J. Peter Burgess
École Normale Supérieure, Geography, Faculty Member
- University of Copenhagen, Center for Advanced Security Theory, Faculty Memberadd
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Politcal Philosophy, Sociology, Critical Security Studies, Security Studies, International Relations, and 12 moreNew Materialism, International political sociology, Performativity, Legality of Use of Drones, Security, Critical International Relations Theory, Norway, Norway and the European Union, Terrorism, Critical Terrorism Studies, Political Violence and Terrorism, and Ethicsedit
'Security' is a uniquely rich object for critique. It rests on a long and noble conceptual history in Western thought. And yet the provision of security most often consists of a shoring up, through the discourses of nationality,... more
'Security' is a uniquely rich object for critique. It rests on a long and noble conceptual history in Western thought. And yet the provision of security most often consists of a shoring up, through the discourses of nationality, ethnicity, political economy or even science, of what is assumed to be solid at its core but weakened through the contingencies of politics, society, ideology, and so on. The article argues that the critical force of critique stems from the fact that critique itself is a practice inescapably bound up with insecurity, and thus that the critique of security exercised since around 1997 as 'critical security studies' is self-replicating. By introducing concepts from Husserlian phenomenology, it attempts to show that insecurity is not a simple feature of an otherwise secure state of life, ripe for critical analysis that promises to expose its false premises. Rather, insecurity lies at the very foundation of critical thought. Building upon the bare and basic question, 'What does it mean to mean?', a phenomenology of security asks the straightforward question: 'What is the security-ness of security?' It permits one to ask what remains of security when all else is stripped away, what essential minimum must be retained in order for security to be security.
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Alexander Wendt’s 2015 The Quantum Mind and Social Science is nothing if not true to its aims. Through rigorous argumentation and solid erudition it from the state-of-the art of quantum physics theory to social reality. The result is a... more
Alexander Wendt’s 2015 The Quantum Mind and Social Science is nothing if not true to its aims. Through rigorous argumentation and solid erudition it from the state-of-the art of quantum physics theory to social reality. The result is a set of conclusions about the nature of social life that may appear marginally plausible. And yet the voyage comes at high price, It blithely navigates any traces of meaningful human experience or social relation that does not already hold social scientific currency. It avoids more deeply spiritual connections that have been made tenable by growing literature on the Eastern religious thought. All indices point to an explanation of the remaining quantum riddles through a rebooting of our ontological assumptions of the quantum mechanics. Caught in a narrow understanding of the question of being as the question of ‘which being’, The Quantum Mind misses the chance for truly insightful discoveries about the nature of social relations.
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This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. Using rich, ethnographic examples, this chapter tests how easy or difficult it is for a data subject based in Norway to obtain their personal... more
This chapter outlines the experiences of attempting to exercise one's right of access in Norway. Using rich, ethnographic examples, this chapter tests how easy or difficult it is for a data subject based in Norway to obtain their personal data, firstly by locating the required information about organisations and their data controllers and secondly by submitting subject access requests to these organisations. The chapter reflects on the differences (if any) between public and private sector organisations in the process of responding to access requests. It also considers the potential for having submitted complaints to the national Data Protection Authority in Norway about the conduct of organisations when researchers submitted access requests to them.
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This article revisits the concept of sovereignty in political theory by applying tools adapted from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. It critically reviews the premises of political subjected assumed by sovereignty, and formulates a widened... more
This article revisits the concept of sovereignty in political theory by applying tools adapted from Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. It critically reviews the premises of political subjected assumed by sovereignty, and formulates a widened concept of sovereignty based on a general understanding of the ‘self’, ‘self-relation’ and ‘identity’ as the fundamental components of sovereignty. With this concept in hand, the article then focuses on the concept of the ‘sovereign good’ common to French histories of political thought and of particular interest to Jacques Lacan in his 1959-60 seminar on the Ethics of Psychoanalysis and his 1963 article ‘Kant with Sade’. By reinterpreting the sovereignty of the sovereign good, Lacan points to a path according to which an idealised and universalised notion of the sovereign is made possible and energised through an identification of the ‘real’ with the sovereign good. By understanding sovereignty as supported by the Lacanian real, be can better understand both the forces that drive it to self-preservation and the insecurities that make its survival and longevity powerful hindrances to its dissolution.
