International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   Risk is redefining the way in which Western societies approach questions of war and peace. These questions have been thought of in terms of national security since the Second World War, when the concept of security broadened the spectrum for what was regarded as a threat to the state and its citizens ( Latham 1997 ; Wæver 1999 ). Today the concept of risk is used to develop strategies for a globalizing world redefined by rapid technological and social change in the same way as the concept of security was used to forge strategies for the Cold War. A risk is a scenario followed by a policy proposal for how to prevent this scenario from becoming real. When policy makers approach “security questions” in terms of risk, they no longer seek to address specific and calculable threats like the Red Army during the Cold War. Instead they focus on trends that give a future significance to present challenges. In such a world policy makers can no longer promise perfect security – all they can do is avoid, preempt, or manage risk. The concept of risk thus seems to suggest that the twenty-first century cannot deliver on the promises of “democratic peace” so talked about at the end of the Cold War. Increasingly Western governments fail to believe in the possibility of achieving more perfect security because new risks will arise as a “boomerang effect” of defeating the ... log in or subscribe to read full text