Università Roma Tre

The course focuses on the most important aspects that security has assumed in the international system since the end of the Second World War. In adopting a historical approach, it intends to offer the students a general survey and understanding of a process that becomes the effect and the producer of frames of political action. The end of the Second World War has been selected as the starting point of analysis, first because it marked the beginning of the era of security studies in the United States and the Western world. As field of studies security studies developed after the failure of the attempt made at that time to establish an effective collective security within the United Nations. That failure coincided with the beginning of the nuclear era and the Cold War. To the time period of bipolar confrontation is devoted a good deal of the course with the related dynamics concerning nuclear deterrence and proliferation. Despite the end of the Cold War, the security discourse is still looming large in the contemporary international system, not only for the growing risk of nuclear proliferation, but also for the so-called securitization process concerning many international issues, like environment, migration and access to resources. The course, therefore, aims at helping the students historicize the notion of international security and familiarize with the main components of the contemporary international security agenda.

CONTENT:
- Part I: (first 5-6 weeks) After having introduced the meaning of security studies in the United States and the Western world, a good deal of attention is devoted to understanding the failure of the attempt made immediately after the second World War to establish an effective collective security within the United Nations, and its later evolution. Then, the focus shifts on the hallmarks and meaning of international security in the bipolar world, when military conflicts were bound to remain limited, as more or less limited was the room for maneuvering that most of the states inside and outside of the principal military alliances might reasonably expect to gain. Inter alia, the Western Alliance is examined also to emphasize that, because of the threat of a nuclear holocaust, it has gradually turned out to be the venue for devising a shared security agenda and, through that, a curtailed version of collective security. The era of bipolar confrontation is also examined from the standpoint of the development of nuclear deterrence and proliferation as the two sides of the (nuclear-tinged) security coin

- Part II: (second 5-6 weeks) The second part of the course concentrates on some of the most relevant challenges to international security characterizing the post-Cold War world, wherein globalization has been coexisting with a growing and widespread securitization of a series of international and transnational matters. Through the adoption of a historical perspective, the students are encouraged to reflect on and discuss about the transformation that the concept of international security has undergone over the last decades. Thus, class discussions are organized with the purpose of favoring a deeper analysis and debate on the various issues singled out as significant, and each student is required to present a short paper on one of those issues, using the bibliographical material suggested by the professor, as well as that found by the student through a specific bibliographical research.


This course is taught in English.

REQUIRED READINGS:

- Mary Kaldor and Iavor Rangelov (edited by), The Handbook of Global Security Policy, Wiley Blackwell, 2014 – excluding the following chapters: 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 26
- Mark Mazower, Governing the World. The History of an Idea, Penguin Books, 2012 – pp. 191-342 (this is a required reading for students without a sound knowledge of the international history between world war II and the late 1970s)

For the in class discussions, students will have to read the following essays:

- Daniel Abrahams, “From discourse to policy: US policy communities’ perceptions of and approaches to climate change and security,” Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 19, No. 4, (2019): 323–345.
- Fiona B. Adamson, “Crossing Borders: International Migration and National Security”, International Security, 31: 1 (Summer 2006), pp. 165-199.
- David A. Baldwin, “The Concept of Security”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 23, n. 1, (January 1997), pp. 5-26.
- Madeline Carr and F. Lesniewska, “Internet of Things, cybersecurity and governing wicked problems: learning from climate change governance,” International Relations, Vol. 34, No. 3 (2020), pp. 391–412.
- Colin S. Gray, “What Rand Hath Wrought”, Foreign Policy, 4 (Autumn 1971), pp. 111-129.
- Excerpts of the Human Development Report 1994, Published for the United Nations Development Programme
- Michael MccGwire, “Deterrence: The Problem- Not the Solution”, International Affairs, Vol. 62, n. 1, (Winter, 1985-1986), pp. 55-70.
- Nick Ritchie, “A hegemonic nuclear order: Understanding the Ban Treaty and the power politics of nuclear weapons,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2019): pp. 409-434.
- Uri Tor, “‘Cumulative Deterrence’ as a New Paradigm for Cyber Deterrence,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1-2 (2017): pp. 92-117.
- David S. Yost, “NATO’s Evolving Purposes and the Next Strategic Concept”, International Affairs, 86:2 (March 2010), pp. 489-522.
- Michael C. Williams, “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Dec. 2003), pp. 511-531.