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The modern history of the concept of anxiety is marked by three major interpreters: Kierkegaard, Freud and Heidegger. Despite considerable differences in methods, their interpretations all share one basic assumption, namely that the... more
The modern history of the concept of anxiety is marked by three major interpreters: Kierkegaard, Freud and Heidegger. Despite considerable differences in methods, their interpretations all share one basic assumption, namely that the difference between fear and anxiety lies in the simple structural fact that the former has relates to a distinct object, while the latter has no object. In his 1962-1963 seminar on Anxiety, Lacan takes as his starting point the rejection of this assumption. Not by arguing against it, but by re-conceptualising the notion of the object altogether. This chapter will analyse Lacan’s reading of the notion of anxiety as re-reading of the notion of the object in general, and of the object of danger and insecurity, in particular. A key reference for the evolution of the early work of Lacan is the axiom that our relation to any object cannot be reduced to a relation to an object of knowledge. Starting with this axiom, the chapter will argue that the Laconian concept of anxiety is one which revises the traditional cartesian understanding of the subject-object. Since this understanding structures the politics of security and insecurity, the chapter will challenge the objectivity of threats to our security by re-defining the character and function of objective danger.
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Draft chapter 3.1 from the forthcoming book Sikkerhet uten samfunn. The chapter analyses the concept of security as a pilar of societal security in the Norwegian government's 22 July Commission report.
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Security thinking in Europe today represents the convergence of four distinct threads of Western thought. The first thread is the emergence of a new security landscape featuring a new constellation of actual threats and threat perceptions... more
Security thinking in Europe today represents the convergence of four distinct threads of Western thought. The first thread is the emergence of a new security landscape featuring a new constellation of actual threats and threat perceptions accompanied by a new logic danger. The second thread follows the development of liberalism and the liberal paradigm in Western societies, a set of ideas at the core of the European project. The third thread flows from the evolution of the technology and the predominance technological approaches to addressing social problems. Finally, the fourth thread follows the transformation and intensification of a discourse of values as a guiding force of European security policy. These threads converge in a nexus where notions of danger, innovation and responsibility are recast in the legitimation of new forms of policing, social control, and political accountability where the technologically possible sets the standard for what is politically necessary ethical acceptable. This paper will document and analyse this evolution, critique is supporting assumptions and suggest the shape of an alternative discourse of the security, and the elements of a counter discourse that will help guide us toward it.
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Abstract. This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. We decompose the critics' argument into two steps, one which offers a diagnosis of what goes wrong when things go wrong in peacebuilding... more
Abstract. This paper addresses a recent wave of criticisms of liberal peacebuilding operations. We decompose the critics' argument into two steps, one which offers a diagnosis of what goes wrong when things go wrong in peacebuilding operations, and a second, ...
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To what extent does counterterrorism transform benchmarks of acceptability in EU societies? The rule of law ranks high amongst the societal values most at risk of being destabilized by antiterrorist measures (Webster et al., 12; Guittet... more
To what extent does counterterrorism transform benchmarks of acceptability in EU societies? The rule of law ranks high amongst the societal values most at risk of being destabilized by antiterrorist measures (Webster et al., 12; Guittet 2006). Indeed, counterterrorism relies extensively on illiberal practices that pave the way for the reenactment of arbitrary exceptionalism. As we discuss below, some scholars suspect that this exceptional claim lies at the core of the modern, liberal and democratic societal orders.
