The book explores the complex, multi-directional connections of the "mobility/security nexus" in the re-ordering of states, empires, and markets in historical perspective. Contributing to a vivid academic debate, the book offers in-depth studies on how mobility and security interplay in the emergence of order beyond the modern state. While mobilities studies, migration studies and critical security studies have focused on particular aspects of this relationship, such as the construction of mobility as a political threat or the role of infrastructure and security, we still lack comprehensive conceptual frameworks to grasp the mobility/security nexus and its role in social, political, and economic orders. With authors drawn from sociology, International Relations, and various historical disciplines, this transdisciplinary volume historicizes the mobility-security nexus for the first time. In answering calls for more studies that are both empirical and have historical depth, the book presents substantial case studies on the nexus, ranging from the late Middle Ages right up to the present-day, with examples from the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, Papua New Guinea, Rome in the 1980s or the European Union today. By doing so, the volume conceptualizes the mobility/security nexus from a new, innovative perspective and, further, highlights it as a prominent driving force for society and state development in history. This book will be of much interest to researchers and students of critical security studies, mobility studies, sociology, history and political science.

This book analyses securitization processes outside of the West, with a focus on Africa. The aim of the volume is to develop an original analytical framework to explain the securitization-neo-patrimonialism dynamics in West Africa, drawing upon insights from securitization theory, sociology and psychology. Among critical voices, securitization has become the gold standard for analysing emerging challenges, such as migration, terrorism, and human security. Yet, despite its broadening agenda, the framework has also been accused of bias, with a Western political context and democratic governance structure at its heart. This book aims to re-conceptualise the framework in a way that suits non-Western contexts better, notably by re-conceptualising the securitization-neopatrimonialism nexus in Africa, which gives us significant new insights into non-Western political contexts. It analyses the securitization processes among the political elites under neo-patrimonial statehood, and further stretches the conceptualisation of securitization into African statehood, which is characterised by a blurred line between the leader and the state. The volume explores the processes of securitizing threats in Liberia, Sierra Leone and wider West Africa, as well as the neo-patrimonial regimes of these states. In doing so, it explores the influence these states’ neo-patrimonial regimes have on the processes of threat securitization. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, African politics and International Relations. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book provides a holistic picture of Chinese global security discourses, with a focus on macrosecuritizations. The work examines how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has aligned itself within global security discourses. This is approached through the theory of securitization, specifically by using the notion of macrosecuritization as the lens for its analysis. The book offers the first full account of Chinese macrosecuritization discourses and alignments, and it aims to discern what security speech with referent objects such as humanity, civilization, or nature has done in the domestic and international politics of China. Specifically, the work focuses on the discourses of the Cold War, anti-nuclear weapons, climate change, and the Global War on Terror, which have all been postulated in the literature as macrosecuritizations. In addition, it examines discourses with global referent objects that have been put forth by the PRC so that we can see whether its proposals for global security governance take the form of, or are legitimated through, macrosecuritization. The overall argument in the book is that the way contemporary China uses macrosecuritization discourses provides for ontological security as its position in relation to other major powers is undergoing transformation, by allowing it to maintain a consistent narrative of its international self that abides by its own set of moral values and sense of worth. This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, Chinese politics and International Relations.

This book analyses the securitization of ethnic identities and social groups by the state in Afghanistan in the post-2001 context. Securitization is arguably the most successful theoretical framework to analyse security beyond the military confines. Yet, despite its broadening agenda, the securitization framework has been accused of a Western bias. This book analyses the extent and the modalities and practices of the securitization of ethnic identities and social groups (e.g. women) by the state in Afghanistan post-2001, which is especially relevant following the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021. It puts forward a more nuanced argument by analytically distinguishing and empirically testing state policies, practices, and perspectives on ethnic and social groups that are largely informed by the fear and legacies of civil war (1978–2001). The work argues that the traditional lack of a stable state identity that could function as a basis for ontological security in Afghanistan has resulted in a persistent state of fragility exacerbated by the legacies and fears of civil war that have had a direct impact on the development of the state’s perspectives on ethnic and social groups. Whilst the state does not necessarily indulge in explicit securitization practices and discourses, securitization often takes place through implicit activities to undermine ethnic and social groups’ ability to enter political, economic, and socio-cultural competitions fairly and equitably, which would, in turn, enable these groups to challenge the state. The securitization process, therefore, has had an impact on the ability of these groups to benefit from opportunities fairly and equitably. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, statebuilding, Asian politics, and International Relations in general.

