From insecurity to uncertainty: Risk and the paradox of security politics

Alternatives

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 211-232

  Kessler, Oliver ^a   Daase, Christopher ^b  

^a BIELEFELD UNIVERSITY   (Germany)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH   (Germany)

Author keywords

Risk; Security dilemma; Security paradox; Terrorism; Uncertainty

Indexed keywords

EID: 49149108531     PISSN: 03043754     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030437540803300206     Document Type: Review

References (70)

1. Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
2. For a deeper discussion on how risk reshaped questions of security policy, see Christopher Daase, "Internationale Risikopolitik: Ein Forschungsprogramm für den sicherheitspolitischen Paradigmenwechsel," in Christopher Daase, Susanne Feske, and Ingo Peters, eds., Internationale Risikopolitik (Baden-Baden: Nomos 2002), pp. 9-35.
3. Consider, for example, the famous liar paradox. Epidemides the Cretan claims that all Cretans are liars. If we believe him, he is a liar and so we actually cannot believe him. If we do not believe him, he actually tells the truth and we therefore can trust and believe him. However, that brings us right back to the original position: x because non-x.
4. On social theory of risk, see in particular Barbara Adam and Joost Van Loon, "Repositioning Risk: the Challenge for Social Theory," Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck, and Joost Van Loon, eds., The Risk Society and Beyond (London: Sage, 2000);
5. Robert Boyne, Risk (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003);
6. Deborah Lupton, Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
7. See Mikkel V. Rasmussen, The Risk Society at War: Terrorism, Technology, and Strategy in the Twenty-first Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
8. Claudia Aradau and Rens van Munster, "Governing Terrorism Through Risk: Taking Precautions, (Un)knowing the Future" European Journal of International Relations 13, no. 1 (2007): 85-115.
9. Ulrich Beck, "The Terrorist Threat: World Risk Society Revisited" Theory, Culture, and Society 19, no. 4 (2002): 39-55;
10. Ulrich Beck, "The Silence of Words and Political Dynamics in the World Risk Society," Logos 1, no. 4 (2002): 1-18.
11. See also Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, "Reflexive Security: NATO and International Risk Society," Millennium 30, no. 2, (2001): 285-309,
12. and Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, "'It Sounds Like a Riddle': Security Studies, the War on Terror, and Risk," Millennium 33, no. 2, (2004): 381-395.
13. Beck, "Terrorist Threat, note 6, p. 47.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 45.
16. Michel Foucault, "Governmentality," in Graham Burchell, Colin Corden, and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991);
17. François Ewald, "Insurance and Risk" and Richard Castels, "From Dangerousness to Risk," ibid.; Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London: Sage, 1999); Lupton, note 4, p. 87.
18. Aradau and van Munster, note 5.
19. Ibid., p. 103.
20. Ibid., p. 107.
21. For a deeper discussion on the constitutive role of nonknowledge for the formulation of security policy, see Christopher Daase and Oliver Kessler, "Known and Unknowns in the War on Terror and the Political Construction of Danger," Security Dialogue 38, no. 4 (2007): 411-434.
22. The primary objective of this article is, however, not the question of which description might be more accurate or what the risk of terrorism actually "is"; rather, in this article, we provide a reconstruction of today's dynamics where we use the distinction of risk and uncertainty to highlight ontological and epistemological assumptions and how these assumptions are currently made true: Niklas Luhmann, Soziologie des Risikos (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1991).
23. Due to space limitations we cannot here discuss systems theory in detail. We simply apply systems theory, not just talk about it. For a discussion, see Jan Helmig and Oliver Kessler, "Space, Boundaries, and the Problem of Order," Journal of International Political Sociology 1, no. 3 (2007): 239-250.
24. In our table in the section "Risk, Uncertainty, and Probability" (below), this will be presented as a broadening from the upper-left quadrant to the entire two-by-two table.
25. John Herz, "Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma," World Politics, 2, no. 2 (1950): 157.
26. For a deeper discussion of uncertainty and the security dilemma, see Evan Braden Montgomery, "Breaking Out of the Security Dilemma: Realism, Reassurance, and the Problem of Uncertainty," International Security 31, no. 2 (2006): 155ff.
27. See also Jef Huysmans, "International Politics of Insecurity: Normativity, Inwardness, and the Exception," Security Dialogue 37, no. 1 (2006): 11-29.
28. Robert Jervis, "Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma," World Politics 30, no. 2 (1978): 167-214.
29. See also Robert Jervis, "Variation, Change, and Transitions in International Politics," Review of International Studies 27, no. 2 (2001): 281-295.
30. Glenn H. Synder, "The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics," World Politics 26, no. 4 (1984): 461-495;
31. Charles L. Glaser, "The Security Dilemma Revisited," World Politics 50, no. 1 (1997): 171-201;
32. and Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, "Security Seeking n der Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited," International Security 25, no. 3 (2000-2001): 128-161.
