Thinking Critically About Security Studies

Review by Marijke Breuning

University of North Texas

The Geopolitics of American Insecurity: Terror, Power and Foreign Policy. Edited by FrancoisDebrix and Mark J. Lacy. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. 222 pp., $140.00 hard-cover (ISBN-13: 978-0-415-46042-2).

The Geopolitics of American Insecurity: Terror, Power, and Foreign Policy is the inaugu-ral volume in the New Security Studies series sponsored by PRIO and edited byJ. Peter Burgess. The series promises state-of-the-art theoretical and empiricalwork that addresses the ‘‘new challenges to security scholarship.’’ The first vol-ume in the series gathers together 11 essays, which are introduced by the book’seditors, Francois Debrix and Mark J. Lacy. In their introduction, the editorsclaim that the essays ‘‘all seek to provide warnings about the future of US for-eign policy’’ (p. 8). However, the book is not a work of foreign policy analysis.Rather, the chapters are written by an eclectic and interdisciplinary group of crit-ical theorists who seek to contribute to security studies. Interestingly, only two ofthe 13 contributors are women scholars.

The unifying theme is a critique of US foreign policy, specifically (but notexclusively) directed at the George W. Bush administration. This critique largelytakes shape through the conviction that government (with the aid of businessand media) manipulates citizens into submission.

The authors of the chapters approach their subject in different ways: fourchapters present theoretical arguments, chapters four can be characterizedloosely as political ⁄ historical case studies, and three comment on TV, film, orthe arts. It might have been logical to divide the volume into three parts thateach contain chapters that use a similar mode of inquiry, but this is not the orga-nization of the volume.

The editors’ outline of the book (pp. 9–15) summarizes the contents of thechapters that follow, but they do not explain what unifies the chapters. Nor isthere a concluding essay to help readers reflect on the book’s contribution tocritical security studies. In all, this volume is most suitable for those steeped inpostmodern and critical political philosophy. Rather than commenting on eachof the chapters, this review evaluates the volume’s contribution in terms of pre-sentation, interpretation, and implicit assumptions.

With regard to presentation, the theoretical chapters (by Timothy W. Luke,Larry N. George, Mathew Coleman, and Julian Reid) engage in highly abstractarguments that are remarkable achievements of linguistic gymnastics. Althoughthese chapters may be of interest to theorists intimately familiar with the worksof Hardt and Negri, Foucault, Derrida, and other critical and ⁄ or postmoderntheorists, the arguments will befuddle the uninitiated—making these chaptersintelligible only to a very specific research community.

The remaining chapters are written in a more accessible style. However, manyof these chapters take detours that are left unexplained. For instance, KosukeShimizu’s chapter starts off with an interesting and engaging discussion of theconcept of human security, but then devolves into a commentary about Japan’sambitions for a United Nations Security Council seat, its relationship with North

� 2009 International Studies Association

International Studies Review (2009) 11, 792–794

Korea, and the US military presence in Okinawa. There is, presumably, a connec-tion between human security and these other topics, but the author might havebeen more explicit about its nature and significance.

Other chapters also leave essential elements unexplained. For instance, MarkJ. Lacy’s chapter comments on the 2005 exhibit ‘‘SAFE: Design Takes on Risk’’at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The chapter assumes familiar-ity with the exhibit and is therefore less accessible to readers who have not seenit. The notion of the ‘‘control society’’ provides the theoretical frame for the dis-cussion of the exhibit, but the connection is left implicit. This chapter, too,could have benefited from a clearer explanation of the ways in which abstractprinciples are illustrated in the various pieces of art. In addition, it would havebeen useful to have an explanation of the connection between the art exhibitand the future of US foreign policy.

These three examples convey issues that plague the volume as a whole. Thepresentation of the ideas could have been strengthened by editing the chaptersfor clarity and organization.

Turning to the issue of interpretation, Alexander D. Barder’s chapter arguesthat the use of torture delegitimizes a regime. He draws an analogy betweenFrance’s war in Algeria and the US war in and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Indoing so, Barder engages in superficial analogical reasoning, highlighting surfacesimilarities but ignoring the many dissimilarities between the cases. To indicateonly the most obvious: France’s war in Algeria occurred in the context of decolo-nization after more than a century of French rule. The United States, on theother hand, invaded a sovereign Iraq.

Several of the book’s chapters address issues of citizenship and the ways inwhich the nation is constructed. For instance, Larry N. George advances the‘‘white (southern) ethnos’’ as the core image of Americanness (p. 47). GeoffreyWhitehall goes even further, proclaiming that ‘‘[b]iology establishes citizenship’’(p. 170). Not so. At least not inevitably. The arguments presented by bothGeorge and Whitehall deny Americanness to many citizens of the United States,foreclose the possibility of hyphenated identity, and ignore the possibility of theimagined community. American citizenship and identity are an evolving projectrather than a finished product, but these authors bypass the complexities of thisproject in favor of caricature. It is, of course, possible that both George andWhitehall intended to critique this caricature as the ‘‘conventional wisdom.’’ Ifso, clearer and more explicit writing could have helped avoid statements thatreaders are likely to find offensive.

In their zeal to critique conspicuous consumption and the American loveaffair with the SUV, Simon Dalby and Matthew Paterson resort to the familiarargument that the Dutch consume less oil because they choose ‘‘to walk, ridebicycles, or take the train’’ (p. 184). They forget to mention that this is an easychoice in a very densely populated country with public transportation plentifulin most locations, whereas gas is pricey and parking expensive (and difficult tofind)—just as public transportation is preferred by many in New York City butgenerally not an option for residents of the many small towns of the AmericanMidwest. These examples are typical of the interpretations offered in the vol-ume’s chapters. Greater reflection on initial judgments might have enabled theauthors to arrive at deeper insights.

Finally, there is the issue of assumptions. The contributors share a convictionthat their perceptions are on target. There is no serious consideration ofalternative explanations. Moreover, the explanations tend to attribute a unity ofpurpose to decisions made by disparate entities (e.g., government, business, andmedia) and occasionally resemble conspiracy theories. For instance, Marie Thor-sten implies that TV shows such as 24 are designed to facilitate citizens’ accep-tance of the Bush administration’s position that torture was both effective and

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acceptable. She does not consider the possibility that such shows may also turnpeople against such tactics or that they simply may have little impact becauseviewers understand them to be fictional entertainment. She also does not con-sider that the appearance of this show may have been a lucky happenstance forits creator, not something done by design and collusion.

Ultimately, critical security studies as presented in this volume is remarkablyuncritical. Careful investigation and considered judgment is replaced with theaffirmation of foregone conclusions. More is required to successfully addresscontemporary security challenges.

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