Global security hierarchies after 1919
| DOI | 10.1177/0047117819840807 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Author | Andrew Phillips |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Part One: Structure and Order |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117819840807
International Relations
2019, Vol. 33(2) 195 –212
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0047117819840807
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Global security hierarchies
after 1919
Andrew Phillips
The University of Queensland
Abstract
Since 1919, world leaders have sought to uphold and advance international order by sponsoring
a succession of global security hierarchies, understood as authoritative arrangements that are
global in scope and dedicated to mitigating international security challenges. These hierarchies
have progressively broadened in the inclusivity of their security referents. Explicitly racist and
civilizational answers to the question ‘security for whom’ have given way to more cosmopolitan
visions of security hierarchy. The scope of the challenges these hierarchies have aimed to mitigate
(‘security from what’) has also broadened, alongside the intrusiveness of the measures (‘security
through which means’) licenced to manage them. The progression towards more inclusive,
ambitious and intrusive global security hierarchies has nevertheless evolved in tension with the
parallel globalization of both nationalism and the sovereign state system. These countervailing
influences – in conjunction with the recent worldwide resurgence of illiberal forces – now
threaten the prospective longevity of today’s United Nation (UN)-centric cosmopolitan global
security hierarchy.
Keywords
anarchy, global governance, hierarchy, international order, international relations, international
security
Introduction
The rise of global security hierarchies constitutes one of the most significant develop-
ments in world politics over the past century. The unprecedented carnage of total war,
and the later spectre of nuclear annihilation, has since 1919 spurred world leaders to
periodically imagine and institutionalize new forms of hierarchical security govern-
ance on a global scale. First conceived by predominantly Western Great Powers in the
Corresponding author:
Andrew Phillips, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
Email: andrew.phillips@uq.edu.au
840807IRE0010.1177/0047117819840807International RelationsPhillips
research-article2019
Article
196 International Relations 33(2)
aftermath of the First World War, global security hierarchies have historically been
closely tied to the defence and advancement of a nominally universal liberal interna-
tional order. Notwithstanding this continuity and liberal internationalism’s claims to
universality, successive global security hierarchies have nevertheless varied consider-
ably in the underlying conceptions of ‘security for whom’ informing their constitu-
tion. In particular, global security hierarchies informed by overt hierarchies of race
and civilization have progressively receded, in favour of more unequivocally cosmo-
politan alternatives. The range of challenges global security hierarchies have sought
to mitigate has likewise expanded, from a narrow focus on the prevention of inter-
state war, to encompass a plethora of both state-centric and human security threats.
Finally, global security hierarchies have become more intrusive in their authority
claims, increasingly attempting to qualify states’ sovereign autonomy in the further-
ance of cosmopolitan security goals.
An examination of global security hierarchies’ evolution provides us with a crucial
point of entry for understanding how powerful actors have conceptualized the funda-
mental questions of ‘security for whom’, ‘security from what’ and ‘security through
which means’1 at key moments in the modern international system’s development.
Accordingly, this article provides a preliminary sketch of global security hierarchies’
evolution, to tease out the lessons this evolution offers for our understanding of
International Relations’ (IR’s) first century.2 Nevertheless, my account would remain
incomplete without a recognition of the globalization of the sovereign state system
that accompanied this process and the resistance to global security hierarchies this
development has enabled. The globalization of sovereign anarchy and the nation-state
has provided actors with powerful normative and institutional resources to resist
global security hierarchies’ expanding remit.3 This pushback has been present
throughout IR’s first century. But, it has intensified following the post-Cold War
expansion of the global security agenda and the more recent worldwide resurgence of
illiberal forces. Accordingly, the last portion of my analysis takes this pushback into
account, examining emerging poles of resistance to United Nation (UN)-centric secu-
rity cosmopolitanism.
This article proceeds in three sections. Section one, ‘Conceptualizing and contextual-
izing global security hierarchies’ presents the article’s conceptual framework. Section
two, ‘The evolution of global security hierarchies’, provides a comparative historical tax-
onomy of the post-First World War, post-Second World War and post-Cold War global
security hierarchies that arose in the wake of these conflicts. Section three, ‘Illiberal chal-
lenges and global security hierarchies’ contested future’ then takes the analysis up to the
present. Here, I acknowledge illiberal challenges to today’s UN-centric cosmopolitan
security hierarchy, before speculating on security hierarchies’ likely fate, given the current
clash between cosmopolitan security hierarchy and its illiberal counterpoints.
Conceptualizing and contextualizing global security
hierarchies
This article proceeds from two key claims. First, security – especially security from the
threat of violent death – remains the foundational warrant for most forms of organized
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