Security

In its more contemporary manifestation, a wider 'security studies' is reflective of increasingly pluralistic and multifaceted relations in world politics. As such, it is now commonplace to discuss security along a spectrum of actors from the individual to the global in conjunction with a vast array of potential and actual threats. In this way, security studies seeks to illuminate how matters of danger and their alleviation give particular expression to issues as wide-ranging as, among others, migration, public health and climate change. This lies in contrast to previous, narrower strategic studies with a focus on matters of the state and the military alone. This entry begins by putting in place some of the fundamentals of strategic studies before moving on to trace its disciplinary evolution: ontologically, through the moves of 'widening' and 'deepening'; and epistemologically, from positivist to post-positive renderings of actors and (existential) threats.