Security and governance in an uncertain world

This special issue has its origins in series of discussions within the Governance Research Centre, University of Bristol concerning the changing nature of conflict, security and development and debates about different conceptual lenses for explaining and understanding these changes. Our interest is in the relevance and the extent to which the multifaceted concept of governance explains security challenges in a world in which many previous certainties appear far less certain. Following a call for papers in 2003, we held a two-day workshop in December 2004 sponsored by NATO Public Diplomacy Programme and the International Policy Institute, King's College London to present and debate drafts of the papers, which were peer reviewed and revised for this special issue.     

中国崛起与全球安全治理转型

中国崛起与全球安全治理转型是21世纪初国际关系领域两个备受瞩目的全球性现象。文章以全球安全治理体系中的安全制度安排和安全规范设定为主要分析路径,以全球政治安全治理和全球经济安全治理为主要分析单元。一方面,自二战结束以来全球安全治理体系可分为"单边全球主义"和"全球单边主义"两个阶段,并且每一阶段的全球安全治理体系均可分解为政治制度、经济制度、政治规范和经济规范四个领域;另一方面,运用比较研究法,对各个时期全球安全治理体系在上述四个领域所体现出来的差异性进行剖析,可以发现,这种差异性集中表现为正在进行中的全球安全治理体系转型,崛起的中国在此次转型过程中开始发挥参与者、建设者和贡献者的作用。在传统全球安全治理体系陷入危机之时,中国崛起在相关领域所带来的制度效应和规范效应正在逐渐潜移默化地嵌入到全球安全治理体系中,中国的政策和实践也将相应日益形成规范化的趋势。     

Europe,China and security governance: is there evidence of normative convergence?

Normative power can be defined as the ability to govern interdependencies by means of rules, regimes and compliance strategies. This paper presents two case studies in security governance—international responsibility to protect in Sudan and counter-proliferation policies towards Iran’s nuclear programme—to evaluate the degree of normative convergence between China and Europe. It concludes that there are still major differences between Europe and China on employing normative strategies in security governance but that both modes of governance and identities as security actors are mobile so that the trend is towards convergence, albeit with some distance still to travel.     

The security-prejudice nexus: “Islamist” terrorism and the structural logics of Islamophobia in the UK

ABSTRACT

A growing body of evidence documents that Islamophobia is a significant social issue in the UK. This evidence also reveals an empirical link to “Islamist” terrorism, revealing a nexus between security and the social emergence of prejudice. Drawing on critical approaches to security and applying them to the case of the UK in 2017, this article explores this nexus conceptually and empirically. To do so, it examines the discourses of various governance institutions (including the media, the political elite, and security professionals) as they respond to “Islamist” terrorist events. It argues that these governance institutions individually and collectively – and often unwittingly – stigmatised and securitised “Muslim” identity. The structural emergence (i.e., the institutionalisation) of Islamophobia in the UK, this article contends, can largely be understood through these processes. This article therefore offers an illustration of some of the logics of how prejudice is embedded in societal structures, which has normative implications for how these processes might be successfully contested.     

Security governance in Europe: a return to system

The security governance literature has developed in four waves: the first is dedicated to matters of definition; the second to conceptual debate; the third to matters of application in the European setting and the fourth to how well the concept works in extra-European regions and at the global level. For all this effort, security governance as a concept remains problematic: it still has some way to go before it obtains clear definitional precision, conceptual clarity and a secure standing as concept in Security Studies. We address some of the theoretical and methodological difficulties common to the literature and argue that security governance has become overly preoccupied with agency and has thereby neglected structure. It has, in other words, obtained an actor-centered focus and so tended to conflate security governance as an analytical category with the specific actions of security actors. It has thus moved forward little in its ability to determine how and why security actors behave in the aggregate and whether that behavior reflects wider systemic properties. We thus ask in a third section whether it is worth returning to systemic thinking on security governance especially in the European context where the concept has had its most sophisticated application.     

