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Theory of World Security
What is real? What can we know? How might we act? This book sets out to answer these fundamental philosophical questions in a radical and original theory of security for our times. Arguing that the concept of security in world politics has long been imprisoned by conservative thinking, Ken Booth explores security as a precious instrumental value which gives individuals and groups the opportunity to pursue the invention of humanity rather than live determined and diminished lives. Booth suggests that human society globally is facing a set of converging historical crises. He looks to critical social theory and radical international theory to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical challenges facing global business-as-usual and for planning to reconstruct a more cosmopolitan future. Theory of World Security is a challenge both to well-established ways of thinking about security and alternative approaches within critical security studies.
516 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2007
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About the author
Ken Booth
44 books8 followersKen Booth FBA is a international relations and security theorist.
A fellow of the British Academy,Booth's profile on their website describes his principle scholarly field as the strategic aspects of international relations and his role in establishing the new field of critical security studies.
Booth is a senior research associate and former professor at Aberystwyth University.
Booth's profile on the University's website describes his current reasearch interests as: the theory and practice of security, international relations theory, human rights, nuclear disarmament, and security in Africa. Current projects include: realists and realism, terrorism, and critical theory for critical times.
A fellow of the British Academy,Booth's profile on their website describes his principle scholarly field as the strategic aspects of international relations and his role in establishing the new field of critical security studies.
Booth is a senior research associate and former professor at Aberystwyth University.
Booth's profile on the University's website describes his current reasearch interests as: the theory and practice of security, international relations theory, human rights, nuclear disarmament, and security in Africa. Current projects include: realists and realism, terrorism, and critical theory for critical times.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 11, 2022
Ken Booth’s work remains a seminal study for critical security studies. The key motivation to Booth’s theory of world security is that current world politics (under the pernicious influence of realist thinking) is approaching a new “crisis” along the lines of E.H. Carr’s twenty year crisis, where the looming threats of nuclear holocaust, environmental chaos, and global population overload will not only make the world unliveable for those who already find the world unliveable, but also threaten the privileged minority of the developed world. (This insight was circa 2007).
While the logic of national and state orthodoxies encourage policy-makers to see security as something that must be accomplished against others, it’s becoming increasingly clear that these looming problems can only be solved through collective action. For this reason, a new kind of security needs to be formed that includes the idea of emancipation, and is inculcated in cosmopolitan communities—thus, the key concepts of security, emancipation, and community, must replace old logics of statism, strategy, and the status quo.
The main goals of the book are de-bunking realism (a theory about power, by the powerful, for the powerful), but also, capturing the realist discourse away from realism. Thus, Booth’s conception of “emancipatory realism”—a way of combining critical security studies (CSS) of radical theory as a way of decolonizing the mind, but also signifying practicality (praxis) on the part of those interested in world security. The book forms a complicated relationship with realism. As Booth states, all serious students of CSS need to be serious students of realism—especially because of its influence within security studies and world politics, but also because certain parts of realism are highly amenable to the eventual formation of world security. All good realists, Booth states (for example Morgenthau), often find themselves wandering in the direction of a global state or world community because they understand the dangerous (mechanical) trap of statism. The realist mechanical trap (states are fearful and thus arm, other states are fearful other states’ arming and thus arm, etc, etc) needs critical security theory to imagine it out of its trap.
15 years after its debut, this book still has much to offer. The book predicts some of the struggles that would occur since its release: inequality leading to a revival of fascism and the rise of "unreason" (the term post-truth was not yet popularized). The book's main drawback, in my opinion, is failing to provide a logical roadmap from a nation state system to a cosmopolitan state system. In this case, perhaps he best theoretical approach is imagine backwards. Start with a system made of cosmopolitan states and imagine how the world of today got there. Sometimes the most practical theorizing is the most speculative.
While the logic of national and state orthodoxies encourage policy-makers to see security as something that must be accomplished against others, it’s becoming increasingly clear that these looming problems can only be solved through collective action. For this reason, a new kind of security needs to be formed that includes the idea of emancipation, and is inculcated in cosmopolitan communities—thus, the key concepts of security, emancipation, and community, must replace old logics of statism, strategy, and the status quo.
The main goals of the book are de-bunking realism (a theory about power, by the powerful, for the powerful), but also, capturing the realist discourse away from realism. Thus, Booth’s conception of “emancipatory realism”—a way of combining critical security studies (CSS) of radical theory as a way of decolonizing the mind, but also signifying practicality (praxis) on the part of those interested in world security. The book forms a complicated relationship with realism. As Booth states, all serious students of CSS need to be serious students of realism—especially because of its influence within security studies and world politics, but also because certain parts of realism are highly amenable to the eventual formation of world security. All good realists, Booth states (for example Morgenthau), often find themselves wandering in the direction of a global state or world community because they understand the dangerous (mechanical) trap of statism. The realist mechanical trap (states are fearful and thus arm, other states are fearful other states’ arming and thus arm, etc, etc) needs critical security theory to imagine it out of its trap.
15 years after its debut, this book still has much to offer. The book predicts some of the struggles that would occur since its release: inequality leading to a revival of fascism and the rise of "unreason" (the term post-truth was not yet popularized). The book's main drawback, in my opinion, is failing to provide a logical roadmap from a nation state system to a cosmopolitan state system. In this case, perhaps he best theoretical approach is imagine backwards. Start with a system made of cosmopolitan states and imagine how the world of today got there. Sometimes the most practical theorizing is the most speculative.
August 16, 2020
Having read numerous books on IR and IS over the past year this is by far the most readable and the most affecting. It should not have been bed time reading because of its depth and power. I recommend anyone studying IR or IS/CSS to get stuck into this at the earliest possible opportunity. Because not only is it a thought provoking book in a way many other IR works are not. It also gives an excellent state of the art overview of the key issues of IR.
Excellent Stuff altogether.
Excellent Stuff altogether.
December 13, 2019
In the beginning it sounds like a laundry list of leftist angry outburst. Boring. Annoying. Unimaginative, even if true.
But withstand all the angst and you are presented with great theorising of security. Worth it. 3/5 stars.
But withstand all the angst and you are presented with great theorising of security. Worth it. 3/5 stars.
December 10, 2017
A cosmopolitan critical view for international relations...
The book is essential for all security studies students.
The book is essential for all security studies students.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews