Critical Security Studies: Are They Really Critical?

In recent years many social science academic disciplines have been challenged by radical thinkers from within such disciplines, mostly claiming to be critical – from critical geography to critical literature studies to critical anthropology and even, most recently, critical terrorism studies. University departments and journals are full of academics who claim to be challenging the very premises and assumptions of their disciplines. The field of international relations has not been left out of this critical shift, and within that ‘security studies’, long a sub-discipline of international relations, has also gone critical. In this article I will engage with critical security studies. I will ask what critical security theorists mean when they claim to be critical and whether they live up to their promises. I will argue that, in the contemporary international context, critical security theorists are mirroring rather than critiquing contemporary power inequalities – that critical security theorists ultimately fail to critically engage with contemporary international power inequalities. Instead, they offer an apology for contemporary power inequalities, and are just as conservative as those they criticise.