This edited volume studies the logic of community formation and the common view of the past to show how various social bonds of communities functioned during the modern national era of East-Central Europe from the late eighteenth century until today and how multifaceted this group-building really was. Through an overview of selected examples of communities in East-Central European urban centres, mainly the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its successor empires, the volume shows the potential of re-interpretation or adaptation of the past as a crucial tool for assuring social cohesion and for strengthening the image of group boundaries. It studies not only textual sources but also the cultural construction of local historical writings such as oral tradition and municipal publications, as well as symbolic objects such as epitaphs, plaques, monuments and public edifices. The contributors explore the actual creativity employed by these communities to envision their past and their future in homage to the ideals of centralised nationalism or regionalism and how these strongly ethnically marked historic spaces can be interpreted, celebrated or neglected. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of regional urban history and cultural diversities, memory cultures and community formation.

This book explores Eastern European consumer cultures in the twentieth century, taking a comparative perspective and conceptualizing the peculiarities of consumption in the region. Contributions cover lifestyles and marketing strategies in imperial contexts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; urban consumer cultures in the Interwar Period; and consumer and advertising cultures in the Soviet Union and its satellite republics. It traces the development of marketing throughout the century, and the changes in society brought about by democratization and the 'Americanization' of consumption. Taken together, the essays gathered here make a valuable contribution to our understanding of consumption and advertising in the region.

In 1972, Italo Calvino published Invisible Cities, a literary book that masterfully combines philosophy and poetry, rigid structure and free play, theoretical insight and glittering prose. The text is an extended meditation on urban life, and it continues to resonate not only among literary scholars, but among social scientists, architects, and urban planners as well. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Invisible Cities, this collection of essays serves as both an appreciation and a critical engagement. Drawing from a wide array of disciplinary perspectives and geographical contexts, this volume grapples with the theoretical, pedagogical, and political legacies of Calvino’s work. Each chapter approaches Invisible Cities not only as a novel but as a work of evocative ethnography, place-writing, and urban theory. Fifty years on, what can Calvino’s dreamlike text offer to scholars and practitioners interested in actually existing urban life?

More than 30 years after its birth, the Schengen area of free movement is under siege in Europe: new barriers are being erected along land borders, military assets are increasingly deployed to patrol the Mediterranean, while sophisticated surveillance tools are used to keep track of the flows of people crossing into European space. Bringing together perspectives from political geography, critical criminology and legal theory, Policing Mobility Regimes offers a systematic analysis of the impact that Frontex is having on migration control strategies at the EU level and offers a detailed empirical description of the agency’s organization and operational activities. In addition, this book explores the meaning behind the attempt at developing a post-national border control strategy and what effect this might have on the geopolitics of Europe’s borders. It contributes to the wider theoretical debate on the relationships among migration, security and the transformation of borders in contemporary Europe. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to all those engaged with criminology, sociology, geography, politics and law as well as all those interested in learning about Europe’s changing borders.

This book engages the intense relationship between citizenship and security in modern politics. It focuses on questions of citizenship in security analysis in order to critically evaluate how political being is and can be constituted in relation to securitising practices. In light of contemporary issues and events such as human rights regimes, terrorism, identity control, commercialisation of security, diaspora, and border policies, this book addresses a citizenship deficit in security studies. The chapters introduce several key political themes that characterise the interplays between citizenship and security: changes in citizenship regimes, the renewed insecurity of citizenship-state relations, the emerging ways by which the political and national communities are crafted, and the ways democratic societies and regimes react in times of insecurity. Approaching citizenship as both a governmental practice and a resource of political contestation, the book aims to highlight what political challenges and contestations are created in situations where security intensely meets citizenship today. This book will be of interest to scholars of security studies and security politics, citizenship studies, and international relations.

This book provides a pre-history of Russia's war on Ukraine and Europe’s relations to it, illuminating the deep roots of the EU’s neighbourhood crisis as well as the migration crises the Union created in the last decade. To do so, the book employs a new and innovative framework that allows for a comprehensive, yet nuanced analysis of borders and a more cogent interpretation of their socio-political consequences. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship the book analytically examines the key common elements of borderscapes and links them in related arrays to allow for nuanced evaluation of both their particular and cumulative effects, as well as interpretation of their overall consequences, particularly for issues of identities and orders. The book offers a significant conceptual and theoretical advance, providing a transferable conceptualization of borderscapes to guide research, analysis, and interpretation. Drawing on the author’s experience in policy, practice and academia, it also makes a methodological contribution by pushing the boundaries of reflexivity in interpretive International Relations (IR) research. Analyzing three main sites in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the book challenges conventional critical wisdom on EU bordering in the Schengen zone, at its external frontiers, and in its Eastern neighborhood. In so doing, it sheds new light on the politics of post-communist transitions as well as the contemporary politics of CEE. It also shows how EU bordering and its relations to identities and orders created great benefits for many Europeans, but also hindered the lives of many others and became self-defeating. This book is a must-read for scholars, students, and policy-makers, interested in a better understanding of Critical Border Studies (CBS) in particular, and International Relations in general. It will also appeal to anyone interested in CEE or wishing to get a deeper understanding of Russia’s war and the fight for Europe’s future.