Security: A Critical Introduction

Description

This major new text provides an accessible yet intellectually rigorous introduction to contemporary Security Studies. It focuses on eight fundamental debates relating to international security, integrating a wide range of empirical issues and theoretical approaches within its critical interrogation of these. An accessible, yet intellectually rigorous, overview of contemporary Security Studies, serving as the perfect introduction to the latest research on security discourses, threats and technologies.

Lee Jarvis is a Senior Lecturer in International Security at the University of East Anglia, UK. He has articles published in a range of top journals including Security Dialogue, Political Studies, Millennium, and International Relations. He is author of Times of Terror: Discourse, Temporality and the War on Terror, and co-author of Terrorism: A Critical Introduction. The latter was awarded a 2012 Choice Outstanding Academic Title award. Jack Holland is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Surrey, UK. His research is on critical approaches to foreign and security policy, with a focus on the US, UK and Australia after 9/11. He is the author of Selling the War on Terror (Routledge, 2013) and co-editor of Obama's Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2014). He has published articles in the European Journal of International Relations, International Political Sociology, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Critical Studies on Terrorism, Critical Studies on Security, Australian Journal of Political Science, Politics, and Millennium Journal of International Studies.

'A refreshing engagement with the powerful and ubiquitous concept of security from a critical perspective. Managing to remain theoretically sophisticated, empirically detailed and accessible throughout, this book will be a vital resource for students and researchers of security in international relations, from two of the most promising researchers in the area.' - Matt McDonald, University of Queensland, Australia 'Impressively comprehensive, deeply knowledgeable, scrupulously fair, and consistently insightful - this book is one of the very best introductions to security studies.'- Anthony Burke, UNSW, Australia 'This is a thoughtfully conceptualized, carefully argued textbook with a probing quality that competing volumes lack. Students will acquire state-of-the-art knowledge of security studies, and conceptual tools to engage in critical reflection on peace and war, terrorism, human security, and other relevant phenomena.' - Kjell Engelbrekt, Swedish National Defence College 'This stimulating text offers a genuinely fresh and interdisciplinary approach to the study of security. By asking the big questions, it breaks out of the straitjacket of the sectoral approach typical of other recent texts.' - Michael Sheehan, Swansea University, UK