Fit for purpose? Fitting ontological security studies ‘into’ the discipline of International Relations: Towards a vernacular turn

Date01 March 2017
Published date01 March 2017
DOI10.1177/0010836716653159
Subject MatterArticles
Cooperation and Conflict
2017, Vol. 52(1) 12 –30
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836716653159
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Fit for purpose? Fitting
ontological security studies
‘into’ the discipline of
International Relations:
Towards a vernacular turn
Stuart Croft and Nick Vaughan-Williams
Abstract
The performance of International Relations (IR) scholarship – as in all scholarship – acts to close
and police the boundaries of the discipline in ways that reflect power–knowledge relations. This
has led to the development of two strands of work in ontological security studies in IR, which
divide on questions of ontological choice and the nature of the deployment of the concept of
dread. Neither strand is intellectually superior to the other and both are internally heterogeneous.
That there are two strands, however, is the product of the performance of IR scholarship, and the
two strands themselves perform distinct roles. One allows ontological security studies to engage
with the ‘mainstream’ in IR; the other allows ‘international’ elements of ontological security to
engage with the social sciences more generally. Ironically, both can be read as symptoms of the
discipline’s issues with its own ontological (in)security. We reflect on these intellectual dynamics
and their implications and prompt a new departure by connecting ontological security studies
in IR with the emerging interdisciplinary fields of the ‘vernacular’ and ‘everyday’ via the mutual
interest in biographical narratives of the self and the work that they do politically.
Keywords
Dread, everyday security, International Relations, ontological security, vernacular security
Introduction
For many decades now, scholars in the discipline of International Relations (IR), and
beyond, have struggled to create and sustain boundaries around the meaning of the con-
cept of ‘security’ (Baldwin, 1997; Huysmans, 1998; Wolfers, 1952). One of the latest
such incarnations of this struggle has been around the theory and application of
ontological security, its meaning, role and added value. Scholars legitimately ask, How
Corresponding author:
Nick Vaughan-Williams, The University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
Email: N.Vaughan-Williams@Warwick.ac.uk
653159CAC0010.1177/0010836716653159Cooperation and ConflictCroft and Vaughan-Williams
research-article2016
Article
Croft and Vaughan-Williams 13
should ontological security studies be developed within IR? Indeed, should such studies
be developed at all, or should they be kept in a position ‘outside’ the legitimate space of
IR, confined to other parts of the social sciences, in order to keep the discipline more
focussed? These are key and live debates, and ones that we aim to explore and push fur-
ther with reference to several new points of departure in this article.
We argue that there is a particular character to the performance of IR scholarship (of
course, there is a particular character to all epistemic entities), one that acts to close and
police the boundaries of the discipline in ways that reflect dominant power–knowledge
relations. This closure and policing of boundaries has led to the development of what we
identify as two strands of work in ontological security studies in IR, which divide on the
questions of ontological choice and the deployment of the concept of dread. Neither
strand is intellectually superior and both contain notable differences internal to them-
selves.1 That it is possible to identify these two strands, however, is the product of the
performance of IR scholarship, and the two strands themselves perform two distinct
roles. One allows ontological security studies to engage with the ‘mainstream’ in IR; the
other allows the ‘international’ elements of ontological security to be engaged with other
parts of the social sciences. Ironically, both can be read as symptoms of the way in which
the discipline continues to be structured by issues pertaining to its own ontological (in)
security as a field of inquiry, which is a key theme of our discussion.
In order to develop this argument and open up space for future research programmes
in ontological security studies beyond the limits of the current disciplinary debate, the
article works through four sections: the first seeks to illustrate the primary ways in which
the concept of ontological security has been understood in IR with reference to paradig-
matic authors associated with the approach (notably Huysmans, 1998; Kinnvall, 2006;
Mitzen, 2006; Steele, 2005, 2008, Zarakol, 2010); the second and third sections develop
the theme of there being two distinct strands of scholarship in ontological security stud-
ies divided across ontological choices and the centrality of dread (drawing, in particular,
on the work of Steele, 2005, 2008). We reflect on these intellectual dynamics and their
limitations and implications in the fourth section; here we open up the possibility of a
connection between ontological security studies in IR and the emerging interdisciplinary
fields of ‘vernacular’ and ‘everyday’ security studies – via the mutual interest in bio-
graphical narratives of the self and the work that they do politically – to the collective
benefit of these areas of research.
International Relations and the reconstitution of
ontological security
As the millennium approached, there was considerable debate about the nature of IR as
an academic discipline. Of course, much was tied up in the debate between the ‘isms’, as
complex and rival epistemologies were reduced to three key pillars: realism, liberalism
and constructivism. The discipline was subject to review and prognosis, along with many
other aspects of social life. Ole Waever (1998) had famously pointed to the American
nature of much of the scholarship in IR. Steve Smith (2000: 375) wrote that ‘… positiv-
ism dominates, especially in the United States, and dominates to such an extent that other
epistemological positions remain peripheral.’ He went on:

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