96-111VS Security and Democracy [Präsenz]

Instructors: Prof. Dr. Ursula Christina Schröder

Event type: Seminar

Displayed in timetable as: Profilseminar C4

Hours per week: 2

Credits: 6,0

Language of instruction: English

Min. | Max. participants: 10 | 16

Comments/contents:
This class focuses on the often contentious relationship between security and democracy in our current turbulent times. We examine the ongoing reconfiguration of this relationship against a backdrop of growing political and societal polarisation, the advent of new digital technologies and the rescaling of security to arenas below and beyond the state. In this theoryled class, we will first focus on current debates and core concepts in the fields of security studies and democracy research. We will then bring these perspectives together and highlight in several student-developed case studies where and how security policies are currently being reconfigured and how that affects their relationship to democratic norms and procedures. Class discussion will focus on empirical cases where security is provided through transnational or networked forms of (private) security governance, raising questions of their democracy legitimacy. We also discuss how the quality of the democratic control of armed forces and security services changes as security policies shift towards prevention and preemption. Building on empirical research on emerging forms of security governance and security provision in both the Global North and the Global South, the class will finally focus on democratic innovations in the field of security.
 

Learning objectives:
Students will develop the competence to discuss cutting edge research in security studies and to apply these research debates to empirical case work.
 

Literature:
- Abrahamsen, R./Williams, M. (2011): Security beyond the state: Private security in international politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Ansell, C./Trondal, J./Øgård, M. (eds.) (2017): Governance in Turbulent Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- de Goede, M. (2014): The Politics of Privacy in the Age of Preemptive Security: Introduction, International Political Sociology 8 (1), 100-104.
- Hameiri, S./Lee, J. (2013): The politics and governance of non-traditional security, International Studies Quarterly 57 (3), 462-473.
- Huysmans, J. (2014): Security Unbound: Enacting Democratic Limits. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Loader, I./Walker, N. (2007): Civilizing Security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Additional examination information:
Students in this class write a final term paper.