Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory: Chapter 6

Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory

Richard Wyn Jones

1999

6. Emancipation: Reconceptualizing Practice

The relationship between theory and practice is a central concern for critical theorists. Epistemologically, it is the orientation toward emancipatory practice that gives the critical theory tradition its distinctiveness. All critical theorists from Horkheimer to Habermas take seriously Marx’s deceptively simple injunction that “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (Marx 1976b: 5). Logically, they are also committed to Fraser’s injunction that “it is in the crucible of political practice that critical theories meet the ultimate test of vitality” (Fraser 1989: 2).

But despite this orientation toward practice, there have been no particularly convincing answers by the members of the Frankfurt tradition of critical theory to the question of how their theorizing can become a force for change in contemporary society. As outlined in Chapters 1 and 2, their experience of the rise of totalitarianism in both East and West, leavened no doubt by a certain elitist disdain for ordinary people, led Horkheimer and Adorno to despair at the possibility of having any positive influence on the world. The role that they posited for critical theorists was to bear witness to the “truth,” which Horkheimer argued had “sought refuge among them” (Horkheimer 1972: 237–238), against all the prevailing tendencies in the world. Both critical theorists saw themselves, in the words of the main ceremonials at the National Eisteddfod in Wales, as upholding “the truth against the world.” The critical theory of the 1930s and 1940s was a declaration of faith in the possibility of a better world—in the possibility of humanity triumphing over inhumanity, civilization over barbarity—despite the surrounding evidence of hatred, intolerance, and suffering. Understandably, perhaps, this became the end in itself.

Adorno viewed critical theory as a message in a bottle to be cast on the waters of history with the hope, but certainly not the guarantee, that it might be picked up at some point in the future by persons unknown. Even if this were to happen, Adorno did not expect his theory to influence practice. Rather, his hope was, in the words of Edward Said, “not that he will have an effect on the world, but that someday, somewhere, someone will read what he wrote exactly as he wrote it” (Said 1994: 42).

Given Habermas’s belief in the power of dialogue and argumentation, a belief upheld not only in his theoretical work but also in his willingness to intervene in so many debates in Germany’s public sphere, it is clear that he has more ambitious expectations for his work than his former tutor admitted for his own. Nevertheless, as I discussed in Chapter 3, Habermas’s own account of the relationship between theory and practice is less than compelling. Specifically, he has yet to give an adequate account of the particular role that intellectuals play both in the legitimization of the prevailing order and in the conceptualization and articulation of alternative possibilities. Furthermore, his account of politics is too consensual. As a result, Habermas does not seem to grasp—or at least grasp the implications of—the way that politics (including emancipatory politics) revolves around the interplay of interests and ideas.

If this analysis of the conceptualization of the theory–practice nexus in the work of critical theorists is correct, then it is clear that this aspect of their work can be of little relevance to proponents of critical security studies. And yet these proponents are faced with the issue of the nature of the relationship between critical theory and emancipatory politics in a particularly acute way. The provision of national security is still the primary raison d’être of the sovereign state, and as such, it remains the state’s most jealously guarded preserve. As a result, any attempt to create an alternative discourse in the field of security—and in particular any attempt to problematize the role of the state as the provider of security—is likely to be strongly resisted. This resistance was clearly seen in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s when the state made determined efforts to combat the peace movement and marginalize those who were perceived as its supporters in academia. Witness, for example, the Thatcher–inspired demonization of peace studies at the University of Bradford, an unedifying but instructive episode that has been discussed by the former head of the department, James O’Connell (The Guardian, October 16, 1993; The Times, October 25, 1993).

Two further problems arise from the mutual implication of traditional security discourse and statism. First, as Simon Dalby points out, security as it is traditionally conceived “is inherently politically conservative precisely because it emphasizes permanence, control, and predictability” (Dalby 1992: 98). This means that any alternative account that arises from within the discipline (or, more correctly, subdiscipline) must challenge disciplinary norms—its common sense—in a most profound way. As Carol Cohn illustrates, even the language of traditional security studies militates against any attempt to present alternative accounts of reality or alternative possibilities for the future (Cohn 1987).

Voices from beyond the discipline’s boundaries are even further disadvantaged because they lack the basic legitimacy required in the contemporary culture of experts. This point is underlined by the disproportionate impact made by the numerous “conversions on retirement” undergone by those previously prominent in the security field (among the strategic confessionals to make an impact in the 1980s were Carver 1982; Bundy et al. 1982; Generals for Peace and Disarmament 1984; McNamara 1986; for a more recent manifestation of this phenomena in the context of demands for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, see Sauer [forthcoming]). When those people who have had, for example, a role in the development, deployment, or justification of nuclear weapons subsequently declare themselves to be dissatisfied with their efficacy or morality, these declarations are given far greater weight than the arguments of so–called nonexperts even when the substance of those arguments are identical.

