People, States & Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era

Front Cover
ECPR Press, Mar 1, 2008 - History - 318 pages

The second edition of this widely acclaimed book takes as its main theme the question of how states and societies pursue freedom from threat in an environment in which competitive relations are inescapable across the political, economic, military, societal and environmental landscapes. Throughout, attention is placed on the interplay of threats and vulnerabilities, the policy consequences of overemphasizing one or the other, and the existence of contradictions within and between ideas about security. Barry Buzan argues that the concept of security is a versatile, penetrating and useful way to approach the study of international relations. Security provides an analytical framework which stands between the extremes of power and peace, incorporates most of their insights and adds more of its own.

 

Contents

New Introduction by the Author
1
Preface to the First Edition
17
Figures and Tables
23
Individual Security and National Security
49
National Security and the Nature of the State
65
Threats and Vulnerabilities
104
Security and the International Political System
128
Regional Security
157
Economic Security
189
The Defence Dilemma
217
The PowerSecurity Dilemma
234
Concluding Thoughts on International
283
Index
297
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2008)

Barry Buzan is a Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and honorary professor at the University of Copenhagen. He has published and broadcast extensively in the field of international relations. He was Chairman of the British International Studies Association 1988-90, Vice-President of the (North American) International Studies Association 1993-4, and founding Secretary of the International Coordinating Committee 1994-8. Since 1999 he has been the general coordinator of a project to reconvene the English school of International Relations, and from 2004 he is editor of the European Journal of International Relations. In 1998 he was elected a fellow of the British Academy, and in 2001 he was elected as an Academician of the Association of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences.

Bibliographic information