Security as Politics: Beyond the State of Exception

Description

Uses the perspective of parliamentarians to reassess the relationship between security and politicsReceived an honourable mention from the International Political Sociology section of the International Studies AssociationAndrew W. Neal argues that while ‘security’ was once an anti-political ‘exception’ in liberal democracies – a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state – it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical security studies debates and their core assumption that security is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic ‘anti-politics’. Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates security politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an original reassessment of the security/politics relationship.Key FeaturesProduces an original perspective on security politics by engaging with debates in parliamentary studies and political science that have not previously been connected to securityTheoretically and empirically rethinks the relationship between security and politicsChallenges founding assumptions in critical security studies and securitisation theory about the pathological relationship between security and politicsExamines the history of legislative/executive relations on securityArgues that security is being normalised politically, migrating from the realm of exceptional politics to one of ‘normal politics’