Jan Bachmann

Slides here

Terrorism, climate change, pandemics are but a few examples of high impact security issues that are at the same time highly unpredictable. They symbolize the challenges security experts are exposed to as they are supposed to devise policies and act on a future that is fundamentally uncertain. In wider social theory, questions of uncertainty have been addressed through the concept of “risk” which, however, has only recently been acknowledged as a key concept within security studies. In this lecture, we analytically approach “the unknown” in the wider field of security and explore concepts employed to make the unknown calculable.

In the first part, we introduce the concepts of risk, precaution, preparedness and resilience. In the flipped classroom session in part two, we work in small groups and discuss the utility of the concept of resilience in relation to a topic of your choice. I will be introducing the topics for discussion during the lecture, but I insert here a number of links to policy papers and programmes on resilience, some of which you may consult during the discussions.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/Resilience-Policy-Revision-Jan-2023.pdf (USAID's 2022 Resilience Policy), consult pages 1-12

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/join_2017_21_f1_communication_from_commission_to_inst_en_v7_p1_916039.pdf (the EU’s ”Strategic Approach to resilience”), focus on the annex ("10 guidelines")

https://www.oecd.org/dac/conflict-fragility-resilience/docs/May%2010%202013%20FINAL%20resilience%20PDF.pdf (OECD’s 2013 resilience approach)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joc0Eq4g6L0&t=81s (a UNICEF resilience programme in the Sahel)

Study Questions:

1.) Scholars working on resilience tend to acknowledge both the innovation of the concept as well as potential pitfalls. From the readings (Chandler), identify two arguments on how resilience adds value to security studies as well as two arguments that problematize the concept.

2.) If we accept the limits of predictability as well as the significance of "unknown unknowns" as a feature of global politics, what are the implications for security policy? Discuss through the work of Lakoff.

3.) Find a policy paper within the fields of foreign aid or humanitarian assistance (e.g. from the EU, DFID, USAID, etc.) that deploys the concept of resilience. Based on the readings, take an informed position towards the value of the concept in these policy fields.

Mandatory readings:

Chandler, D. 2021. Security through resilience. Contemporary challenges in the Anthropocene. In: Chandler, F. Müller & D. Rothe (Eds). International Relations in the Anthropocene. London: Palgrave, pp. 173-190.
Lakoff, Andrew 2007. “Preparing for the next emergency”, Public Culture 19 (2): 247-271.

Recommended readings:

Aradau, Claudia 2016. The promise of security. In: Chandler/Coaffee (Eds). The Routledge Handbook of International Resilience. https://www-routledgehandbooks-com.ezproxy.ub.gu.se/doi/10.4324/9781315765006.ch7
Amoore, Louise. 2013. The Politics of Possibility. Risk and Security Beyond Probability. Durham: Duke University Press
Anderson, Ben 2010. Preemption, Precaution, Preparedness: Anticipatory Action and Future Geographies. Progress in Human Geography 34 (6), 777-798.
Aradau, Claudia. 2010. The Myth of Preparedness. Radical Philosophy May/June 2010.
Chandler, David (2014). Resilience. The governance of complexity. London: Routledge.
De Goede, Marieke & Stephanie Simon 2012. Governing future radicals in Europe. Antipode45 (2), 315-335.’
Kessler, Oliver (2010),”Risk” in J. Peter Burgess (Ed) The Routledge Handbook of New Security Studies., Routledge: 17-26.
Massumi, Brian 2007. Potential Politics and the Primacy of Preemption. Theory and Event10 (2).
Pospisil, Jan, and Florian Kühn 2016. The Resilient State: New Regulatory Modes in International Approaches to State Building? Third World Quarterly 37 (1), pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1086637.
Reid, Julian 2012. The disastrous and politically debased subject of resilience. Development Dialogue 58, 67-79.
van Munster, Rens & Claudia Aradau 2007. Politics of Catastrophe. London: Routledge.
Walker, Jeremy, and Melinda Cooper 2011. Genealogies of Resilience. Security Dialogue 42 (2), pp. 143–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010611399616.
Zebrowski, Chris. “The Nature of Resilience.” Resilience 1, no. 3 (2013): 159–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293.2013.804672.