生物多样性议题安全建构的碎片化

1992年,《生物多样性公约》与《联合国气候变化框架公约》《联合国防治荒漠化公约》一并成为全球环境治理与合作的重要制度性框架文件。目前,生物多样性的国际合作程度、社会认知深度、治理行动速度等都明显逊色。生物多样性治理的迫切程度不亚于其他的全球性环境议题,但其议题安全化的分散性却不利于建构整体性的安全认知。生物多样性议题安全建构的碎片化体现在生态、治理目标、谈判、国家及其他行为体四个层面。生态层面是指生物多样性的安全认知;治理目标层面是指全球生物多样性治理的"爱知目标"与安全的联系;谈判层面包括资金机制、资源动员、遗传资源获取和惠益分享、保护区以及主流化等议题;各缔约方及其他行为体层面不仅在各项议题上表达各自关切,同时也将生物多样性问题建构为粮食安全、水安全、公共卫生安全、经济安全等多元安全关注。生物多样性议题安全建构的碎片化导致了该问题虽然在话语上进入了安全领域,但是缺乏共同的安全认知,难以提供简明和清晰的治理目标和路径,不利于推动全球有效治理。     

对国家安全特点与治理原则的思考

近年来,世界各国越来越重视国家安全问题,并把它放在国家治理中越来越重要的位置,中国也不例外。然而,不少人对国家安全的理解还存在较大偏差,主要表现在要么笼统抽象地谈论国家安全,要么只是关注国家安全的某一个方面,对国家安全涉及问题的系统性讨论不多,即使那些为数不多的讨论也不够全面和深入。有效进行国家安全治理,需要全面、系统和深入地厘清“国家安全”概念的内涵和外延,以及国家安全与其他价值之间的关系,并在此基础上探讨国家安全治理的原则和路径。国家安全是一个内涵极为丰富的概念,具有多面性、关联性、变动性、相对性、非唯一性、主观性和社会性等特征,深入研究和把握国家安全要有总体安全思维,从总体安全的角度全面审视我们面临的挑战,借鉴中外历史经验和教训,并在此基础上加以认真应对。因此,国家安全治理的路径选择至少应遵循总体、全面、兼顾、适度、平衡、顺势与合作等原则。     

European Approaches to Security Sector Reform: Examining Trends through the Lens of Afghanistan

Abstract

Since its emergence in the late 1990s, the security sector reform model has come to be accepted as an indispensable element of democratic transitions and state-building projects. Europe has been an incubator for the concept, which is rooted in the notion of human security. While the model's normative framework has reached an advanced stage of development, it has produced few clear successes, revealing a ‘conceptual–contextual divide’. Placed under new pressure due to a shift in security thinking following 11 September 2001, the model faces an identity crisis. The Afghanistan process, above all, has demonstrated the need for new debate in Europe and elsewhere on the direction and structure of the model.     

“多元性”非传统安全威胁： 网络安全挑战与治理

随着非传统安全威胁的愈加综合与复杂,非传统安全研究需要进一步精细化。“多元性”非传统安全威胁针对那类与传统安全因素相互交混的威胁而提出,在缘由、意图、主体、手段、地缘等多方面显示了非传统与传统安全相互交织的“多元性”特征。网络安全威胁是“多元性”非传统安全威胁中的重要议题,其呈现了主权难以界定、合法性难以判定、身份难以限定、过程难以追踪、应对难以依靠单一主体的非常规特征,网络安全维护需要新思维。一些国家奉行进攻型网络安全战略,导致了网络空间的威胁升级与安全困境,不利于全球网络安全维护。“优态共存”基于中国“和合”价值观而提出,主张认同建构与互惠共建,更好地适应了网络安全治理的跨界合作、“大安全”观与超越安全困境的能力要求,是较优的网络安全治理方略,可成为“多元性”非传统安全维护的一般路径。     

Constructing Southeast Asian security: the pitfalls of imagining a security community and the temptations of orthodoxy

At the ninth summit of the Association of South‐East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in October 2003, the organisation's leaders declared their intention of transforming ASEAN into a security community. In making the case that ASEAN has functioned as a realist security institution since its inception in 1967, this article argues that the theoretical literature underpinning the ASEAN security community idea is characterised by significant conceptual and empirical flaws. First, a number of problems surround the variables—either norms or identity—that are used to explain the emergence of a putative security community among the ASEAN states. Second, critical issues in the ASEAN security community literature include the tautological nature of the arguments and a failure to rule out alternative explanations. Third, from an empirical perspective, the nascent ASEAN security community has arguably never existed.     

Securitising proliferation, failing security governance: the European Union’s role in India and Pakistan’s nuclear rivalry

In 2003, the European Union declared the threat of weapons of mass destruction ‘potentially the greatest threat to our security’ and increasingly called for the issue of nuclear proliferation to be managed within its preferred multilateral security governance frameworks. In spite of this, and the increased securitisation of proliferation, the EU has fundamentally continued its historical record of failing to engage with India and Pakistan’s nuclear rivalry, and has not been able to move significantly beyond a relationship with South Asia based on trade and aid. This is deeply problematic given the regional instability posed by the Indo-Pakistani enduring rivalry, and the fact that Pakistan is not only an unstable nuclear weapons state, but has been known to harbour international terrorists and nuclear proliferators. Given these conditions, as the EU acknowledges, the stakes of failing to engage could not be higher. A deeper analysis of EU engagement, however, demonstrates that EU security governance is limited, ineffectual, inconsistent and largely perceived as neo-colonial in what is the world’s most likely nuclear flashpoint. If the EU is to be considered a global actor in security governance, a key objective of the Treaty of Lisbon, then this needs to be redressed.     