The innate conservatism of traditional security discourse is further reinforced by the way in which so many intellectuals (journalists and academics) active in the security field have been co–opted by the security establishments in many states (a standard study is Horowitz 1963). Such is the extent of the ties between security intellectuals and the security sector of both governments and the economy that it may be valid to posit the existence of what has been called the “military–industrial–academic complex.” Even if this characterization is exaggerated, there is considerable prima facie evidence to suggest that many benefits accrue to those who refrain from rocking the boat. Conversely, those who insist on challenging the hegemonic ideas not only have to contend with a very deeply entrenched orthodoxy but are also unlikely to share some of the material and professional benefits enjoyed by their less radical colleagues (see, for example, Booth 1997a: 96–97).

In the face of such pressures, the scope for academic critical security studies to play a role in emancipatory political practice is particularly problematic. In this chapter I will explore this issue and conceptualize a possible orientation toward practice for critical security studies. I will develop the argument by first reconstructing the attitudes toward the theory–practice nexus that have prevailed in international relations, paying particular attention to traditional security studies. I will follow this with a brief account of the ways in which proponents of critical international theory have thought about the theory–practice nexus.

As an alternative to the deeply conservative implications of the traditional security studies approach and the inadequacy of the critical international theory account, I then outline a conceptualization of the theory–practice relationship, based on the ideas of Antonio Gramsci. Specifically, I argue that Gramsci’s revolutionary strategy of a “war of position” provides important insights into the role of theory in supporting progressive social change. However, Gramsci’s faith in the revolutionary potential of the working class and the guiding role of the “modern prince”—the Communist Party—is rejected as not only anachronistic but fundamentally misplaced. I argue that the experience of the so–called new or critical social movements suggests possible agents for change and thus addressees for critical security studies.

International Relations Theory and the Practices of Global Politics

International relations specialists on the whole have been remarkably unreflective on the relationship between their work—their theories—and political practice. Indeed, the literature on the issue is strikingly sparse, especially given the proliferation of studies on a myriad of other, arguably less central topics (among the main studies are Tanter and Ullman 1972; Bell 1982; A. J. R. Groom 1984; Hill and Beshoff 1994; Girard, Eberwein, and Webb 1994; Wallace 1996; Smith 1997; Booth 1997b). Furthermore, it is fair to say that none of these works are considered classics in the field. Considerations of the theory–practice nexus in international relations are distinguished by neither quality nor quantity. Even a cursory survey of the discipline’s relatively short history reveals that a number of very different attitudes to the relationship between theory and practice have been adopted by the various approaches that have characterized the subject.

During the pioneer years of the 1920s and 1930s, the fledgling discipline reflected its origins in Welsh liberal internationalism and peace activism by concerning itself explicitly with political practice (Jones 1969 provides a flavor of the activism of which the foundation of the world’s first chair in international relations at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, formed only a part). Indeed, it is clear that David Davies, who endowed the first chair, hoped that the discipline would become the academic arm of the League of Nations, providing the world body with both intellectual support and practical advice. In effect, he regarded theory and practice as inextricably linked, with the whole point of the former being to inform and improve the latter (Porter 1989).

After World War II, as the center of gravity of the discipline shifted across the Atlantic to the United States, the ruling realist orthodoxy in international relations gradually adopted an explicitly positivist approach to the subject that has attempted to disentangle theory from practice by claiming to distinguish sharply between questions of fact and value (on international relations as a U.S.–dominated discipline, see S. Hoffman 1977; Krippendorf 1987). In paradigmatically traditional theory fashion, questions of fact are viewed as those that pertain to the nature of political reality and are regarded as the only valid subject for scientific enquiry. Furthermore, the knowledge accrued through such study has been claimed to be value–neutral, that is, containing no implicit worldview or, indeed, policy prescriptions. Policy prescription has always been relegated to the realm of value and thus seen as falling beyond the purview of objective social theory. Although theorists may have their own views regarding correct or desirable political practice, the dominant forms of realism—currently neorealism—have tended to disregard these views as mere reflections of subjective personal opinion that may well be theoretically informed but are extrinsic to the theoretical activity itself.

Of course, proponents of positivist international relations theory have almost invariably provided a willing ear to what Christopher Hill refers to as “the siren call of policy relevance” and have thus often pursued research agendas that reflect the preoccupations of policymakers (Hill 1994: 16–19). The point is that this concern with policy—with political practice—has been seen by postwar realists as an optional extra. Furthermore, when these scholars have attempted to try to feed their ideas into the political process, they have limited themselves almost exclusively to addressing policymakers and elite opinion formers. The aim has been to gain the ear of the powerful rather than engage with those who are presently powerless (the exchange between Wallace [1996] and Booth [1997b] is instructive).

