The politics of protection : sites of insecurity and political agency

Publisher description

Following the end of the Cold War the security agenda has been transformed and redefined, academically and politically. This book focuses on the theme of protection. It moves away from the dominant question of whom or what is threatening to the crucial questions of who is to be protected, and in the case of conflicting claims, who has the capacity to define whose needs prevail.

This book poses the question of political agency in relation to some of the most significant questions raised in relation to the governance of insecurity and protection in the contemporary world. The authors have identify and explore five issues that challenge or raise a number of questions about the traditional notion that states are to protect their citizens through retaining a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence:

 The privatisation of security

 Protection and the judicial regulation of armed conflict

 Peace building, post-conflict reconstruction, and the politics of protection

 Humanitarian needs and the political agency of refugees

 Environmental protection and the politics of nature

Combining political theory and empirical case studies, this book makes a significant contribution to the study of international relations and security studies.

Table of contents

Chapter 1. Agency and The Politics of Protection: Implications for Security Studies

Jef Huysmans

Chapter 2. Privatizing the Politics of Protection: Military Companies and the Definition of Security Concerns

Anna Leander

Chapter 3. Privatisation, Globalisation, and the Politics of Protection in South Africa

Rita Abrahamsen and Michael C. Williams

Chapter 4. Taking Rights, Mediating Wrongs: Disagreements over the Political Agency of Non-Status Refugees.

Peter Nyers

Chapter 5. Resisting Sovereign Power: Camps In-between Exception and Dissent.

Raffaela Puggioni

Chapter 6. Protection: security, territory and population.

Didier Bigo

Chapter 7. ?Civilizing? the Balkans, Protecting Europe: the International Politics of Reconstruction in Bosnia and Kosovo

Alexandra Gheciu

Chapter 8. The Judicialisation of Armed Conflict: transforming the 21st Century

Elspeth Guild

Chapter 9. The Limits of Agency in Times of Emergency

Vivienne Jabri

Chapter 10. Sovereignty, International Security and the Regulation of Armed Conflict: the Possibilities of Political Agency

Neil Walker

Chapter 11. Do we need (to protect) nature?

Andrew Dobson

Chapter 12. On the Protection of Nature and the Nature of Protection

R.B.J. Walker

Hysmans, Jef ; Dobson, Andrew; Prokhovnik, Raia, éds. - The politics of protection: sites of insecurity and political agency / edited by Jef Huysmans, Andrew Dobson and Raia Prokhovnik. - London ; New York : Routledge, 2006. - 1 vol. (XI-211 p.) ; 24 cm. - (Routledge advances in international relations and global politics ; 43). - Table des matières (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0513/2005014711.html). - Bibliogr. en fin de chapitres. Index