Democratizing security sector governance in West Africa: trends and challenges

While other regions of Africa have had their share of crises, the challenge of meeting numerous security threats has been particularly arduous in West Africa. Nevertheless, there are unmistakable signs that, through its collective regional integration instrument, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the sub-region is beginning to awaken fully to the need to tackle its security crisis. This article makes two interrelated arguments. First, although the creation of democratic spaces in democratizing states, or complete rebuilding of collapsed states, provides greater opportunities for security sector reform (SSR), the relationship between democratization and democratic governance of the security sector is less clear. Second, a combination of norm setting at the sub-regional level as well as activism in the non-governmental sector across the region is driving the move (even if slow and seemingly uncoordinated) toward improved governance, including in the security sector at the national level. However, the commitment of states to principles of good governance at the inter-governmental level does not naturally lead to corresponding change within the state. Therefore, there is a clear need to promote a security sector governance (SSG) agenda at both sub-regional and national levels in order to expand the space for meaningful SSR processes in West Africa.     

东北亚大国关系中第三方因素及地区安全共同治理

中日关系经济上的合作依存度与政治上的纷争摩擦常态化这一结构性的矛盾日趋显现.从更深层次上探究中日政治经济所处的这种分裂状态根源,从本质上讲背后蕴涵着东北亚大国关系中的域外因素:即美国的第三方因素,其对东北亚的和平稳定发挥着特殊作用.东北亚大国在地区的竞争摩擦时常较为突出,但中美日在东亚地区还是蕴涵着许多重大的共同利益.东北亚传统的"管制型"安全模式需向大国共同"治理型"模式转变趋向,意味着大国区域安全治理的权利、利益、责任的平等与分享,地区安全治理是在大国协作框架下的共同治理,应注重大国在地区安全事务中的关键作用.     

数字经济时代的全球数据安全治理与中国策略

进入数字经济时代以来,日益严峻的数据安全风险与变幻莫测的国际形势交织叠加,各国围绕数据安全治理规则博弈呈现加剧态势,引发全球数据安全治理问题。各国际行为体虽然已经意识到数据安全治理的重要性,但对全球数据安全治理并未形成统一的治理框架。全球数据安全治理仅仅由单边、双边和多边框架以及贸易规则拼凑而成,相关治理议题在公民个人、社会、经济以及国家安全等多个层面相继涌现。多领域多维度的数据安全问题难免造成治理主体利益诉求的差异,也导致全球数据安全治理出现了规则碎片化、机制效用不足、治理乏力等问题。与此同时,个别国家的数据霸权主义行为更是使得国际行为体难以凝聚共识,全球数据安全治理步履蹒跚,重视和加强对全球数据安全问题的治理迫在眉睫。中国高度重视数据安全的相关议题,由于中国在数据治理领域起步较晚,仍存在立法不完善、技术创新能力薄弱、国际合作不足、治理乏力等问题。中国需要全面、系统地分析影响数据安全的各种重大风险因素,准确把握全球数据安全趋势,进一步优化中国在全球数据安全治理中的策略选择。     

深海安全治理:问题缘起、国际合作与中国策略

深海区域是重要的全球公域,其丰富的资源储备和巨大的军事战略价值成为吸引世界各国深度参与深海开发的重要诱因。近年来,各国深海力量投送的不断加强,也在国际深海领域造成了如生态安全、军事安全、经济与资源安全以及人身安全等各种传统及非传统安全问题。国际深海安全问题的出现,会对深海开发的良性发展产生严重的影响。因此,重视和加强对国际深海安全问题的治理迫在眉睫。现阶段,国际社会在相关国际法和国际机制的基础上,已经初步形成了以国际海底管理局等国际组织和主权国家共同参与的总体治理架构。但是,现阶段的国际深海安全治理还存在着治理主体层次不够多元、军事等传统安全领域的治理相对乏力等亟须解决的问题。近年来,中国在和平利用国际深海资源方面,发展迅猛。进一步关注国际深海安全问题、有效参与国际深海安全治理,对于中国而言意义重大。在此背景下,中国可以在进一步有效感知深海安全问题、夯实参与国际深海安全治理的实力基础以及打造深海“人类命运共同体”等方面进一步着力。     

