Critical Security Studies is an academic approach that fundamentally challenges how we think about security. Unlike traditional security studies that focus primarily on states and military threats, Critical Security Studies broadens the concept to include human security, environmental threats, and social justice issues. It asks not just what threatens us, but who gets to decide what counts as a security threat.
Critical Security Studies is an academic field that emerged in the 1990s to challenge traditional approaches to security. Rather than accepting conventional definitions, it asks fundamental questions: Who or what should be secured? What constitutes a security threat? And how should security be achieved? This field critiques the traditional focus on military threats to the state and proposes broader understandings of security.
Critical Security Studies fundamentally broadens what we consider security threats. While traditional approaches focus on military threats to the state, critical security studies includes economic insecurity, environmental degradation, health crises, and social injustice. This expansion recognizes that people face many forms of insecurity beyond military conflict, and that true security requires addressing these interconnected challenges.
Critical Security Studies is built on several key principles. First, it views security as a social construction rather than objective reality, shaped by power and politics. Second, it focuses on human security, prioritizing individual and community needs over state interests. Third, it sees emancipation as the ultimate security goal - liberation from oppression and enabling human potential to flourish.
To summarize what we have learned about Critical Security Studies: It challenges traditional state-centered approaches by expanding security to include human, environmental, and social dimensions. The field emphasizes emancipation and views security as socially constructed. Most importantly, it promotes inclusive approaches that prioritize human well-being and dignity over narrow state interests.
A key concept in Critical Security Studies is securitization theory. This explains how issues become treated as security threats through a three-step process. First, a speech act presents an issue as an existential threat requiring urgent action. Second, the audience accepts this threat claim, legitimizing extraordinary measures. Third, emergency politics takes over, suspending normal rules and granting special powers. Critical Security Studies questions this process, asking who benefits from securitization and whether it truly enhances security.
Critical Security Studies highlights the fundamental difference between state security and human security. State security focuses on territorial integrity, military defense, and national sovereignty against external threats. In contrast, human security prioritizes individual well-being, freedom from fear and want, personal dignity, and community safety. Critical Security Studies argues that true security must prioritize human needs over state interests, recognizing that state security does not automatically guarantee human security.
To summarize what we have learned about Critical Security Studies: It challenges traditional state-centered approaches by broadening security to include human, environmental, economic, and social dimensions. The field emphasizes emancipation and human well-being over narrow state interests. Through securitization theory, it reveals how political processes shape what we consider security threats. Most importantly, Critical Security Studies promotes inclusive security approaches that address the root causes of insecurity and oppression in our world.