How do things become recognized as threatening by and within a given society? How do labels such as ‘threatening’, ‘risky’, ‘insecure’, or ‘vulnerable’ instruct policy-making in different ways? How do technological designs affect the ways dangers are conceived, and what are the causal (or constitutive) relations at play between knowledge(s) of danger and actions based on such knowledge? This research cluster looks into the articulation and rationalization of insecurity, the mediating roles of technology, and the recursive links between construction and threat enactment.
The politics of shaping and using security technologies
New technologies – from nanotech to drones, bioengineering and smart weapons – play prominent but also highly ambivalent roles in contemporary accounts of security politics. For some, the innovations represent potent solution to complex management problems. But for others, the new technologies themselves are causing the most pressing societal dangers of today. This dominant Manichean framing of technology yet distracts from the fact that technology has no deterministic effects in and of itself. In a reflexive security studies perspective, the shape, design and uses of ‘new tech’ is deeply enmeshed in shifting power-laden social and political practices, and thus much more contradictory and dynamic. This new special section focuses on these complex processes of making new technology meaningful – and operational – in the security field. Its seven contributions look at how cybersecurity, predictive policing, drones, artificial intelligence, targeted sanctions and urban design are enlisted as technologies of security in Switzerland, and they offer a range of dedicated analytical arguments about how this process evolves. The ambition of the special section is to introduce readers not commonly engaing with security technology with state-of-the-art conception of their political significance, and to showcase contributions of reflexive IR and security research to political analysis.
Dunn Cavelty, Myriam; Hagmann, Jonas (2021). The politics of technology and security in Switzerland. Swiss Political Science Review 27(1): 128-138. PDF
With contributions by Florian Egloff, Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Matthias Leese, Francisco Klauser, Andreas Wenger, Sophie-Charlotte Fischer, Mark Daniel Jäger, Jonas Hagmann, David Kostenwein and Anna Leander.
The politicisation of security: A new research focus on current observations
‘Security’ has for the most part been considered a special kind of politics by observers, as one that closes down inclusive policy-making and democratic debate. This Special Issue reviews theoretical and empirical developments at the intersections of ‘security’ and ‘politics’. It argues that research centering on the notion of politicization offers new ideas on how to addresses this complex and evolving conceptual tandem, and importantly, helps elucidate the growing range of actors, arenas and arguments factually visible in contemporary security affairs. The Special Issue develops a framework around the dimensions of controversy, mobilization and arena-shifting, and showcases the potential of such a perspective through empirical illustrations and theoretical examinations, covering issues such as post-Snowden public-policy controversy in Germany, lay participation in European security strategy-making, and the evolving role of the British parliament in UK security politics. The Special Issue’s ambition is to re-engage the relationship between security and politics, to inspire innovative new empirical work on ‘politics around security’, and to empower more differentiated inquiries into the ambivalent consequences of politicization.
Hagmann, Jonas; Hegemann, Hendrik; Neal, Andrew (2018). The politicization of security: Controversy, mobilization, arena shifting . European Review of International Studies 5(3): 3-29. URL ToC
With contributions by Karin Aggestam, Annika Bergman Rosamond, Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Matthias Leese, Andrew Neal, Pinar Bilgin, Fiona de Londras, Eric van Rythoven, Jonas Hagmann and Hendrik Hegemann.
The Special Issue was followed in 2020 up by a Review Forum with contributions by Linda Monsees, Mike Slaven, Akos Kopper, Andras Szalai and Stefan Kroll. See European Review of International Studies 7(1): 105-122. URL
Resilience: Unpacking a trend security concept
‘Resilience’ has become a trend security concept. In many places, resilience has become seen as a fundamental component of devolved proactive approaches to mitigating complex threats whatever their nature. Yet, the resilience concept’s practical applications are as diverse as its definitions. Even for those considering resilience a useful framework, a significant challenge still lies in its characterization and quantification. This article examines ways in which resilience has been operationalized methodologically. It details ways of measuring resilience, reflects on the development of the highlighted cases, their benefits and limitations. The article maintains, however, that resilience should not be reduced to a methodological problem only. This is because its operationalization also connects with analytical ideas of what and whose kind of responsibility should be measured – as well as political conceptions of who assumes what tasks and responsibility in the resilience framework.
Prior, Tim; Hagmann, Jonas (2014). Resilience: Methodological and political challenges of a trend security concept. Journal of Risk Research 17(6): 281-298. PDF
The causal relations at play between knowing and enacting insecurity
How does knowledge of insecurity connect with threat-based policy-making? Reflexive approaches to security not only maintain that dangers are socially constructed, but also that they relate with political behavior. Representations of terrorism, for instance, are argued to constitute that danger in distinct ways and thus to make certain counter-terror policies possible. This article challenges this popular perspective. It argues that constitutive argumentation advances an insufficiently tangible argument of effect, and that this conceptual weakness derives from both a problematic foundational social theory and a premature rejection of causation. Drawing on the social theory of Archer and Bhaskar, as well as a differentiated notion of causation, it advances a ‘dialectical causal’ framework for the analysis of representations of danger. Applying it to Swiss terrorism politics, the article shows how this framework improves on constitutive argumentation in disentangling the political powers involved in the production and enactment of representations of danger.