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Few would contest the claim that the study of security is prima facie inseparable from international matters, that it engages politics in one way or another and that it engages social issues. And yet the contentiousness of these three... more
Few would contest the claim that the study of security is prima facie inseparable from international matters, that it engages politics in one way or another and that it engages social issues. And yet the contentiousness of these three categories—the international, the political, and the social—, the assumptions on which they rest, the discourses that are mobilised in their names, the empirical fields that nourish them, the scholars, policy-makers and practitioners who make claims to legitimate oversight over their practices and jurisdiction over their practical implications, invite a critical pause in their increasingly rapid development. Security as a scholarly field, as a set of actors, institutions and practices, has evolved at a pace that has put its supporting concepts and practices under considerable pressure. This concerns both the way that the academic discipline of security studies, and those in close proximity to it, have evolved and the way that research-based (and non-research-based) security practices have themselves become producers and consumers of security knowledge. Security studies orchestrates in a unique and productive way the interaction of the international, the political and the sociological. It puts into play their conceptual and practical interaction, plays gatekeeper to neighbouring discourses seeking to link to the discourse of security studies, regulates the flow of meaning between the elements of security studies, manages practices and governs norms. Security studies encourages and resists, legitimates and discredits. Like any institutionalised academic discipline motivates and interdicts, generates credit and debt, mobilises faith and modulates disbelief.
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The recent surge of identification systems globally has revealed the complex, non-uniform and interwoven congregation of policies, industrial and technological standards in the implementation of surveillance systems. This article focuses... more
The recent surge of identification systems globally has revealed the complex, non-uniform and interwoven congregation of policies, industrial and technological standards in the implementation of surveillance systems. This article focuses on the methodological challenges and nuances that scholars face when studying emerging surveillance schemes. We analyse the implementation of the Indian Unique Identification (UID) system, which is the largest implementation of biometric identification in the world. The multimodal biometric system is expected to be a foundation for a wide range of private and public services across the country, and at the same time its systemic structure will allow for comprehensive profiling and tracking of individuals. By analysing the various ways in which identity as a social and scientific category is made known and constructed in the implementation of the UID, we examine how surveillance schemes employ social science methodologies and forefront what implications this has for research.
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The SAFE project identified and analysed contributions of humanities and social sciences to security research at four international workshops and concluded with a conference summarising its findings. The present paper broadens the... more
The SAFE project identified and analysed contributions of humanities and social sciences to security research at four international workshops and concluded with a conference summarising its findings. The present paper broadens the discussion field by taking stock of recent debates around understanding security and insecurity, and outlines new research challenges based on the hypothesis that the social and human dimension of security are both indispensable. It demonstrates that security has never been separable from the social, cultural, political, historical and ethical elements at its core. The paper is addressed to research policy makers and research funders as well as researchers involved in security research. It is the intention of the Standing Committee for the Humanities that the paper opens a discussion on new ways forward and enriches the understanding of this research field stimulating innovative proposals.
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According to Carl Schmitt, in his late work The Nomos of the Earth, published in 1950, the long evolution in the relation between humans and the earth has been decisive for the nature of tradi- tional legal order. The historical links to... more
According to Carl Schmitt, in his late work The Nomos of the Earth, published in 1950, the long evolution in the relation between humans and the earth has been decisive for the nature of tradi- tional legal order. The historical links to European international jurisprudence (ius publicum Europaeum) have decayed with the old world order that supported them. Territoriality, once the foun- dation of the nation-state has evolved, causing a parallel change in the nation-state paradigm of sovereignty and the fabric of inter- national law which has its basis in that paradigm. If Schmitt is correct in his prognoses about the end of a global era and the rise of a new yet uncharted world order in the mid-1940s, then the architects of the nascent European Coal and Steel Community face the same conditions, and must carry out their work with the same cultural, social and juridical raw materials, against the backdrop of the same concrete historical experience. This article will attempt to continue the trajectory of Schmitt’s historical analysis of the ius publicum Europeaum, suggesting how its central concepts and theses map onto the grand geopolitical and civilisational project of European construction from 1950 to 2004 and beyond. It will explore the applicability of the concept of nomos for the nature of EU evolution, and interpret general elements of the European legal system in terms of the concept of nomos.
