International Relations

C16(b) - Security Studies

Date: Jun 14 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location: McGill College 2001 735

Chair/Président/Présidente : Philippe Awono Eyebe (Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Mark Salter (University of Ottawa)

Prerogative, statute, and national security discretion in Westminster states: Philippe Lagassé (Carleton University)
Abstract: This paper examines patterns of executive discretion for national security in Westminster states. Until the end of the Cold War, Westminster governments relied on the royal prerogative --powers the Crown possesses in its own right at common law-- as their primary source of discretionary authority for national security. In recent decades, parliamentary statute has gradually displaced the prerogative for national security matters in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Based on legal literature and the historic relationship between prerogative and statute, it might be assumed that this displacement would lead to narrower executive discretion and greater parliamentary control. This paper challenges this assumption. While statutory displacements have led to increased judicial oversight of national security decisions, statute has tended to expand executive discretion in national security, rather than constrain it. The royal prerogative, in effect, has been replaced by 'statutory prerogatives' that grant the executive wider and deeper discretion. The paper thus concludes that statutory displacements of the prerogative can empower as much as constrain, and that increased legislative activity in the area of national security has become an enabler of executive discretion in Westminster states.

Comparing Arctic Security Public Opinion: Climate Change, Great Power Competition, and the Future of Arctic Cooperation: Wilfrid Greaves (University of Victoria)
Abstract: Experts have widely debated the changing nature of in/security in the Arctic, but cross-national and sub-regional variations in Arctic security public opinion are significantly under-studied. This includes basic questions such as: How do national Arctic publics perceive security threats in and to the region? How does Arctic security public opinion vary across time and sub-regional groupings within the Arctic? What do patterns of security public opinion suggest for the future of Arctic politics? To answer these, this article presents a dataset and analysis of security public opinion in the eight Arctic states between 2007-2023. Based on these data, we make four primary claims about Arctic security: 1. Climate change is seen as the most pressing security concern in the region; 2. Russia is widely seen as a threat by people in the other Arctic states; 3. China is not seen as a major threat by most Arctic publics or as central to Arctic security; 4. The Arctic is better analyzed as distinct sub-regions rather than as a single security region.

From Feminist Foreign Policy to Feminist National Security: Veronica Kitchen (University of Waterloo), Tetyana Narozhna (University of Winnipeg)
Abstract: How do feminist foreign policies conceptualize security? What might a feminist national security policy look like? In both academic and policy circles, the conversations about advancing a feminist foreign policy continue. In September 2023, the “Feminist Foreign Policy +” group released a statement as part of the UN General Assembly, affirming a commitment to “feminist, intersectional and gender-transformative approaches to our foreign policies, based on mainstreaming gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in all their diversity.” In this paper, we compare how various countries who have self-declared as having feminist foreign policies have conceptualized security in their official statements on feminist foreign policy. Further, we compare their official national security policies to see whether (and how) a gendered focus has permeated this aspect of feminist foreign policy. Where are the gendered silences? What power dynamics do they uphold? How do the militarization and securitization of gender play out in these documents?

Clinging to The Past: Evaluating the relevance of the Security Dilemma in the 21st Century: Mohamed Elgayar (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: The security dilemma for all its claims as a causal relationship of state behaviour fails in explaining post-Cold War politics. It tells a realist tale of states being locked into a vicious cycle that ends only in war – a theory that is both vague and reductionist in its explanation of any causal relationship (Mitchell, 2019; Visser & Duyvesteyn, 2014). This paper will evaluate the literature on the security dilemma arguing that its relevance fell with the Berlin Wall in 1989. Proponents of realist theory have sought to address the limitations of the security dilemma's explanatory power by positing the mitigating influence of geographical features such as substantial bodies of water (Mearsheimer, 2003). While this assertion may appear contentious on its surface, it warrants examination within the context of international conflict dynamics. This paper will evaluate 2 states in proximity that have a history of violence – Egypt and Israel – to control for this realist assumption. The purpose of this research is to re-evaluate the security dilemma as an analytical tool of conflict and state behaviour. The paper shall examine the case of Egypt and Israel, situating it within both historical and contemporary contexts of the realist perspective. It will then apply both security dilemma frameworks to the case study, arguing the framework’s failures at explaining and predicting state behavior.

The Manhattan Project and the birth of transactional secrecy: William Walters (Carleton University)
Abstract: The Manhattan Project saw the invention of new forms of secrecy including the ‘born secret’ and the ‘need to know’ organization of security work. Less noted, until recent work by historians of nuclear secrecy (eg, Wellerstein), is that it also saw the invention of a procedure of ‘declassification’, a term coined by some of its leading scientists. Drawing on declassified archives from the Manhattan Project, this paper examines this early history of declassification policy and asks what role it played in forging a post-WWII framework for governing national security secrets. The paper pays special attention to mechanisms by which non-state actors – mostly large corporations but also scientists – were accorded space to make requests for the declassification and public release of particular records. Can we see in this event the prehistory of the policy that would by the 1960s become institutionalized as ‘freedom of information’? More significantly, can we see in this arrangement a new kind of secrecy: a transactional secrecy in which state secrecy is partially reorganized in terms of a contact zone between the state and civil society, a zone where the secret is no longer permanent or certain but an object to be routinely subjected to tests, challenges, and requests; a zone where secrecy becomes formally institutionalized as ‘a play between actors’ (de Certeau)? By developing a concept of transactional secrecy the paper will offer a new way to theorize freedom of information, hitherto a practice largely interpreted only from the angle of openness and transparency.