Security is often understood as an objective condition identified with threats, vulnerabilities, capabilities and survival. However, what constitutes a threat, whose security is important, and what is considered a necessary or legitimate security behaviour are rarely determined by material factors alone. Constructivist approaches to International Relations allows us to rethink security as a socially and politically constructed phenomenon driven by identities, norms, ideas, narratives, practices and historical memories.
This panel invites contributions that examine the social and ideational processes through which security is constituted, interpreted and contested in world politics. The panel seeks to explore not only how actors respond to insecurity, but how they come to understand themselves, others, and their political environment as secure or insecure in the first place. It therefore places ideational and socio-cultural factors at the centre of the analysis.
We welcome contributions grounded in theoretical, comparative or empirical approaches that allow examining the relationships between security and identity, norms, discourse, political culture, historical memory, strategic practices, sovereignty, civilizations, or other forms of social meanings. We are particularly interested in papers addressing the questions such as: How conceptions of Self and Others inform threat perceptions? How historical narratives and collective memories influence contemporary security practices? How do norms determine legitimate and illegitimate forms of security behaviour? The panel welcomes research on the construction and transformation of security identities, the role of discourse and language, and the politics of recognition.
The distinctive contribution of the panel lies in treating security not as an established category of analysis, but as an object of inquiry in itself. Therefore the panel seeks to advance the study of security by inviting contributions that use constructivism not simply as a theoretical framework for studying security, but as a starting point for questioning the social foundations and political meanings of security itself.