The Importance of Risk in Understanding Contemporary Critical Security Theory

Abstract

Critical approaches to studying security have emerged in response to traditional and positivist approaches specifically in security studies and more broadly in International Relations. Two of these approaches include the Copenhagen School and International Political Sociology (IPS). Despite the fact that they are in many ways on the forefront of theoretical research, they are limited because they do not fully ontologically integrate the idea of risk. This paper argues that placing risk at the centre of inquiry is crucial if academic work seeks to properly understand, critique, problematize, and analyze how security functions in practice. It examines the distinctions between risk and threat, the disconnect between institutional logic of policy and theory (the Copenhagen School and IPS), the example of police carding in Canada as governance through risk, the role of Foucault’s dispositif in bridging this disconnect, and how risk can be better integrated into the methodology of both the Copenhagen School and IPS.