The quest for influence has met with varying degrees of success, reflecting the differing political cultures of the states where academic international relations has developed. In the United States, for example, there has been a close, symbiotic relationship between academia and government. In contrast, in the United Kingdom it is usually argued that relations have remained more distant. However, appearances, in the British case at least, may be deceptive. Commenting on the apparent lack of contact between academics and what he terms “practitioners,” A. J. R. Groom claims that

little communication between them was necessary since their paradigmatic unity [by which he means allegiance to the realist model of power politics] was so strong that they could go their separate ways safe in the knowledge that their work was compatible. (Groom 1984: 194)

From this comment we can infer that, in the main, British international relations specialists—in effect, if not always in intention—have provided “objective” academic support and justification for the main thrust of British foreign policy.

Groom’s argument resonates with the critical theory critique of traditional theory, which charges that the distinction between fact and value, and between “is” and “ought,” is spurious, that “all theory is for someone and for some purpose” (R. Cox 1981: 128). From this perspective, whatever the aims of its proponents, far from providing an objective view of political reality, the effect of mainstream realist tradition in international relations theory has been to aid in the production, reproduction, and legitimation of global realpolitik.

Considering the somewhat mealy–mouthed attitude of so much international relations literature, it is refreshing to see a more candid attitude among some of those working within traditional security studies. Whereas John Garnett claims to be pursuing the grail of “academic objectivity” (Garnett 1987a: 22–23), Edward N. Luttwak is quite willing to abandon all such pretense. For Luttwak “strategy is not a neutral pursuit and its only purpose is to strengthen one’s own side in the contention of nations” (Luttwak 1985: xiii). Luttwak, however, still upholds the distinction between fact and value. He still wishes to gather facts as objectively as possible; the point at issue is to what ends this information should be applied. Whereas Garnett, betraying an uncertain grasp of the history of Western thought, claims that “strategic analysis, like philosophy, leaves the world as it is” (Garnett 1987a: 13), Luttwak makes no apology for wanting his analysis “to strengthen one’s own side.” So, although the distinction between both positions is interesting, it does not significantly affect the contents of their analyses.

The saving grace for Luttwak’s position is its honesty. Other proponents of traditional security studies have been more than willing to undertake consultancy or recruitment work for defense ministries, to supervise theses that depend on secret documentation with all the attendant restrictions on access and so on, to accept generous remuneration for attending supervised propaganda (“information”) visits to military establishments and still claim that their work has been unaffected by such activities. Luttwak at least has the integrity to proudly embrace the logic and implications of his structural position. His work is a frank, unashamed, and, above all, credible account of the relationship between the more orthodox approaches to the study of international relations and the practice of global politics. The problem from a critical theory perspective is that Luttwak’s aim is not to encourage emancipation, at least in any sense that critical theorists can accept. Rather, his aim is to strengthen the prevailing order, or at least one element of it—his own side’s power. In other words, he is explicit about wanting to do what his less forthright colleagues actually do behind a veil of spurious “Victorian” strategic respectability.

Critical International Theory and Emancipatory Politics

Because emancipatory political practice is central to the claims of critical theory, one might expect that proponents of a critical approach to the study of international relations would be reflexive about the relationship between theory and practice. Yet their thinking on this issue thus far does not seem to have progressed much beyond grandiose statements of intent. There have been no systematic considerations of how critical international theory can help generate, support, or sustain emancipatory politics beyond the seminar room or conference hotel.

Robert Cox, for example, has described the task of critical theorists as providing “a guide to strategic action for bringing about an alternative order” (R. Cox 1981: 130). Although he has also gone on to identify possible agents for change and has outlined the nature and structure of some feasible alternative orders, he has not explicitly indicated whom he regards as the addressee of critical theory (i.e., who is being guided) and thus how the theory can hope to become a part of the political process (see R. Cox 1981, 1983, 1996).

Similarly, Andrew Linklater has argued that “a critical theory of international relations must regard the practical project of extending community beyond the nation–state as its most important problem” (Linklater 1990b: 171). However, he has little to say about the role of theory in the realization of this “practical project.” Indeed, his main point is to suggest that the role of critical theory “is not to offer instructions on how to act but to reveal the existence of unrealised possibilities” (Linklater 1990b: 172). But the question still remains, reveal to whom? Is the audience enlightened politicians? Particular social classes? Particular social movements? Or particular (and presumably particularized) communities? In light of Linklater’s primary concern with emancipation, one might expect more guidance as to whom he believes might do the emancipating and how critical theory can impinge upon the emancipatory process.

There is, likewise, little enlightenment to be gleaned from Mark Hoffman’s otherwise important contribution. He argues that critical international theory

seeks not simply to reproduce society via description, but to understand society and change it. It is both descriptive and constructive in its theoretical intent: it is both an intellectual and a social act. It is not merely an expression of the concrete realities of the historical situation, but also a force for change within those conditions. (M. Hoffman 1987: 233)

Despite this very ambitious declaration, once again, Hoffman gives no suggestion as to how this “force for change” should be operationalized and what concrete role critical theorizing might play in changing society.

