Europe is an interconnected space, built upon different kinds of infrastructures that organise the circulation of people and “stuff” – capital, commodities, energy, data, etc. Among these infrastructures are large-scale IT systems that allow state authorities to share biographical information (e.g. names, passport numbers) and biometric data on people crossing borders. For example, French border… Read more »
Tag: European Union
A Fool’s Errand? Exercising Critique through Ethics in EU Security Research
Claims about being “critical” as academics seldom explain what being critical actually means for us, or what it implies for our professional and personal conduct. Sometimes, it is associated with distanced observation “from above”, while at other times it is about descending from the Ivory tower and engaging with political problems for a good cause…. Read more »
In the Sahel, militarism doesn’t give us a full picture
By Philippe M Frowd and Adam J Sandor International security interventions in Sahel are multiplying. Military actions such as France’s Operation Barkhane, a Chapter 7 United Nations stabilization mission – MINUSMA, and increasing American military involvement in the region give these actions in the Sahel a ‘hard’, militarised image. Yet the number and scale of… Read more »
Debunking the Security Myth of Military Might
By Vitoria Basham Using and maintaining military force as a means of achieving security: a flawed idea? In my recent article published in Security Dialogue I critique the longstanding idea that military force and the maintenance of strong armed forces provides security. This idea forms part of the social contract between liberal democratic states and… Read more »
The transactional politics of border control in the Aegean
The images of migrants and refugees trying to reach the European mainland by boat are well known. Much less is known about how border surveillance at sea actually takes place. The research for our article ‘Surveillance at sea: The transactional politics of border control in the Aegean’ brought us to the Greek islands Chios and… Read more »