33. Another way in which more security leads to higher insecurity should be mentioned at this point: moral hazard. As insurers always complain, as soon as some risk like car accidents is insured, the behavior of the insured person changes negatively. The introduction of seat belts led to speedier driving, which led to a rise and not a decline in deaths. Economists have shown that moral hazard is due to asymmetric information between actors: Insurers cannot observe and enforce the driving routines of their customers. Therefore, they cannot write a contract on the behavior itself, but only on its consequences. This gives rise to a difference between collective and individual rationality as social and private benefits and costs are distributed asymmetrically. If the individual crashes his car, the insurer has to bear the costs. If he doesn't crash it, he receives the benefits. The solution to these models is a new contract that establishes some kind of new insurance of higher order. Either by establishing some enforcement mechanism that can put an end to unwished-for behavior or by rearranging the set of incentives by introducing deductibles. But for our purposes here, we do not pursue this line of drought further.
34. Of course, in these games the opponent or his choices might not be known - as in games of imperfect knowledge. However, even in this setting, and related to the assumption that uncertainty can always be reduced to risk, it is assumed that a pool of possible types allows for the construction of higher-order beliefs and thus the transformation of incomplete, imperfect information. See John C. Harsanyi, "Games with Incomplete Information Played by 'Bayesian' Players, 1-3; part 1, The Basic Model," Management Science 14, no. 3 (1968): 159-182.
35. For his social theory, the best source is John C. Harsanyi, "Subjective Probabililty and the Theory of Games: Comments on Kadane and Larkey's Paper," Management Science 28, no. 2 (1982): 120-124.
36. For the offensive-defensive balance, see Jervis, "Cooperation," note 21, pp. 186ff;
37. Charles L. Glaser and Chaim Kaufmann, "What Is the Offense-Defense Balance and Can We Measure It?" International Security 22, no. 4 (1998): 44-82.
38. For a further discussion on the limits of the Bayesian method, see Oliver Kessler, "The Limits of Bayesian Thought to the Study of Economic Institutions," in Wolfram Eisner and Hardy Happani, eds., New Contributions in Evolutionary Economics (Northhampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2007).
39. Herfried Münkler, Die neuen Kriege (Bonn: Reinbeck, 2002), pp. 175ff.
40. Jonathan R. White, Terrorism: An Introduction (Belmont West-Wandsworth, 1998).
41. Stephen H. Gotowicki, "Confronting Terrorism: New War Form or Mission Impossible," Military Review 77, no. 3 (1997): pp. 61-66.
42. Richard von Mises, Probability, Statistics, and Truth (London: Allen & Unwin);
43. Ernst Nagel, "A Frequency Theory of Probability, "Journal of Philosophy 30 (1933): 533-554;
44. Helmut Reichenbach, The Theory of Probability (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949).
45. Harsanyi, "Subjective Probability," note 24, pp. 121-122.
46. See, in particular, Leonard Savage, The Foundation of Statistics (New York: Wiley, 1954).
47. See in particular Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Choice, Values, and Frames (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
48. Frank P. Ramsey, "Truth and Probability," in Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays, ed., R. B. Braithwaite (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1931), pp. 156-198.
49. John M. Keynes, A Treatise on Probability (London: Macmillan, 1921), p. 7.
50. See also Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Foundations of Probability (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1950).
51. Ibid., p. 12.
52. John M. Keynes, "The General Theory of Employment," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 51, no. 2, pp. 209-223, at 213-214.
53. John M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (London: Macmillan, 1936).
54. For a deeper discussion see Oliver Kessler, Die Internationale Politische Ökonomie des Risikos (Weisbaden: Verlag für Sozialiwissenschaften), Chap. 3.
55. Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
56. See also Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956), §19.
57. John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality (New York: Free Press 1995).
58. Niklas Luhmann, "Meaning as Sociology's Basic Concept," in Luhmann, Essays on Self-Reference (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp. 21-79, esp. 25.
59. Tony Lawson, "Probability and Uncertainty in Economic Analysis" Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics 11, no. 1 (1988), pp. 38-65.
60. Of course, there are crucial differences between "objective" and "psychological" approaches to security politics. A superb discussion is still Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).
61. Robert A. Dahl, Modern Political Analysis, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1984).
62. Wolfgang Bonß, Vom Risiko: Unsicherheit und Ungewissheit in der Moderne (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition HIS Verlagsges., 1995).
63. Mary Douglas and Aaron Widavsky Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory (London: Roudedge, 1982).
64. Richard Falkenrath, "Analytic Models and Policy Prescriptions: Understanding Recent Innovation in U.S. Counterterrorism," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 24, no. 3 (2001): 159-181.
65. Brian M. Jenkins, "Testimony Before the Subcommittee on National Security, Veteran Affairs, and International Relations," House Committee on Government Reform, 106th Session of Congress, October 20, 1999.
66. Paul Davis, New Challenges for Defense Planning: Rethinking How Much Is Enough (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1994), p. 140.
67. James Winnefeld, The Post-Cold War Sizing Debate: Paradigms, Metaphors, and Disconnects (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1992), p. 15.
68. Paul Davis, Analytic Architecture for Capabilities-Based Planning, Mission-System Analysis, and Transformation (RAND MR-1513-OSD) (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 2002).
69. Carl Conetta and Charles Knight, "Inventing Threats," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 54, no. 2 (1998): 33-38.
70. See also Friedrich Kratochwil, "Moles, Martyrs, Sleepers: The End of the Hobbesian Project," Ethnologia Europaea 33, no. 2 (2003): 57-68.