Waiting for Homeland Security Theory
2012; Naval Postgraduate School; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1558-643X
Autores Tópico(s)Nuclear Issues and Defense
ResumoNothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born.- Herman Hesse, attributed to Albertus Secundus1ACT 1A country road.A wooden table.A small whiteboard.Gloaming.Scene 1 - There Is Nothing To Be DoneThe initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it -- Karl PopperCHARLES: Everyone should be their own homeland security theorist.2GAILE: Why in heaven's name would you wish that?BARCLAY: It would be pure chaos.JACQUES: We already have chaos. At least intellectual chaos. Homeland security has no theoretical center of gravity, no overall strategy for developing its theoretical foundations.GAILE: (agreeing) It's a mishmash of loosely connected ideas, missions, and activities.JACQUES: Observing intellectual activity in homeland security is like watching young children playing soccer, running in packs to follow the ball. We can do better.BARCLAY: (abstractly) I recall reading something that called homeland security an anemic policy enterprise.3 So many people try to do so many things under the same umbrella. There is no central purpose to homeland security. One person called it an inconsistent hash.4CHARLES: (reflectively) Why do we even care whether this activity we credulously call homeland security has its own theoretical framework? What would theory do for us as academics or for our students or practitioners?JACQUES: (earnestly) I've been in this field since 9/11, and I believe we've just begun to build a discipline. I don't want to have wasted the past decade on something that just dissolves. And it will, if we don't bring conceptual precision to our work. If homeland security is ever to be academically respectable, it has to offer more than rhetoric and anecdotes. As thinkers who care about this field and who are invested in it, we have a responsibility to provide rigorous conceptual foundations for what we teach.BARCLAY: (approvingly) Yes. Before we can develop a homeland security research agenda, we need to ground the knowledge we create. Theory - whether derived deductively or inductively - can help us do that.CHARLES: I do not disagree with what you are saying.GAILE: (annoyed) Does that mean you agree with us? Because if you do, the idea of encouraging everyone to be their own theorist is silly. It's like letting anyone be a dentist.CHARLES: (sharply) Allow me some credit, please. I've thought at length about this; my thesis is not meant merely to be provocative. And your dentist analogy is fallacious. Homeland security is many things, but nothing having to do with teeth.GAILE: (gruffly) You know what I mean. What you propose....CHARLES: (insistently) No. I do not know what you mean, and that's a central part of the difficulty trying to develop homeland security theory. I did not come to my position casually. A few years ago I started thinking about this, wondering how to bring conceptual order to the homeland security mess. And I'm not talking about what practitioners do day to day, although that may also be messy. I'm talking about what we do - in the classrooms and in our research - when we talk and write about homeland security. I thought we needed to start with theory, and I worked to create one.BARCLAY: (crisply) One? One theory of homeland security?CHARLES: Yes, I thought I'd start with grand theory.5 I wanted something that organized all homeland security ideas. I wanted an overarching perspective I could use to structure the way I teach homeland security.BARCLAY: How did that go? …
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