Thus, although the critical international theorists’ critique of the role that more conventional approaches to the study of world politics play in reproducing the contemporary world order may be persuasive, their account of the relationship between their own work and emancipatory political practice is unconvincing. Given the centrality of practice to the claims of critical theory, this is a very significant weakness. Without some plausible account of the mechanisms by which they hope to aid in the achievement of their emancipatory goals, proponents of critical international theory are hardly in a position to justify the assertion that “it represents the next stage in the development of International Relations theory” (M. Hoffman 1987: 244). Indeed, without a more convincing conceptualization of the theory–practice nexus, one can argue that critical international theory, by its own terms, has no way of redeeming some of its central epistemological and methodological claims and thus that it is a fatally flawed enterprise.

The provision of such an account is therefore necessary for all critical theorists working on the study of world politics, including, of course, those engaged in the development of critical security studies. However, it is a task made more difficult not only by the unconvincing accounts of the theory–practice nexus offered by the leading lights in the Frankfurt School tradition but also by the breadth of the issues raised when the theory–practice question is broached. To trace the relationship between theory and practice is to address the nature and social role of intellectuals and intellectual activity. It is also to question the role that intellectuals play in supporting and promoting social change. In turn, this raises the thorny issue of the audience to which critical intellectuals are addressing their ideas. Ultimately, of course, all of this leads inexorably to one of the central, perennial issues of social theory: the relationship between agents and structures.

Although recent discussions of the agent–structure debate in international relations have tended to concentrate on the perhaps rarefied issues of “levels of analysis” and ontology, any discussion of the social role of critical theory also has to consider the problematic relationship between agents and structure at the micro level of academic life. Quite simply, how are critical theorists working within the university system to pursue what must inevitably be their twin goals of academic respectability and political relevance? How much autonomy does the agent—in this case the critical theorist—enjoy within the often hostile structures of Western academe? Can the chasm ever be bridged between, on the one hand, the ghettoizing nature of academic language itself, as well as the professional constraints created by tenure requirements, research selectivity exercises, and the like, and, on the other hand, the desire to make critical theorizing accessible and relevant to particular political struggles? Jürgen Habermas frames these issues well when he ruefully wonders

how theories that have wrapped themselves up in their own problems, and have retreated so far into the scientific system under the pull of the social division of labor—how such autistic undertakings are at all able to place themselves in relation to praxis and to develop a force for the direction of action. (Habermas 1994: 116)

How much more pertinent are these questions to the area of security studies, where the pressures for conformism are so much greater than in other fields of social study?

In the remainder of this chapter, I will attempt to conceptualize how critical security studies can orient toward political practice in a manner that encourages and supports emancipatory transformation. However, as should by now be apparent, the relevance of this reconceptualization of the theory–practice nexus is not confined to critical security studies. Rather, if it is persuasive, then it has important implications for the whole enterprise of critical international theory.

Gramsci on the Role of Intellectuals

Critical international theory has drawn on two main intellectual strands. Writers like Robert Cox and Stephen Gill have been heavily influenced by the work of Antonio Gramsci in their attempt to develop critical approaches to international political economy (see Gill 1993). Other theorists, most notably Linklater and Mark Hoffman, have drawn on the Frankfurt School tradition. Although there are many broad similarities between the thinking of Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, there are also important differences (Renate Holub 1992: 3–30). One difference relates to the role of intellectuals.

Of all the thinkers in the Western Marxist tradition, Gramsci devoted perhaps the most thought to the role of intellectuals and ideas in general in society. This is hardly surprising given his consistent focus on eschewing the abstract in order to concentrate on the concrete, that is, on theorizing with a practical and revolutionary intent. In his Prison Notebooks, he referred to his reading of Marxism as “the philosophy of praxis” (Gramsci 1971). Many scholars claim that this was done in order to confuse the prison censors. If this is true, then, as Robert Cox points out, the censors “must have been particularly slow–witted” (R. Cox 1983: 175ff.). The English translators of the Notebooks provide a more plausible explanation in their introduction:

“Philosophy of praxis” is both a euphemism for Marxism and an autonomous term used by Gramsci to define what he saw to be the central characteristic of the philosophy of Marxism, the inescapable link it establishes between theory and practice, thought and action. (Gramsci 1971: xiii)

It is in this light that Gramsci developed his theorizing on the role of intellectuals.

As is almost invariably the case with Gramsci, his theory of intellectuals and the role of intellectual activity is presented in a series of fragmentary notes scattered throughout the Prison Notebooks (particularly relevant is Gramsci 1971: 5–23, 323–377). Obviously, Gramsci can hardly be blamed for their fragmentary nature, considering the appalling privations he was forced to endure during their writing (Fiori 1990: 220–291). However, his theory has to be reconstructed from these fragments, and they are not without their contradictions. What follows is, I believe, a plausible and coherent reading.

