marginality. The work uses case studies from all over the world, cutting-edge theoretical discussions and original empirical research to put critical and interpretative approaches in social sciences into dialogue, opening the venue for innovative approaches in the study of environmental disasters.This book will be of much interest to students of disaster management, sociology, anthropology, law and philosophy.

The book explores the complex, multi-directional connections of the "mobility/security nexus" in the re-ordering of states, empires, and markets in historical perspective.Contributing to a vivid academic debate, the book offers in-depth studies on how mobility and security interplay in the emergence of order beyond the modern state. While mobilities studies, migration studies and critical security studies have focused on particular aspects of this relationship, such as the construction of mobility as a political threat or the role of infrastructure and security, we still lack comprehensive conceptual frameworks to grasp the mobility/security nexus and its role in social, political, and economic orders. With authors drawn from sociology, International Relations, and various historical disciplines, this transdisciplinary volume historicizes the mobility-security nexus for the first time. In answering calls for more studies that are both empirical and have historical depth, the book presents substantial case studies on the nexus, ranging from the late Middle Ages right up to the present-day, with examples from the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, Papua New Guinea, Rome in the 1980s or the European Union today. By doing so, the volume conceptualizes the mobility/security nexus from a new, innovative perspective and, further, highlights it as a prominent driving force for society and state development in history. This book will be of much interest to researchers and students of critical security studies, mobility studies, sociology, history and political science.

The book explores the complex, multi-directional connections of the "mobility/security nexus" in the re-ordering of states, empires, and markets in historical perspective.Contributing to a vivid academic debate, the book offers in-depth studies on how mobility and security interplay in the emergence of order beyond the modern state. While mobilities studies, migration studies and critical security studies have focused on particular aspects of this relationship, such as the construction of mobility as a political threat or the role of infrastructure and security, we still lack comprehensive conceptual frameworks to grasp the mobility/security nexus and its role in social, political, and economic orders. With authors drawn from sociology, International Relations, and various historical disciplines, this transdisciplinary volume historicizes the mobility-security nexus for the first time. In answering calls for more studies that are both empirical and have historical depth, the book presents substantial case studies on the nexus, ranging from the late Middle Ages right up to the present-day, with examples from the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, Papua New Guinea, Rome in the 1980s or the European Union today. By doing so, the volume conceptualizes the mobility/security nexus from a new, innovative perspective and, further, highlights it as a prominent driving force for society and state development in history. This book will be of much interest to researchers and students of critical security studies, mobility studies, sociology, history and political science.

This book provides a holistic picture of Chinese global security discourses, with a focus on macrosecuritizations.The work examines how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has aligned itself within global security discourses. This is approached through the theory of securitization, specifically by using the notion of macrosecuritization as the lens for its analysis. The book offers the first full account of Chinese macrosecuritization discourses and alignments, and it aims to discern what security speech with referent objects such as humanity, civilization, or nature has done in the domestic and international politics of China. Specifically, the work focuses on the discourses of the Cold War, anti-nuclear weapons, climate change, and the Global War on Terror, which have all been postulated in the literature as macrosecuritizations. In addition, it examines discourses with global referent objects that have been put forth by the PRC so that we can see whether its proposals for global security governance take the form of, or are legitimated through, macrosecuritization. The overall argument in the book is that the way contemporary China uses macrosecuritization discourses provides for ontological security as its position in relation to other major powers is undergoing transformation, by allowing it to maintain a consistent narrative of its international self that abides by its own set of moral values and sense of worth.This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, Chinese politics and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International.

This book provides a holistic picture of Chinese global security discourses, with a focus on macrosecuritizations.The work examines how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has aligned itself within global security discourses. This is approached through the theory of securitization, specifically by using the notion of macrosecuritization as the lens for its analysis. The book offers the first full account of Chinese macrosecuritization discourses and alignments, and it aims to discern what security speech with referent objects such as humanity, civilization, or nature has done in the domestic and international politics of China. Specifically, the work focuses on the discourses of the Cold War, anti-nuclear weapons, climate change, and the Global War on Terror, which have all been postulated in the literature as macrosecuritizations. In addition, it examines discourses with global referent objects that have been put forth by the PRC so that we can see whether its proposals for global security governance take the form of, or are legitimated through, macrosecuritization. The overall argument in the book is that the way contemporary China uses macrosecuritization discourses provides for ontological security as its position in relation to other major powers is undergoing transformation, by allowing it to maintain a consistent narrative of its international self that abides by its own set of moral values and sense of worth.This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, Chinese politics and International Relations.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International.

