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Securing the human in critical security studies: the insecurity of a secure ethics

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09662839.2011.572070

1746-1545

Mike Bourne, Dan Bulley,

War, Ethics, and Justification

Abstract Abstract This article argues that Critical Security Studies (CSS), exemplified by Ken Booth's Theory of World Security, has outlined an ethics of security as emancipation of the 'human', but also a highly problematic security of ethics. After drawing out how the ethics of CSS operates, we examine the security of this ethics by examining it against a hard case, that of the 1998–99 Kosovo crisis. Confronting this concrete situation, we draw out three possibilities for action used at the time to secure the human: 'humanitarian containment', military intervention and hospitality. Assessing each against Booth's requirements for ethical security action, we counter that, in fact, no option was without risks, pitfalls and ambiguities. Ultimately, if any action to promote the security and the emancipation of the human is possible, it must embrace and prioritise the fundamental insecurity of ethics, or else find itself paralysed through a fear of making situations worse. Keywords: ethicssecuritycritical security studiesken boothemancipationKosovo Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 'Ethics of Security/Security of Ethics: The Possibilities and Limits of Critical Security Studies' (sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation) conference at the University of Warwick from 23 to 24 September 2009. The authors would like to thank all participants for their comments and suggestions, especially Cian O'Driscoll. We would also like to thank the organisers of the conference, James Brassett, Matt MacDonald and Chris Browning. Notes 1. The rejection of Human Security approaches by Booth, and other critical scholars of security, relates largely to the problem-solving orientation of many invocations of the concept that seek policy relevance while failing to challenge the epistemological, ontological and methodological assumptions of security practice and theory, and their association with liberal international order as the normative frame in which human security is to be pursued (Newman 2010 Newman, E. 2010. Critical human security studies. Review of International Studies, 36(1): 77–94. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], Chandler and Hynek 2011 Chandler , D. and Hynek , N. 2011 . Critical perspectives on human security: rethinking emancipation and power in international relations . London : Routledge . [Google Scholar]). Yet recent scholarship sympathetic to both Human Security and the critical theoretical project of CSS points to the potential of a combined 'Critical Human Security studies' to produce deeper conceptual development of Human Security and enhance the practical policy engagement of CSS (Newman 2010). 2. It should be noted here that we are using the terms morality and ethics interchangeably as Booth himself does. In this we also follow Kim Hutchings who suggests that the distinction drawn by some is untenable (see Hutchings 1996 Hutchings, K. 1996. Kant, critique and politics, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]). 3. As becomes clear from the pages cited, this poststructuralism is certainly Booth's own creation. His claims in this regard contain little or no references or evidence of his having read poststructuralists (for example, he quotes Terry Eagleton (1996, pp. 43–4) and Martha Nussbaum (1997, p. 77). His accusations are wholly unsubstantiated. Therefore, there is significant irony to Booth's claim that had poststructuralism not existed, 'we would have to have invented' it (2007 p. 178). After all, this is precisely what he has done. 4. Thanks to Cian O'Driscoll for making this point. 5. Such figures are disputed. IICK figures are used here as this report claims to have combined and reflected upon figures from numerous sources. We make no claim of the superiority of these estimates, but note that even these high numbers are among the more conservative to be found in the literature. 6. For more on the priority given to the suffering human in this context, see Bulley (2010b). 7. It should be noted that what is generally referred to as the refugee 'crisis', when tens of thousands were arriving in a day, only occurred at the end of March, after the beginning of the NATO bombing campaign. This adds to the claims that the intervention made the crisis worse rather than better (see Chandler 2006). 8. Blair (2010, p. 242) claims in his memoirs that he had secured American backing for a ground invasion by June 1999, but Milosevic capitulated before it was necessary.