金融全球化、全球金融治理改革与国际金融安全*——基于信息科技革命的视角JP〗*

从本质上说,金融业是一种“信息密集性”或“信息敏感性”产业,对于金融全球化而言,信息技术进步具有特殊重要的意义。在信息科技革命引领和推动下,互联网与金融业相互融合,掀起了人类历史上第二次大规模的金融全球化浪潮。当代金融全球化迅猛发展对国际金融安全产生了重大而深远的影响,新一轮大规模金融全球化、国际金融体系的巨大变化以及由此而形成的新的国际金融格局与既有的全球金融治理框架之间的均衡逐渐被打破,既有的全球金融治理框架越来越难以适应信息科技革命条件下金融全球化发展和维护国际金融安全的要求。为更好地适应当代金融全球化条件下建立新的国际金融公共秩序,更好地维护国际金融安全的需要,以2008年全球金融危机爆发为契机,国际社会揭开了全球金融治理改革的大幕。在国际金融体系和全球金融治理框架处于大变动和寻求新均衡的背景下,中国应抓住有利时机,以更加积极、主动的姿态参与和推动全球金融治理改革,坚持命运共同体理念,遵循责任、权力相一致和平衡的原则,倡导在全球金融治理中加强互联网的运用,为维护国际金融安全做出更大贡献。     

中东地区的安全问题与安全治理（英文）

Middle East security has become a prominent global issue which is constantly exacerbating the uncertainty of the region and the world. Establishing a stable and valid security governance system is imperative for the region, but is bound to be a long and arduous process through internal and external coordination and appropriate strategies.     

亚洲安全治理转型的历史分析与趋势展望

冷战对亚洲安全格局产生了根本影响,助推美国在亚洲安全格局中的主导地位,由此形成支离破碎、犬牙交错的地缘安全格局,迟滞地区国家探索亚洲安全治理的进程,导致多种安全观剧烈碰撞、相互影响并复杂互动,使亚洲形成两极之间的中间地带,为世界走向多极化创造了条件。从公共产品供给角度分析,亚洲安全治理主要存在美国主导的亚洲安全治理、东盟主导的地区安全合作和以中国为代表的亚洲新安全观及其实践,各种类型的安全治理在现实中并存共生,相互影响,相互作用,形成当今亚洲复杂多元的安全治理体系。中国在积极倡导新型安全理念、共同维护地区安全、探索安全治理新模式、强化大国战略互信、管控周边难点热点问题等方面,采取了一系列负责任、建设性、可预期的政策和举措,并取得了积极效果。亚洲安全架构建设依然任重道远,中国要以新安全观为指引,积极推动新安全观同地区各方安全理念和治理模式对接,推进亚洲地区安全架构建设,深化同有关国家的互信合作,推动构建亚洲命运共同体,在促进亚太安全治理和推动亚太安全新格局的构建中承担更大责任,发挥更大作用,作出更大贡献。     

The Rationalities of European Border Security

Abstract

Any account of European security that ignores border security is incomplete, and any account of border security that disregards functional issues is unfinished. Border security is an empirical manifestation of a state's adaptation to its political environment, so a comprehensive analysis of European security requires that both the empirical and conceptual parameters of border management should be identified. However, this is problematic. Not only is functional security benignly neglected by the academy, but also border management is based on competing political imperatives, operational necessities, and social realities, rather than a coherent theoretical framework. Although the rationalities of European border security have yet to be systematically analysed, the Schengen accord is unlikely to provide the foundations needed for a comprehensive paradigm of European (border) security. This article focuses on the empirical and practical—rather than theoretical—dimensions of border security in order to rebalance the debate.     

Making sense of EU comprehensive security towards conceptual and analytical clarity

Abstract

European leaders frequently vaunt the European Union's distinctiveness in adopting and pursuing a comprehensive approach to security. The EU's profile as an international actor is designed to span across all dimensions of security. As a result, its security policy portfolio involves a large number of institutional actors and policies that need to be coordinated. The ambition of the EU to provide security in a comprehensive manner raises challenges at the politico–strategic level, at the level of operational and policy planning and in day-to-day implementation. So far, the field is lacking an inclusive analytical framework for the analysis of providing security through a distinctively comprehensive civil–military, economic and political organisation. This article seeks to close this gap by providing suggestions for how the wide range of issues related to comprehensive security could be structured, and by framing the matter theoretically and with reference to existing conceptual work and empirical research.