This book analyses the securitization of ethnic identities and social groups by the state in Afghanistan in the post-2001 context.Securitization is arguably the most successful theoretical framework to analyse security beyond the military confines. Yet, despite its broadening agenda, the securitization framework has been accused of a Western bias. This book analyses the extent and the modalities and practices of the securitization of ethnic identities and social groups (e.g. women) by the state in Afghanistan post-2001, which is especially relevant following the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021. It puts forward a more nuanced argument by analytically distinguishing and empirically testing state policies, practices, and perspectives on ethnic and social groups that are largely informed by the fear and legacies of civil war (1978–2001). The work argues that the traditional lack of a stable state identity that could function as a basis for ontological security in Afghanistan has resulted in a persistent state of fragility exacerbated by the legacies and fears of civil war that have had a direct impact on the development of the state’s perspectives on ethnic and social groups. Whilst the state does not necessarily indulge in explicit securitization practices and discourses, securitization often takes place through implicit activities to undermine ethnic and social groups’ ability to enter political, economic, and socio-cultural competitions fairly and equitably, which would, in turn, enable these groups to challenge the state. The securitization process, therefore, has had an impact on the ability of these groups to benefit from opportunities fairly and equitably.This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, statebuilding, Asian politics, and International Relations in general.

This multi-disciplinary book conceptualizes, maps, and analyses ongoing standardization processes of risk issues across various sectors, processes, and practices.Standards are not only technical specifications and guidelines to support efficient risk governance, but also contain social, political, economic, and organizational aspects. This book presents a variety of standardization processes and applications of standards that may influence our judgements of risk, the organizing of risk governance, and, accordingly, our behaviour. Standardization and standards can impact risk governance in different ways. The most important lessons drawn from the present volume can be summarized in three areas: (1) how standardization might impact on power relations and interests; (2) how standardization may change flexibility in decision-making, communication, and cooperation; and (3) how standardization could (re)direct attention and risk perception.The volume’s aim is to present an analysis of standardization processes and how it affects our thinking about risk, how we organize risk governance, and how standardization may influence risk management. In so doing, it contributes to a more informed discourse regarding the use of standards and standardization in contemporary risk management.Standardization and Risk Governance will be of great interest to students of risk, standardization, global governance, and critical security studies.The Open Access version of this book, available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429290817, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

The present volume engages visuality in security from a variety of angles and explores what the subfield of Visual Security Studies might be.To structure this experimentation, and to encourage a more careful and multifaceted approach to visuality and security, the main conceptual move in this volume is to envision three different transversal meeting points between security and visuality: visuality as a modality (active in representations and signs of security), visuality as practice (active in enacting security), and visuality as a method (active in investigating security). These three approaches structure the book together with three areas in which we see visuality as especially pertinent in relation to security: in security technologies that (en)vision security and are themselves the objects of visions of security; in spectacles of security and security spectatorship; and in ways of making security visible. In this way, the volume works to sensitize International Relations research to visual forms of knowledge and practice by examining visual aspects of security. At the same time, it allows for debate on how this particular modality of the sensible not only affects what is visible and what is not, but also how authority and truth-claims come about, and how they are compared and evaluated. Through engagement with security via the ‘language’ or ‘code’ of the visual, it is possible to interrogate how scholars in the field understand visuality as well as the economy, grammar, and performativity of visual articulation and the production of knowledge. The volume also examines how visuality can be used as a method in doing research, and as a way of presenting research results.Visual Security Studies is not a new theory of security or its study; instead, the present volume suggests that visuality should be envisioned as an aspect of security studies that can be incorporated into pre-existing approaches. The aim is to highlight how much of contemporary practice is visual and to foster an increased attentiveness to visuality in security politics, security practice, and to the possibilities of employing visual research methods in security scholarship. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security, media studies, surveillance studies, visual sociology, and IR in general.

This book examines current debates about the politics of technology and the future of democratic practices in the digital era.The volume centres on the debates on digital encryption in Germany and the USA, during the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks, which revolved around the value of privacy and the legitimacy of surveillance practices. Using a discourse analysis of mass media and specialist debates, it shows how these are closely interlinked with technological controversies and how, as a result, contestation emerges not within one public sphere but within multiple expert circles. The book develops the notion of ‘publicness’ in order to grasp the political significance of these controversies, thereby making an innovative contribution to Critical Security Studies by introducing digital encryption as an important site for understanding the broader debates on cyber security and surveillance.This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, science and technology studies, and International Relations.

This book offers an analysis of privacy impacts resulting from and reinforced by technology and discusses fundamental risks and challenges of protecting privacy in the digital age.Privacy is among the most endangered "species" in our networked society: personal information is processed for various purposes beyond our control. Ultimately, this affects the natural interplay between privacy, personal identity and identification. This book investigates that interplay from a systemic, socio-technical perspective by combining research from the social and computer sciences. It sheds light on the basic functions of privacy, their relation to identity, and how they alter with digital identification practices. The analysis reveals a general privacy control dilemma of (digital) identification shaped by several interrelated socio-political, economic and technical factors. Uncontrolled increases in the identification modalities inherent to digital technology reinforce this dilemma and benefit surveillance practices, thereby complicating the detection of privacy risks and the creation of appropriate safeguards. Easing this problem requires a novel approach to privacy impact assessment (PIA), and this book proposes an alternative PIA framework which, at its core, comprises a basic typology of (personally and technically) identifiable information. This approach contributes to the theoretical and practical understanding of privacy impacts and thus, to the development of more effective protection standards.This book will be of much interest to students and scholars of critical security studies, surveillance studies, computer and information science, science and technology studies, and politics.