Reflexive Mirror: Everything Takes Place As If Threats Were Going Global

Abstract

How can social scientists analyse the nexus between globalization and security without reifying global threats? In the aftermath of 9/11, the notion of a so-called globalization of threats has become standard knowledge, especially in the discipline of International Relations (IR). With the recent wave of globalization, so the argument goes, the domain of international security has qualitatively changed to encompass a host of new global threats that could not even be imagined a few decades ago. Many textbooks on world politics present this view as the new deal of the 21st century and invite undergraduate students to build on such a premise to make sense of global security. Disturbingly, however, the argument that threats are going global is also part of contemporary political discourse, most obviously in George W. Bush’s justification for the ‘war on terror’. In other words, the academic discourse on the globalization of threats happens to coincide almost perfectly with the rhetorical strategies of certain politicians. As a result, social scientific knowledge and the legitimacy in which it is wrapped carry important normative consequences for globalization and international security.

For helpful comments, the author is grateful to Emanuel Adler, Magdaline Boutros, Karin Fierke, Markus Kornprobst, Érick Lachapelle, Nisha Shah, Jacob Schiff and David Welch.