International relations theory and the concept of security : realism, idealism and ideology
Date
1987
Authors
Morry, Christopher John
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Abstract
The concept of security within mainstream Anglo-American international relations theory is associated with the defense and maintenance of the state unit in a plural and competitive states-system. This focus on 'national security' has recently come under renewed critique by proponents of a different perspective. They claim that the state is a source of insecurity and that effective security can be attained only by replacing the competitive plural states-system with cooperative and universalist arrangements - with a system of world government or at minimum, some form of federal association. These views are obviously contradictory, yet they can also be understood as part of the same discourse of 'liberal' international relations theory. They are representative of the central fracture in that discourse - the 'great debate' between Realism and Idealism. The vigour of recent attacks on mainstream conceptions of national security has generated new critical interest in the concept. Barry Buzan in particular has stressed the connection between the dualisms central to liberal international relations theory and the contradictory claims embedded within the concept of security. However, the historical, theoretical, ideological and philosophical issues that lie behind the division into Realism and Idealism, have remained relatively unexplored.
This thesis explores the historical context through which security has become associated with deeper contradictions arising from the modern theory of the state, and more deeply still, with opposed conceptions of time and change. The purpose of this analysis is to uncover the way in which the ambiguous nature of the concept of security is tied to the incorporation (and reification) of historically specific resolutions of complex political and philosophical problems. The clarification of the central historical debates surrounding security, particularly in relation to the state and to whether the individual's primary obligations should be to the state or to humanity, will be useful in understanding contemporary debates about the possibilities of more effective forms of security in a world of rapid structural transformation.
The conclusions that follow from this investigation are of necessity tentative and suggestive. They point to the anachronistic nature of the types of questions posed by both the Realists and the Idealists. These questions are part of an earlier debate that developed in reaction to the emergence of the modern plural states-system into a world largely understood in terms of a medieval universalist cosmology. To clarify the anachronic nature of such questions is to underline the importance of an alternative set of questions: 'whose security is served by this or that conception of security?'; or, 'is it possible to use conceptions such as national security or world government without first grasping what is meant by the concept of the state?' These suggestions are not as important as the critique that points to the essentially closed nature of the present discourse, its inability to deal with the issues modernity places before it, and therefore the urgent need to open up debate and to pose questions pertinent to the present crises and insecurities faced by us all.