Security Dialogue recently published a special issue, edited by Frank I. Muller and Matthew A. Richmond, which explores how technologies condition the way that security is enacted and experienced. We argue that as well as human actors, such as police, militaries, private security companies or criminal groups, objects and technologies also shape everyday experiences of,… Read more »
Category: Author’s Blog
Private Security Contractors and the porousness of International Enclaves
International green zones like Baghdad’s ‘Emerald City’ or Kabul’s ‘Kabubble’ are usually understood to be insular, ‘bunkerised’, and sealed off from the outside world. However, my research with private security contractors in Mogadishu shows that these enclaves are far more porous than we assume. In a recent article in Security Dialogue, I argue that international… Read more »
Counterterrorism in the absence of terror on home soil: Everyday practices of policing in Ghana
The unexpected and catastrophic nature of terrorist attacks has called for the implementation of precautionary measures aimed at combating the threat of future attacks. Across the globe, this has given rise to the proliferation and circulation of counterterrorism measures and models – also in countries that have not experienced terrorist attacks on home soil. This… Read more »
‘May peace not cost us our lives’: Reading Colombia’s peace process as hegemonic crisis
The Colombian government and the guerrilla group FARC-EP envisioned to make history when they sealed the 2016 Peace Agreement, which ended one of the longest standing armed confrontations in human history and promised the cessation of protracted violence. In post-accord Colombia, however, this promise has been eclipsed by setbacks in the implementation efforts, political polarization,… Read more »
Expecting the exceptional in the everyday: Policing global transportation hubs
Global transportation hubs such as airports and maritime ports have become vital spaces for the international networked economy. Global economic opportunities depend on the effective flow of people and things, and make use of the different infrastructures and modes of the transport system. For instance, around 80 percent of global trade in goods, measured by… Read more »
Rethinking and Revising the Theory of Network-centric Warfare
If we take a step back and cast a reflective eye over the evolutionary trajectory of western military thought, we will find that in around the 1990s—as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) began to proliferate—discussions regarding the latest Revolution in Military Affairs also started to gather pace. It was in this context that some military… Read more »
Modular Sovereignty and Infrastructural Power: The Elusive Materiality of International Statebuilding
Space and materials matter. But how? My article (Open Access) in Security Dialogue explores what spatial and material arrangements reveal about the way international statebuilding exerts (sovereign) power. Statebuilding interventions support the establishment of sovereign states by taking control of, arranging and ordering spaces. This was immediately apparent when I first entered the Mogadishu International… Read more »
Time will tell – Defining violence in terrorism court cases
Counter-terrorism measures are characterized by pre-emptive logics: suspicious behavior must be detected and captured before it materializes into terrorist attacks. Terrorist networks need to be mapped and surveilled to prevent the moving of funds or weapons. Through increased regulations, these pre-emptive dynamics increasingly find their ways to the domestic judicial systems in Europe. One concrete… Read more »
Military drones beyond targeted killing: The case of Israel
The emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or “drones” as they are more popularly known, is one of the most widely discussed developments in contemporary security and military affairs. So far, the academic literature on drones has been heavily focused on what is usually known as “targeted killings” in the context of the US-led war on… Read more »
Negotiating Detention
In mid-October 2020, hundreds of Houthi rebels and pro-government fighters were freed in Yemen in a prisoner swap agreed at UN-supervised talks. In September, Afghanistan resumed freeing Taliban militants whose release was a key part of the peace deal between the US and the Taliban in February. These recent events underscore how conflict-related imprisonment, far from being a peripheral… Read more »