Papers by J. Peter Burgess
Security Dialogue, 2018
'Security' is a uniquely rich object for critique. It rests on a long and noble conceptual histor... more 'Security' is a uniquely rich object for critique. It rests on a long and noble conceptual history in Western thought. And yet the provision of security most often consists of a shoring up, through the discourses of nationality, ethnicity, political economy or even science, of what is assumed to be solid at its core but weakened through the contingencies of politics, society, ideology, and so on. The article argues that the critical force of critique stems from the fact that critique itself is a practice inescapably bound up with insecurity, and thus that the critique of security exercised since around 1997 as 'critical security studies' is self-replicating. By introducing concepts from Husserlian phenomenology, it attempts to show that insecurity is not a simple feature of an otherwise secure state of life, ripe for critical analysis that promises to expose its false premises. Rather, insecurity lies at the very foundation of critical thought. Building upon the bare and basic question, 'What does it mean to mean?', a phenomenology of security asks the straightforward question: 'What is the security-ness of security?' It permits one to ask what remains of security when all else is stripped away, what essential minimum must be retained in order for security to be security.
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Alexander Wendt’s 2015 The Quantum Mind and Social Science is nothing if not true to its aims. Th... more Alexander Wendt’s 2015 The Quantum Mind and Social Science is nothing if not true to its aims. Through rigorous argumentation and solid erudition it from the state-of-the art of quantum physics theory to social reality. The result is a set of conclusions about the nature of social life that may appear marginally plausible. And yet the voyage comes at high price, It blithely navigates any traces of meaningful human experience or social relation that does not already hold social scientific currency. It avoids more deeply spiritual connections that have been made tenable by growing literature on the Eastern religious thought. All indices point to an explanation of the remaining quantum riddles through a rebooting of our ontological assumptions of the quantum mechanics. Caught in a narrow understanding of the question of being as the question of ‘which being’, The Quantum Mind misses the chance for truly insightful discoveries about the nature of social relations.
This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. ... more This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. Using rich, ethnographic examples, this chapter tests how easy or difficult it is for a data subject based in Norway to obtain their personal data, firstly by locating the required information about organisations and their data controllers and secondly by submitting subject access requests to these organisations. The chapter reflects on the differences (if any) between public and private sector organisations in the process of responding to access requests. It also considers the potential for having submitted complaints to the national Data Protection Authority in Norway about the conduct of organisations when researchers submitted access requests to them.
This article revisits the concept of sovereignty in political theory by applying tools adapted fr... more This article revisits the concept of sovereignty in political theory by applying tools adapted from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. It critically reviews the premises of political subjected assumed by sovereignty, and formulates a widened concept of sovereignty based on a general understanding of the ‘self’, ‘self-relation’ and ‘identity’ as the fundamental components of sovereignty. With this concept in hand, the article then focuses on the concept of the ‘sovereign good’ common to French histories of political thought and of particular interest to Jacques Lacan in his 1959-60 seminar on the Ethics of Psychoanalysis and his 1963 article ‘Kant with Sade’. By reinterpreting the sovereignty of the sovereign good, Lacan points to a path according to which an idealised and universalised notion of the sovereign is made possible and energised through an identification of the ‘real’ with the sovereign good. By understanding sovereignty as supported by the Lacanian real, be can better understand both the forces that drive it to self-preservation and the insecurities that make its survival and longevity powerful hindrances to its dissolution.
The modern history of the concept of anxiety is marked by three major interpreters: Kierkegaard, ... more The modern history of the concept of anxiety is marked by three major interpreters: Kierkegaard, Freud and Heidegger. Despite considerable differences in methods, their interpretations all share one basic assumption, namely that the difference between fear and anxiety lies in the simple structural fact that the former has relates to a distinct object, while the latter has no object. In his 1962-1963 seminar on Anxiety, Lacan takes as his starting point the rejection of this assumption. Not by arguing against it, but by re-conceptualising the notion of the object altogether. This chapter will analyse Lacan’s reading of the notion of anxiety as re-reading of the notion of the object in general, and of the object of danger and insecurity, in particular. A key reference for the evolution of the early work of Lacan is the axiom that our relation to any object cannot be reduced to a relation to an object of knowledge. Starting with this axiom, the chapter will argue that the Laconian concept of anxiety is one which revises the traditional cartesian understanding of the subject-object. Since this understanding structures the politics of security and insecurity, the chapter will challenge the objectivity of threats to our security by re-defining the character and function of objective danger.
In a sombre press conference at the US Department of Defense on the eve of the US invasion of Ira... more In a sombre press conference at the US Department of Defense on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq in February 2002, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was queried about the absence of evidence in support of the offi cial justifi cation for the invasion, namely the possession by Saddam Hussein's regime of a signifi cant stock of weapons of mass destruction. Rumsfeld -apparently dodging the question -answered by lecturing the press corps on the nuances of the notion of 'knowns' and 'unknowns' in security. The statement, which provoked both laughter and annoyance at the time, is one of the most viewed statements on YouTube of the last decade:
Draft chapter 3.1 from the forthcoming book Sikkerhet uten samfunn. The chapter analyses the conc... more Draft chapter 3.1 from the forthcoming book Sikkerhet uten samfunn. The chapter analyses the concept of security as a pilar of societal security in the Norwegian government's 22 July Commission report.