Gramsci’s first move is to broaden the concept of intellectuals by arguing that “all men are intellectuals... but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals” (Gramsci 1971: 9). He argues that those with the social function of intellectuals fall into two groups. One group he refers to as “traditional intellectuals.” This concept represents the way in which most intellectuals view their own role in society. Traditional intellectuals, according to their self–image, have a relatively autonomous social role that lifts them above the class cleavages of society to the Mannheimian realm of universal, “free–floating” thinkers (Mannheim 1976: 137–143). For Gramsci, this independence is a chimera. He ultimately regards traditional intellectuals as playing a vital, if subconscious, role in producing and reproducing the hegemony that provides an indispensable buttress to the prevailing patterns of domination within society. Here the parallels with Horkheimer’s critique of the role of traditional theory are clear and striking.

Gramsci contrasts traditional intellectuals with “organic intellectuals.” Organic intellectuals play a crucial and far more self–conscious role in articulating and organizing the interests and aspirations of a particular social class. Each class has its own organic intellectuals—although the intellectuals of the ruling strata often see themselves in a different, traditional light. This point may be illustrated by referring to two proponents of traditional security studies. In Gramsci’s terminology, John Garnett is a traditional intellectual and Edward Luttwak is an organic intellectual. Both in effect support the status quo, but Luttwak does this self–consciously and explicitly.

Gramsci points out that in contrast to that of the ruling class, the structural position of the working class means that it has fewer intellectual resources at its disposal. He therefore stresses the need for that class to develop its own organic intellectuals and argues that they have a crucial role to play in advancing proletarian and thus for him human emancipation. Discussing their role, Gramsci argues:

The mode of being of the new intellectuals can no longer consist in eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, “permanent persuader” and not just a simple orator. (Gramsci 1971: 10)

The central political task of the intellectuals is to aid in the construction of a counterhegemony and thus undermine the prevailing patterns of discourse and interaction that make up the currently dominant hegemony. This task is accomplished through educational activity, because, as Gramsci argues, “every relationship of ‘hegemony’ is necessarily a pedagogic relationship” (Gramsci 1971: 350).

Discussing the relationship of the “philosophy of praxis” to political practice, Gramsci claims:

It [the theory] does not tend to leave the “simple” in their primitive philosophy of common sense, but rather to lead them to a higher conception of life. If it affirms the need for contact between intellectuals and “simple” it is not in order to restrict scientific activity and preserve unity at the low level of the masses, but precisely in order to construct an intellectual–moral bloc which can make politically possible the intellectual progress of the mass and not only of small intellectual groups. (Gramsci 1971: 332–333)

According to Gramsci, this attempt to construct an alternative “intellectual–moral bloc” should take place under the auspices of the Communist Party—a body he described as the “modern prince.” Just as Niccolò Machiavelli hoped to see a prince unite Italy, rid the country of foreign barbarians, and create a virtù–ous state, Gramsci believed that the modern prince could lead the working class on its journey toward its revolutionary destiny of an emancipated society (Gramsci 1971: 125–205).

Gramsci’s relative optimism about the possibility of progressive theorists playing a constructive role in emancipatory political practice was predicated on his belief in the existence of a universal class (a class whose emancipation would inevitably presage the emancipation of humanity itself) with revolutionary potential. It was a gradual loss of faith in this axiom that led Horkheimer and Adorno to their extremely pessimistic prognosis about the possibilities of progressive social change. But does a loss of faith in the revolutionary vocation of the proletariat necessarily lead to the kind of quietism ultimately embraced by the first generation of the Frankfurt School? The conflict that erupted in the 1960s between them and their more radical students suggests not. Indeed, contemporary critical theorists claim that the deprivileging of the role of the proletariat in the struggle for emancipation is actually a positive move.

Class remains a very important axis of domination in society, but it is not the only such axis (Fraser 1995). Nor is it valid to reduce all other forms of domination—for example, in the case of gender—to class relations, as orthodox Marxists tend to do. To recognize these points is not only a first step toward the development of an analysis of forms of exploitation and exclusion within society that is more attuned to social reality; it is also a realization that there are other forms of emancipatory politics than those associated with class conflict. ₁ This in turn suggests new possibilities and problems for emancipatory theory.

Furthermore, the abandonment of faith in revolutionary parties is also a positive development. The history of the European left during the twentieth century provides myriad examples of the ways in which the fetishization of party organizations has led to bureaucratic immobility and the confusion of means with ends (see, for example, Salvadori 1990). The failure of the Bolshevik experiment illustrates how disciplined, vanguard parties are an ideal vehicle for totalitarian domination (Serge 1984). Faith in the “infallible party” has obviously been the source of strength and comfort to many in this period and, as the experience of the southern Wales coalfield demonstrates, has inspired brave and progressive behavior (see, for example, the account of support for the Spanish Republic in Francis 1984). But such parties have so often been the enemies of emancipation that they should be treated with the utmost caution. Parties are necessary, but their fetishization is potentially disastrous.