Hagmann, Jonas (2013). Representations of terrorism and the making of counterterrorism policy. Critical Studies on Terrorism 6(3): 429-446. PDF
The analytical and epistemological limits of risk analysis
The Fukushima catastrophe tragically epitomizes the limitations of dealing with natural and technical hazards. Remarkably yet, authorities’ review of the catastrophe continues to be limited to mistakes and responsibilities of practical risk management. Although state regulations are questioned, technical protection measures verified, and disaster management processes optimized, no deeper discussion about the limits of risk analysis has been engaged thus far. How trustworthy can risk analyses be, and what kind of statements about the future can they actually formulate? This article examines the analytical and epistemological boundaries of risk analysis. Drawing on cases of international nuclear risk management, it tests and problematizes the definition of risk, the methodology of their registration, and the interpretation of their results. Following this discussion, the article draws conclusions concerning the usefulness and necessity of a differentiated and informed discourse on the potential and the limitations of the risk analysis method – an approach which today enjoys increasing popularity in a variety of policy sectors ranging from critical infrastructure protection to national and international security.
Hagmann, Jonas (2012). Fukushima: Probing the analytical and epistemological limits of risk analysis. Journal of Risk Research 15(7): 801-815. PDF
National risk registers: The measurement, comparison and ranking of all kinds of danger
European civil protection agencies have become highly active in measuring, comparing and ranking all kinds of public danger, ranging from natural hazards to industrial risks and political perils. This article focuses on this production of integrated ‘national risk registers’ and the analytical power politics in which they are complicit. It argues, first, that by positing ‘science’ as an objective determinant of security truth, the registers advance modernist understandings of how knowledge about danger can be arrived at – thus discounting both ‘sovereign’ and popular authorities. Second, it shows that by operationalizing traditional risk-assessment formulas, risk registers empower seemingly apolitical decisions in security affairs, taken on the basis of cost–benefit thinking. Third, it discusses how risk registers’ focus on ‘themes’ tiptoes around the definition of referent objects, thus avoiding explicit decisions about beneficiaries of particular security decisions. Taking these factors into account, the article finds the new risk registers to depoliticize national security debates – while transforming insecurity into something permanent and inevitable.
Hagmann, Jonas; Dunn Cavelty, Myriam (2012). National risk registers: Security scientism and the propagation of permanent insecurity. Security Dialogue 43(1): 79-96. PDF
Neue Gefahrenkonzepte in der internationalen (Un-)Sicherheitsanalyse
Die heutigen sicherheitspolitischen Debatten und Untersuchungen werden zunehmend von neuen Gefahrenkonzepten geprägt. Während Begriffe wie Sicherheit und Bedrohung früher als dominante Leitideen fungierten, werden Gefährdungen heute vermehrt anhand der neuen Konzepte Risiko, Verwundbarkeit und Resilienz untersucht. Welchen Mehrwert liefern diese neuen Begriffe in der Sicherheitsanalyse? Diese Studie definiert die Ansätze der drei Begriffe, beschreibt ihre Herkunft und vergleicht sie miteinander. Gleichzeitig hinterfragt sie die Nutzen und Effekte der neuen Gefahrenkonzepte kritisch. Ziel der Studie ist zu hinterfragen, wie die drei neuen Gefahrenkonzepte neue Politikperspektiven eröffnen, aber auch wie sie diese analytisch in bestimmte Bahnen lenken.
Hagmann, Jonas (2012). Risiko, Verwundbarkeit, Resilienz: Neue Gefahrenkonzepte in der internationalen Sicherheitsanalyse. Risk and Resilience Research Group Factsheet. Zürich: Center for Security Studies, ETH Zürich, 20p. PDF
Räume der Unsicherheit: Konstruktion, Emanzipation und Exklusion durch Sicherheitspolitik
Die kritischen Sicherheitsstudien befassen sich seit den neunziger Jahren mit der Frage, wie Gefahrendiskurse politische Landschaften von Inklusion und Exklusion erschaffen, wie sie die gesellschaftliche Meinungsbildung strukturieren, und wie sie die sicherheitspolitische Handhabung des öffentlichen Raumes definieren. Dieser Artikel präsentiert eine Einführung in die in der Schweiz noch immer wenig bekannten kritischen Sicherheitsstudien. Er fasst die konzeptionellen Überlegungen ihrer heutigen Denkschulen zusammen, und er illustriert sie anhand praktischer Fallbeispiele aus der jüngeren schweizerischen Sicherheitspolitik. Ziel des Artikels ist es aufzuzeigen, wie Sicherheitspolitiken verschiedene politische Räumlichkeiten erschaffen und gestalten, wodurch ein Dialog zwischen der Politischen Geographie und der Disziplin der Internationalen Beziehungen geschaffen werden soll.
Hagmann, Jonas (2010). Räume der Unsicherheit: Konstruktion, Emanzipation und Exklusion durch Sicherheitspolitik. Geographica Helvetica. Themenheft: Geographie der Unsicherheit 65(3): 172-180. PDF
Jonas Hagmann 