Judith Butler. New York: Verso, 2020; pp. ix – 209. $26.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781788732765 In its shift away from traditional approaches to security studies that implied work done through the frame of war and a state-centric approach, debates regarding the discursive and theoretical implications of the concepts, grammars, methodologies, and schools that traditionally upheld the… Read more »
Category: Book reviews
Book review: In Plain Sight: Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict.
Gaby Zipfel, Kirsten Campbell and Regina Muhlhauser (eds), New Delhi: Zubaan Books. In Plain Sight: Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict, a collection of essays edited by Gaby Zipfel, Regina Muhlhauser, and Kirsten Campbell, offers a synthesis of the work by members of the International Research Group Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (SVAC), an inter-discilplinary and multi-institutional… Read more »
Book review: From Righteousness to Far Right. An anthropological rethinking of critical security studies.
by Emma Mc Cluskey In her book From Righteousness to Far Right, Emma Mc Cluskey brings an anthropological revision of critical security studies and offers an ethnographic contribution for understanding the securitisation of migration. The book comes as an alternative to the narrow perspective of early schools of critical security studies (Copenhagen, Paris and Aberystwyth), which… Read more »
Book review: Secrecy and Methods in Security Research: A Guide to Qualitative Fieldwork
Edited by Marieke de Goede, Esmé Bosma and Polly Pallister-Wilkins Secrecy and Methods in Security Research, edited by Marieke de Goede, Esmé Bosma and Polly Pallister-Wilkins, promises to be a long-lasting contribution to the field of critical security studies (CSS) but also to the broader social-scientific debate on the methodological challenges of researching secrecy. CSS has… Read more »
Book review: Securitization and Desecuritization of FARC in Colombia
Başar Baysal, 2019. Securitization and Desecuritization of FARC in Colombia, Lexington Books. The study of illegal armed organizations is difficult. Data availability is limited, as is access to key actors. When conflicts end, therefore, scholars face the opportunity to trace processes, and unpack the black box of how illegal organizations work and evolve, and how they… Read more »
Review of Violence: Humans in Dark Times
Evans, Brad & Lennard, Natasha, Violence: Humans in Dark Times. San Fransisco, CA: City Lights Books, 2018, 335 pp., ISBN-10 0872867544 In her writings on violence and totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt famously used the term “dark times” to refer to not just the monstrosities of the 20th century, but the necessity of countering violence with sustained… Read more »
Liberia’s Women Veterans: War, roles and reintegration
Leena Vastapuu (2018) Liberia’s Women Veterans: War, roles and reintegration, London: Zed Books Ltd. Book review by Linn Marie Reklev Scholars and policy makers put increasing attention on the role of women in conflict and peacebuilding. However, women are often portrayed as “victims”, and their multiple roles in conflict are often ignored. Leena Vastapuu’s new… Read more »
The Good Drone
Edited by Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, 202 pp.: 9780367000844 (hbk) Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert’s collected volume entitled ‘The Good Drone’ highlights the materiality of the drone in the context of humanitarian applications and questions. While the book primarily deals with the question of materiality in the context… Read more »
Does terrorism work?
Does Terrorism Work? A History by Richard English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 368pp., £25.00 (h/b), ISBN 9780199607853 The renewed proliferation of terrorism studies that rapidly followed the 9/11 attacks has been well-documented, and the post-9/11 wave that is now nearly two decades old, has focused predominantly on an elusive, universally-accepted definition of terrorism. Efforts… Read more »
“Security Threats and Public Perception: Digital Russia and the Ukraine Crisis” (2017)- Reviewed by Bohdana Kurylo
Elizaveta Gaufman, Security Threats and Public Perception: Digital Russia and the Ukraine Crisis, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 222 pp.: 9783319432007 (hbk) Book Review by Bohdana Kurylo The transformation of the Russian state under the presidency of Vladimir Putin, which has culminated in the current crisis in Ukraine, has been of great interest to security studies… Read more »