History furnishes examples of progressive developments that have been positively influenced by organic intellectuals operating outside the bounds of a particular party structure (G. Williams 1984). Some of these developments have occurred in the particularly intractable realm of security. These examples may be considered as “resources of hope” for critical security studies (R. Williams 1989). They illustrate that ideas are important or, more correctly, that change is the product of the dialectical interaction of ideas and material reality.

One clear security–related example of the role of critical thinking and critical thinkers in aiding and abetting progressive social change is the experience of the peace movement of the 1980s. At that time the ideas of dissident defense intellectuals (the “alternative defense” school) encouraged and drew strength from peace activism. Together they had an effect not only on short–term policy but on the dominant discourses of strategy and security, a far more important result in the long run. The synergy between critical security intellectuals and critical social movements and the potential influence of both working in tandem can be witnessed particularly clearly in the fate of common security.

As Thomas Risse–Kappen points out, the term “common security” originated in the contribution of peace researchers to the German security debate of the 1970s (Risse–Kappen 1994: 186ff.); it was subsequently popularized by the Palme Commission report (Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues 1982). Initially, mainstream defense intellectuals dismissed the concept as hopelessly idealistic; it certainly had no place in their allegedly hardheaded and realist view of the world. However, notions of common security were taken up by a number of different intellectual communities, including the liberal arms control community in the United States, Western European peace researchers, security specialists in the center–left political parties of Western Europe, and Soviet “institutchiks”—members of the influential policy institutes in the Soviet Union such as the United States of America and Canada Institute (Landau 1996: 52–54; Risse–Kappen 1994: 196–200; Kaldor 1995; Spencer 1995).

These communities were subsequently able to take advantage of public pressure exerted through social movements in order to gain broader acceptance for common security. In Germany, for example, “in response to social movement pressure, German social organizations such as churches and trade unions quickly supported the ideas promoted by peace researchers and the SPD” (Risse–Kappen 1994: 207). Similar pressures even had an effect on the Reagan administration. As Risse–Kappen notes:

When the Reagan administration brought hard–liners into power, the US arms control community was removed from policy influence. It was the American peace movement and what became known as the “freeze campaign” that revived the arms control process together with pressure from the European allies. (Risse–Kappen 1994: 205; also Cortright 1993: 90–110)

Although it would be difficult to sustain a claim that the combination of critical movements and intellectuals persuaded the Reagan government to adopt the rhetoric and substance of common security in its entirety, it is clear that it did at least have a substantial impact on ameliorating U.S. behavior.

The most dramatic and certainly the most unexpected impact of alternative defense ideas was felt in the Soviet Union. Through various East–West links, which included arms control institutions, Pugwash conferences, interparty contacts, and even direct personal links, a coterie of Soviet policy analysts and advisers were drawn toward common security and such attendant notions as “nonoffensive defense” (these links are detailed in Evangelista 1995; Kaldor 1995; Checkel 1993; Risse–Kappen 1994; Landau 1996 and Spencer 1995 concentrate on the role of the Pugwash conferences). This group, including Palme Commission member Georgii Arbatov, Pugwash attendee Andrei Kokoshin, and Sergei Karaganov, a senior adviser who was in regular contact with the Western peace researchers Anders Boserup and Lutz Unterseher (Risse–Kappen 1994: 203), then influenced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev’s subsequent championing of common security may be attributed to several factors. It is clear, for example, that new Soviet leadership had a strong interest in alleviating tensions in East–West relations in order to facilitate much–needed domestic reforms (“the interaction of ideas and material reality”). But what is significant is that the Soviets’ commitment to common security led to significant changes in force sizes and postures. These in turn aided in the winding down of the Cold War, the end of Soviet domination over Eastern Europe, and even the collapse of Russian control over much of the territory of the former Soviet Union.

At the present time, in marked contrast to the situation in the early 1980s, common security is part of the common sense of security discourse. As MccGwire points out, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (a common defense pact) is using the rhetoric of common security in order to justify its expansion into Eastern Europe (MccGwire 1997). This points to an interesting and potentially important aspect of the impact of ideas on politics. As concepts such as common security, and collective security before it (Claude 1984: 223–260), are adopted by governments and military services, they inevitably become somewhat debased. The hope is that enough of the residual meaning can survive to shift the parameters of the debate in a potentially progressive direction. Moreover, the adoption of the concept of common security by official circles provides critics with a useful tool for (immanently) critiquing aspects of security policy (as MccGwire 1997 demonstrates in relation to NATO expansion).

The example of common security is highly instructive. First, it indicates that critical intellectuals can be politically engaged and play a role—a significant one at that—in making the world a better and safer place. Second, it points to potential future addressees for critical international theory in general, and critical security studies in particular. Third, it also underlines the role of ideas in the evolution of society.