Security thinking in Europe today represents the convergence of four distinct threads of Western ... more Security thinking in Europe today represents the convergence of four distinct threads of Western thought. The first thread is the emergence of a new security landscape featuring a new constellation of actual threats and threat perceptions accompanied by a new logic danger. The second thread follows the development of liberalism and the liberal paradigm in Western societies, a set of ideas at the core of the European project. The third thread flows from the evolution of the technology and the predominance technological approaches to addressing social problems. Finally, the fourth thread follows the transformation and intensification of a discourse of values as a guiding force of European security policy. These threads converge in a nexus where notions of danger, innovation and responsibility are recast in the legitimation of new forms of policing, social control, and political accountability where the technologically possible sets the standard for what is politically necessary ethical acceptable. This paper will document and analyse this evolution, critique is supporting assumptions and suggest the shape of an alternative discourse of the security, and the elements of a counter discourse that will help guide us toward it.
European Journal of Social Theory, 2002
This article explores the tension between an understanding of Europe as purveyor of a certain kin... more This article explores the tension between an understanding of Europe as purveyor of a certain kind of cultural, spiritual or religious identity and the more or less bureaucratic project of European construction undertaken in its name. The central axis of this tension is the theoretical relationship between identity and legitimacy. The classical modern problem of nation-state building involves integrating the legitimating force of collective identity into the institutions of the state. How does the project of European construction respond to an analogous challenge? This article develops this theoretical question by turning to two canonical positions concerning the relation between institutional legitimacy and its cultural, spiritual or religious underpinnings -Montesquieu and Weber. It then returns to the founding documents of the EU in order to interrogate the legitimacy of the EU in light of the concept of European identity.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2013
In the large and growing literature on hydropolitics, insecurity generated through water-related ... more In the large and growing literature on hydropolitics, insecurity generated through water-related conflicts is most often conceptualized under a model of economic resource scarcity. Conflict is generally reduced to the question of who has water, who needs water and thus what cost, in economic, political or military terms, is appropriate to acquiring access to water. This article argues that while such analyses effectively chart the central resource-strategic relations involved in the geopolitics of water, they nonetheless disregard the deeper biological and cultural (that is social, ethnic, religious) significance of water in any water conflict. Such analyses, it claims, are too strongly linked to the traditional (as opposed to human) security discourse and therefore run the risk of misdiagnosing the complexity of the water resource challenge. To respond to this challenge the article will develop a human security 'metrics' for analysing water-based conflicts in human security terms. It will then compare an analysis of the Indus Waters Treaty based upon the human security approach with an analysis based on a 'traditional' security assessment of the treaty in order to assess the viability of the two approaches. Finally, the article will link the comparative assessments back to the water wars literature, drawing conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses and the possibility of a synthesis of traditional and human security in the analysis of water conflict.
Public Reason, 2009
Abstract. This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. W... more Abstract. This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. We decompose the critics' argument into two steps, one which offers a diagnosis of what goes wrong when things go wrong in peacebuilding operations, and a second, ...
To what extent does counterterrorism transform benchmarks of acceptability in EU societies? The r... more To what extent does counterterrorism transform benchmarks of acceptability in EU societies? The rule of law ranks high amongst the societal values most at risk of being destabilized by antiterrorist measures (Webster et al., 12; Guittet 2006). Indeed, counterterrorism relies extensively on illiberal practices that pave the way for the reenactment of arbitrary exceptionalism. As we discuss below, some scholars suspect that this exceptional claim lies at the core of the modern, liberal and democratic societal orders.
Few would contest the claim that the study of security is prima facie inseparable from internatio... more Few would contest the claim that the study of security is prima facie inseparable from international matters, that it engages politics in one way or another and that it engages social issues. And yet the contentiousness of these three categories—the international, the political, and the social—, the assumptions on which they rest, the discourses that are mobilised in their names, the empirical fields that nourish them, the scholars, policy-makers and practitioners who make claims to legitimate oversight over their practices and jurisdiction over their practical implications, invite a critical pause in their increasingly rapid development. Security as a scholarly field, as a set of actors, institutions and practices, has evolved at a pace that has put its supporting concepts and practices under considerable pressure. This concerns both the way that the academic discipline of security studies, and those in close proximity to it, have evolved and the way that research-based (and non-research-based) security practices have themselves become producers and consumers of security knowledge. Security studies orchestrates in a unique and productive way the interaction of the international, the political and the sociological. It puts into play their conceptual and practical interaction, plays gatekeeper to neighbouring discourses seeking to link to the discourse of security studies, regulates the flow of meaning between the elements of security studies, manages practices and governs norms. Security studies encourages and resists, legitimates and discredits. Like any institutionalised academic discipline motivates and interdicts, generates credit and debt, mobilises faith and modulates disbelief.
