National security risks? Uncertainty, austerity and other logics of risk in the UK government’s National Security Strategy
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836714558637 |
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Cooperation and Conflict
2015, Vol. 50(4) 475 –491
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836714558637
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National security risks?
Uncertainty, austerity and
other logics of risk in the
UK government’s National
Security Strategy
Anne Hammerstad and Ingrid Boas
Abstract
Risk scholars within Security Studies have argued that the concept of security has gone through
a fundamental transformation away from a threat-based conceptualisation of defence, urgency
and exceptionality to one of preparedness, precautions and prevention of future risks, some
of which are calculable, others of which are not. This article explores whether and how the
concept of security is changing due to this ‘rise of risk’, through a hermeneutically grounded
conceptual and discourse analysis of the United Kingdom government’s National Security
Strategy (NSS) from 1998 to 2011. We ask how risk-security language is employed in the NSS;
what factors motivate such discursive shifts; and what, if any, consequences of these shifts
can be discerned in UK national security practices. Our aim is twofold: to better understand
shifts in the security understandings and policies of UK authorities; and to contribute to the
conceptual debate on the significance of the rise of risk as a component of the concept of
security.
Keywords
Concept of security, national security strategy, risk, securitisation, threat, UK
Of course, in an age of uncertainty the unexpected will happen, and we
must be prepared to react to that by making our institutions and infrastructure
as resilient as we possibly can.1
Corresponding author:
Anne Hammerstad, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NX,
UK.
Email: a.hammerstad@kent.ac.uk
558637CAC0010.1177/0010836714558637Cooperation and ConflictHammerstad and Boas
research-article2014
Article
476 Cooperation and Conflict 50(4)
This quote from the introduction to the UK government’s 2010 National Security
Strategy (NSS) document presented to parliament, seems to confirm a recent contention
by many security analysts: for policymakers, security has become less about the defence
against known and specific threats. It is instead about precautions against and – when
possible – prevention of future risks, some of which are calculable, others of which are
not. Risk scholars within Security Studies have suggested that ‘[r]isk and uncertainty are
the hallmarks of world politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century’ (Williams, 2008:
58). Security practice no longer takes place within the Cold War paradigm of deterrence
and defence, but follows the precautionary principle, where it is worth acting today
because the possibility of catastrophe in the future is so calamitous that we cannot risk
inaction.
Individual quotes, such as the one above, may be striking, but are not necessarily
symptomatic of deeper shifts in conceptualisations of security. In this article we investi-
gate the extent to which the national security thinking behind the formulation of the
United Kingdom’s National Security Strategy (NSS) from 1998 to 2011 has taken on a
language and logic of ‘security risks’. We ask how risk−security language has been
employed in the NSS; what the factors are that motivate such discursive shifts; and what,
if any, consequences of these shifts can be discerned in UK national security practices.
Our aim is twofold: to better understand shifts in the security understandings and policies
of UK authorities; and to contribute to the conceptual debate on the significance of the
rise of risk as a component of the concept of security. While anchoring our investigation
in discourse and conceptual analysis, we relate these findings hermeneutically to (per-
ceived) changes in the security environment and in security policies and practices.
We begin the article by discussing this methodological approach. Based on the work
of Petersen (2012), we then identify three ‘schools’ of risk−security analysis in
International Relations (IR): ‘Risk as governmentality’ and ‘global risk management’ are
both drawn from sociology; while the third school, ‘political risk analysis’, is adapted
from economics and business studies. The main body of the article is our discourse anal-
ysis of the UK’s National Security Strategy (NSS). The concluding section then reviews
our findings in terms of the conceptual, practical and normative tenets of the three
risk−security schools. We suggest that the relative rise of risk in the NSS is significant,
but does not – yet – amount to a dramatic reconceptualisation of the concept of security
among UK security policymakers.
A discursive and conceptual approach
We have chosen to centre our analysis on the discursive and conceptual level, rather than
on security practices or context. While both the latter are highly significant, we do this
for three reasons. First, it is useful to conduct systematic, in-depth empirical research on
the nature and trajectory of ‘the rise of risk’ in the conceptualisations of security held by
state security elites. Findings from such empirical research feed into theoretical debates
on how political concepts such as ‘security’ can and do change. The meaning of the con-
cept of security is not objectively defined but reflexive and constructed, and the answer
to the question ‘what is security’ is worked out through political debate and embedded in
historical and social traditions (Freeden, 1996: 52–53). An important part of security
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