Critical Security Studies and the Theory–Practice Nexus

Although most proponents of critical security studies reject aspects of Gramsci’s theory of organic intellectuals, in particular his exclusive concentration on class and his emphasis on the guiding role of the party, the desire for engagement and relevance must remain at the heart of their project. The example of the peace movement suggests that critical theorists can still play the role of organic intellectuals and that this organic relationship need not confine itself to a single class; it can involve alignment with different coalitions of social movements that campaign on an issue or a series of issues pertinent to the struggle for emancipation (Shaw 1994b; R. Walker 1994). Edward Said captures this broader orientation when he suggests that critical intellectuals “are always tied to and ought to remain an organic part of an ongoing experience in society: of the poor, the disadvantaged, the voiceless, the unrepresented, the powerless” (Said 1994: 84). In the specific case of critical security studies, this means placing the experience of those men and women and communities for whom the present world order is a cause of insecurity rather than security at the center of the agenda and making suffering humanity rather than raison d’état the prism through which problems are viewed. Here the project stands full–square within the critical theory tradition. If “all theory is for someone and for some purpose,” then critical security studies is for “the voiceless, the unrepresented, the powerless,” and its purpose is their emancipation.

The theoretical implications of this orientation have already been discussed in the previous chapters. They involve a fundamental reconceptualization of security with a shift in referent object and a broadening of the range of issues considered as a legitimate part of the discourse. They also involve a reconceptualization of strategy within this expanded notion of security. But the question remains at the conceptual level of how these alternative types of theorizing—even if they are self–consciously aligned to the practices of critical or new social movements, such as peace activism, the struggle for human rights, and the survival of minority cultures—can become “a force for the direction of action.”

Again, Gramsci’s work is insightful. In the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci advances a sophisticated analysis of how dominant discourses play a vital role in upholding particular political and economic orders, or, in Gramsci’s terminology, “historic blocs” (Gramsci 1971: 323–377). Gramsci adopted Machiavelli’s view of power as a centaur, half man, half beast: a mixture of consent and coercion. Consent is produced and reproduced by a ruling hegemony that holds sway through civil society and through which ruling or dominant ideas become widely dispersed. ₂ In particular, Gramsci describes how ideology becomes sedimented in society and takes on the status of common sense; it becomes subconsciously accepted and even regarded as beyond question. Obviously, for Gramsci, there is nothing immutable about the values that permeate society; they can and do change. In the social realm, ideas and institutions that were once seen as natural and beyond question (i.e., commonsensical) in the West, such as feudalism and slavery, are now seen as anachronistic, unjust, and unacceptable. In Marx’s well–worn phrase, “All that is solid melts into the air.”

Gramsci’s intention is to harness this potential for change and ensure that it moves in the direction of emancipation. To do this he suggests a strategy of a “war of position” (Gramsci 1971: 229–239). Gramsci argues that in states with developed civil societies, such as those in Western liberal democracies, any successful attempt at progressive social change requires a slow, incremental, even molecular, struggle to break down the prevailing hegemony and construct an alternative counterhegemony to take its place. Organic intellectuals have a crucial role to play in this process by helping to undermine the “natural,” “commonsense,” internalized nature of the status quo. This in turn helps create political space within which alternative conceptions of politics can be developed and new historic blocs created. I contend that Gramsci’s strategy of a war of position suggests an appropriate model for proponents of critical security studies to adopt in relating their theorizing to political practice.

The Tasks of Critical Security Studies

If the project of critical security studies is conceived in terms of a war of position, then the main task of those intellectuals who align themselves with the enterprise is to attempt to undermine the prevailing hegemonic security discourse. This may be accomplished by utilizing specialist information and expertise to engage in an immanent critique of the prevailing security regimes, that is, comparing the justifications of those regimes with actual outcomes. When this is attempted in the security field, the prevailing structures and regimes are found to fail grievously on their own terms. Such an approach also involves challenging the pronouncements of those intellectuals, traditional or organic, whose views serve to legitimate, and hence reproduce, the prevailing world order. This challenge entails teasing out the often subconscious and certainly unexamined assumptions that underlie their arguments while drawing attention to the normative viewpoints that are smuggled into mainstream thinking about security behind its positivist facade. In this sense, proponents of critical security studies approximate to Foucault’s notion of “specific intellectuals” who use their expert knowledge to challenge the prevailing “regime of truth” (Foucault 1980: 132). However, critical theorists might wish to reformulate this sentiment along more familiar Quaker lines of “speaking truth to power” (this sentiment is also central to Said 1994) or even along the eisteddfod lines of speaking “truth against the world.”

Of course, traditional strategists can, and indeed do, sometimes claim a similar role. Colin S. Gray, for example, states that “strategists must be prepared to ‘speak truth to power’” (Gray 1982a: 193). But the difference between Gray and proponents of critical security studies is that, whereas the former seeks to influence policymakers in particular directions without questioning the basis of their power, the latter aim at a thoroughgoing critique of all that traditional security studies has taken for granted. Furthermore, critical theorists base their critique on the presupposition, elegantly stated by Adorno, that “the need to lend suffering a voice is the precondition of all truth” (cited in Jameson 1990: 66). The aim of critical security studies in attempting to undermine the prevailing orthodoxy is ultimately educational. As Gramsci notes, “Every relationship of ‘hegemony’ is necessarily a pedagogic relationship” (Gramsci 1971: 350; see also the discussion of critical pedagogy in Neufeld 1995: 116–121). Thus, by criticizing the hegemonic discourse and advancing alternative conceptions of security based on different understandings of human potentialities, the approach is simultaneously playing a part in eroding the legitimacy of the ruling historic bloc and contributing to the development of a counterhegemonic position.