The recent surge of identification systems globally has revealed the complex, non-uniform and int... more The recent surge of identification systems globally has revealed the complex, non-uniform and interwoven congregation of policies, industrial and technological standards in the implementation of surveillance systems. This article focuses on the methodological challenges and nuances that scholars face when studying emerging surveillance schemes. We analyse the implementation of the Indian Unique Identification (UID) system, which is the largest implementation of biometric identification in the world. The multimodal biometric system is expected to be a foundation for a wide range of private and public services across the country, and at the same time its systemic structure will allow for comprehensive profiling and tracking of individuals. By analysing the various ways in which identity as a social and scientific category is made known and constructed in the implementation of the UID, we examine how surveillance schemes employ social science methodologies and forefront what implications this has for research.
The SAFE project identified and analysed contributions of humanities and social sciences to secur... more The SAFE project identified and analysed contributions of humanities and social sciences to security research at four international workshops and concluded with a conference summarising its findings. The present paper broadens the discussion field by taking stock of recent debates around understanding security and insecurity, and outlines new research challenges based on the hypothesis that the social and human dimension of security are both indispensable. It demonstrates that security has never been separable from the social, cultural, political, historical and ethical elements at its core. The paper is addressed to research policy makers and research funders as well as researchers involved in security research. It is the intention of the Standing Committee for the Humanities that the paper opens a discussion on new ways forward and enriches the understanding of this research field stimulating innovative proposals.
Global governance links security and finance in four important ways. First, the combined effect o... more Global governance links security and finance in four important ways. First, the combined effect of the financial crisis and the global ‘war on terror’ has been an increasingly explicit merging of finance and security concerns. Second, security and finance were arguably closely linked in the rise of the modern form of government as far back as the late 17th century, a relation still evident in the form of ‘government securities’ such as bonds and treasuries, which in 2010 rose to new prominence in the various sovereign debt crises of the Eurozone. Third, a considerable literature has shown that finance and security share a claim to universal applicability in (all) other social spheres, resulting in various forms of financialization and securitization (Martin, 2002; Langley, 2007; Buzan et al., 1998). Finally, not only have the liberal strategies of finance and security converged in a common vocabulary and epistemology of risk (management), but this technology of governing the future is currently undergoing a critical epistemic transformation that in turn implies finance and security in new relationships. This special issue builds on these four conjunctions in an attempt to move beyond the temptation to treat the governance of security and that of finance separately. It aims to refute the assumption that finance and security ‘sectors’ are equivalent objects of global governance. In place of such a view, it seeks to critically explore different forms of and limits to the enmeshment of security and finance, and to assess the function, agency and politics of the security/finance nexus. How are rationalities of finance and security linked, and how is this link manifested in practice? Where and how are these linkages formed, and how do they evolve? Which discourses inform ideas about adequate global governance structures in finance and security? What kinds of subjectivities are constituted by the nexus, and how do different positions conflict or converge?
The articles assembled in this special issue shed light on the evolving relationship between security and finance by engaging with three interrelated themes: (1) the interlinkage of governmental rationalities in finance and security; (2) the question of the practices in which this interlinkage is (re)produced; and (3) the implications of the interlinking of security/finance for the conceptualization of global governance.
According to Carl Schmitt, in his late work The Nomos of the Earth, published in 1950, the long ... more According to Carl Schmitt, in his late work The Nomos of the Earth, published in 1950, the long evolution in the relation between humans and the earth has been decisive for the nature of tradi- tional legal order. The historical links to European international jurisprudence (ius publicum Europaeum) have decayed with the old world order that supported them. Territoriality, once the foun- dation of the nation-state has evolved, causing a parallel change in the nation-state paradigm of sovereignty and the fabric of inter- national law which has its basis in that paradigm. If Schmitt is correct in his prognoses about the end of a global era and the rise of a new yet uncharted world order in the mid-1940s, then the architects of the nascent European Coal and Steel Community face the same conditions, and must carry out their work with the same cultural, social and juridical raw materials, against the backdrop of the same concrete historical experience. This article will attempt to continue the trajectory of Schmitt’s historical analysis of the ius publicum Europeaum, suggesting how its central concepts and theses map onto the grand geopolitical and civilisational project of European construction from 1950 to 2004 and beyond. It will explore the applicability of the concept of nomos for the nature of EU evolution, and interpret general elements of the European legal system in terms of the concept of nomos.
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Papers by J. Peter Burgess
The articles assembled in this special issue shed light on the evolving relationship between security and finance by engaging with three interrelated themes: (1) the interlinkage of governmental rationalities in finance and security; (2) the question of the practices in which this interlinkage is (re)produced; and (3) the implications of the interlinking of security/finance for the conceptualization of global governance.
The articles assembled in this special issue shed light on the evolving relationship between security and finance by engaging with three interrelated themes: (1) the interlinkage of governmental rationalities in finance and security; (2) the question of the practices in which this interlinkage is (re)produced; and (3) the implications of the interlinking of security/finance for the conceptualization of global governance.
New research and new reflexion—by anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and others suggests that the humanity of humans is, as with most phenomena, finite, that the definition or concept that regulates it has limits, that these limits have become more tangible, and that, as a consequence, a new look at ‘human security’ is warranted.