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If the concept of human security is to be meaningful, it must be applicable to any region, developing or developed. Such was the point of departure for authors of two reports on Western and Eastern Europe that were commissioned by UNESCO... more
If the concept of human security is to be meaningful, it must be applicable to any region, developing or developed. Such was the point of departure for authors of two reports on Western and Eastern Europe that were commissioned by UNESCO as part of a series of regional reports aimed at detailing the human security situations in different regions. The present article, compiled by the co-authors of both reports, summarises the reports and critically revisits this premise. By exploring the notion that human security varies according to national, regional and local settings, thus gaining meaning from the context in which the framework is applied, it poses a number of critical questions about the universality of the concept of human security. It argues for a supple concept of human security capable of identifying vulnerabilities in a variety of settings and adapting legitimate responses to them. By exploring the applicability of human security in Eastern and Western Europe it sets out to test the limits of the concept and to contrib- ute to ongoing debate about “broad” and “narrow” conceptions of human security and addresses the criticism of the concept as ideologically skewed. The paper first addresses the subjective question of what human security means in the Western and Eastern Euro- pean contexts before outlining in broad terms the objective question of what is concretely taking place in Europe. It concludes by suggesting that human security actually lends itself equally to the developed world where mid- or large-scale physical violence is less common as a source of insecurity, concluding that many of the threats faced are of similar nature, if of varying degrees of severity.
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Since the outset of Europe’s role in the War on Terror, the protection of Europe’s ‘critical infrastructures’ has been a central focus of the anti- terrorist effort. The purpose of this article is underscore the challenges involved in... more
Since the outset of Europe’s role in the War on Terror, the protection of Europe’s ‘critical infrastructures’ has been a central focus of the anti- terrorist effort. The purpose of this article is underscore the challenges involved in conceptualising critical infrastructure and its protection in terms of social values. These difficulties, we will suggest, are not merely roadblocks standing in the way for effective anti-terror policy making. They challenge European policy makers in all fields to revisit and reflect upon the meaning and aim of anti-terror protection.
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Energy is the classic strategic resource and thus one of the earliest objects of modern geopolitics. This article proposes an approach that steps away from the geopolitical grasp of energy as a strategic substance, and develops an... more
Energy is the classic strategic resource and thus one of the earliest objects of modern geopolitics. This article proposes an approach that steps away from the geopolitical grasp of energy as a strategic substance, and develops an analysis of energy an actor. From the first generation vitalism in Bergson ‘creative energy’ to contemporary forms of affect theory, contemporary theory offers tools for under energy as the motivational force in for perception and consciousness, sentiments and sensation, reason and reaction. Energy moves both battleships and human spirit. Yet how are these two expressions linked together. This article will propose a new materialist analysis that will make visible the continuity between endless human energy, on the one hand, and non-renewable energy, on the other. It will argue that the politics of non-renewable energy serve to cover over the human energy in its midst, in order to let the discourse strategic quantification of energy resources to maintain its dominance as a measure of the success of human projec
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The aim in this talk, is to ask the question of ‘the human’, whose security it is human security’s ambition to advance and preserve. New research and new reflexion—by anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and others suggests that... more
The aim in this talk, is to ask the question of ‘the human’, whose security it is human security’s ambition to advance and preserve.
New research and new reflexion—by anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and others suggests that the humanity of humans is, as with most phenomena, finite, that the definition or concept that regulates it has limits, that these limits have become more tangible, and that, as a consequence, a new look at ‘human security’ is warranted.
New research and new reflexion—by anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers and others suggests that the humanity of humans is, as with most phenomena, finite, that the definition or concept that regulates it has limits, that these limits have become more tangible, and that, as a consequence, a new look at ‘human security’ is warranted.