There are a number of avenues open to critical security specialists in pursuing this educational strategy. As teachers, they can try to foster and encourage skepticism toward accepted wisdom and open minds to other possibilities. They can also take advantage of the seemingly unquenchable thirst of the media for instant punditry to forward alternative views onto a broader stage. Nancy Fraser argues: “As teachers, we try to foster an emergent pedagogical counterculture.... As critical public intellectuals we try to inject our perspectives into whatever cultural or political public spheres we have access to” (Fraser 1989: 11).

Perhaps significantly, support for this type of emancipatory strategy can even be found in the work of the ultrapessimistic Adorno, who argues:

In the history of civilization there have been not a few instances when delusions were healed not by focused propaganda, but, in the final analysis, because scholars, with their unobtrusive yet insistent work habits, studied what lay at the root of the delusion. (cited in Kellner 1992: vii)

Such “unobtrusive yet insistent work” does not in itself create the social change to which Adorno alludes. The conceptual and the practical dangers of collapsing practice into theory must be guarded against. Rather, through their educational activities, proponents of critical security studies should aim to provide support for those social movements that promote emancipatory social change. By providing a critique of the prevailing order and legitimating alternative views, critical theorists can perform a valuable role in supporting the struggles of social movements.

That said, the role of theorists is not to direct and instruct those movements with which they are aligned; instead, the relationship is reciprocal. The experience of the European, North American, and Antipodean peace movements of the 1980s shows how influential social movements can become when their efforts are harnessed to the intellectual and educational activity of critical thinkers. For example, in his account of New Zealand’s antinuclear stance in the 1980s, Michael C. Pugh cites the importance of the visits of critical intellectuals such as Helen Caldicott and Richard Falk in changing the country’s political climate and encouraging the growth of the antinuclear movement (Pugh 1989: 108; see also Cortright 1993: 5–13). In the 1980s peace movements and critical intellectuals interested in issues of security and strategy drew strength and succor from each other’s efforts.

If such critical social movements do not exist, then this creates obvious difficulties for the critical theorist. But even under these circumstances, the theorist need not abandon all hope of an eventual orientation toward practice. Once again, the peace movement of the 1980s provides evidence of the possibilities. At that time, the movement benefited from the intellectual work undertaken in the lean years of the peace movement in the late 1970s. Some of the theories and concepts developed then, such as common security and nonoffensive defense, were eventually taken up even in the Kremlin and played a significant role in defusing the second Cold War. Those ideas developed in the 1970s can be seen in Adornian terms of a “message in a bottle,” but in this case, contra Adorno’s expectations, they were picked up and used to support a program of emancipatory political practice.

Obviously, one would be naive to understate the difficulties facing those attempting to develop alternative critical approaches within academia. Some of these problems have been alluded to already and involve the structural constraints of academic life itself. Said argues that many problems are caused by what he describes as the growing “professionalisation” of academic life (Said 1994: 49–62). Academics are now so constrained by the requirements of job security and marketability that they are extremely risk–averse. It pays—in all senses—to stick with the crowd and avoid the exposed limb by following the prevalent disciplinary preoccupations, publish in certain prescribed journals, and so on. The result is the navel gazing so prevalent in the study of international relations and the seeming inability of security specialists to deal with the changes brought about by the end of the Cold War (Kristensen 1997 highlights the search of U.S. nuclear planners for “new targets for old weapons”). And, of course, the pressures for conformism are heightened in the field of security studies when governments have a very real interest in marginalizing dissent.

Nevertheless, opportunities for critical thinking do exist, and this thinking can connect with the practices of social movements and become a “force for the direction of action.” The experience of the 1980s, when, in the depths of the second Cold War, critical thinkers risked demonization and in some countries far worse in order to challenge received wisdom, thus arguably playing a crucial role in the very survival of the human race, should act as both an inspiration and a challenge to critical security studies.

Endnotes

Note 1: This should not be read as a denial of the continuing existence or importance of class struggle. Rather I am merely suggesting that other axes of domination and subordination are also important. Nor do I deny that class conflict and other forms of domination are often mutually reinforcing. Back.

Note 2: Civil society is the network of institutions and practices within society through which “groups in society in general represent themselves—both to each other and to the state” (Shaw 1994b: 647). Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, in what remains the most illuminating discussion of the concept, relate it closely to Habermas’s notion of the “lifeworld” (Cohen and Arato 1992). Back.