This volume brings together scholars from different fields to explore the power, consequences and everyday practices of security expertise. Expertise mediates between different forms of knowledge: scientific and technological, legal, economic and political knowledge. This book offers the first systematic study of security expertise and opens up a productive dialogue between science and technology studies and security studies to investigate the character and consequences of this expertise. In security theory, the study of expertise is crucial to understanding whose knowledge informs security making and to reflect on the impact and responsibility of security analysis. In science and technology studies, the study of security politics adds a challenging new case to the agenda of research on expertise and policy. The contributors investigate cases such as academic security studies, security think tanks, the collaboration between science, anthropology and the military, transnational terrorism, and the ethical consequences of security expertise. Together they challenge our understanding of how expertise works and what consequences it has for security politics and international relations. This book will be of particular interest to students of critical security studies, sociology, science and technology studies, and IR/security studies in general.

This book brings together the key scholars in the international practice debate to demonstrate its strengths as an innovative research perspective. The contributions show the benefit of practice theories in the study of phenomena in international security, international political economy and international organisation, by directing attention to concrete and observable everyday practices that shape international outcomes. The chapters exemplify the cross-overs and relations to other theoretical approaches, and thereby establish practice theories as a distinct IR perspective. Each chapter investigates a key concept that plays an important role in international relations theory, such as power, norms, knowledge, change or cognition. Taken together, the authors make a strong case that practice theories allow to ask new questions, direct attention to uncommon empirical material, and reach different conclusions about international relations phenomena. The book is a must read for anyone interested in recent international relations theory and the actual practices of doing global politics.

This volume brings together scholars from different fields to explore the power, consequences and everyday practices of security expertise. Expertise mediates between different forms of knowledge: scientific and technological, legal, economic and political knowledge. This book offers the first systematic study of security expertise and opens up a productive dialogue between science and technology studies and security studies to investigate the character and consequences of this expertise. In security theory, the study of expertise is crucial to understanding whose knowledge informs security making and to reflect on the impact and responsibility of security analysis. In science and technology studies, the study of security politics adds a challenging new case to the agenda of research on expertise and policy. The contributors investigate cases such as academic security studies, security think tanks, the collaboration between science, anthropology and the military, transnational terrorism, and the ethical consequences of security expertise. Together they challenge our understanding of how expertise works and what consequences it has for security politics and international relations. This book will be of particular interest to students of critical security studies, sociology, science and technology studies, and IR/security studies in general.

This book studies recent attempts to restructure maritime security sectors through capacity building. It innovates both theoretically and empirically. It proposes a new framework for understanding maritime capacity building, drawing on work in peacebuilding and security sector reform. The framework is then applied across empirical case studies from the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region written by scholars from the Global South. The WIO region is a paradigmatic case to study maritime security and capacity building in action. Countries in the region face the full gamut of maritime security challenges, while their indigenous capacities to deal with these are often weak. In consequence, the region functions as an engine of innovation for maritime capacity building more widely. The lessons and best practices from the region have importance consequences for addressing maritime security across the globe.

This book studies recent attempts to restructure maritime security sectors through capacity building. It innovates both theoretically and empirically. It proposes a new framework for understanding maritime capacity building, drawing on work in peacebuilding and security sector reform. The framework is then applied across empirical case studies from the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region written by scholars from the Global South. The WIO region is a paradigmatic case to study maritime security and capacity building in action. Countries in the region face the full gamut of maritime security challenges, while their indigenous capacities to deal with these are often weak. In consequence, the region functions as an engine of innovation for maritime capacity building more widely. The lessons and best practices from the region have importance consequences for addressing maritime security across the globe.

International Practice Theory is the definitive introduction to the practice turn in world politics, providing an accessible, up-to-date guide to the approaches, concepts, methodologies and methods of the subject. Situating the study of practices in contemporary theory and reviewing approaches ranging from Bourdieu's praxeology and communities of practice to actor-network theory and pragmatic sociology, it documents how they can be used to study international practices empirically. The book features a discussion of how scholars can navigate ontological challenges such as order and change, micro and macro, bodies and objects, and power and critique. Interpreting practice theory as a methodological orientation, it also provides an essential guide for the design, execution and drafting of a praxiographic study.