York Centre for International and Security Studies

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The York Centre for International and Security Studies pursues a triple mandate of research, graduate teaching, and outreach. We undertake critical and theoretically-informed research that is guided by: a) a concern with the ethical-political dimensions of international security policies; and b) the assumption that the pursuit of security, defence, peace, and social justice requires the study of transnational and global forces in relation to local contexts and a range of social groups. The Centre, a research unit of York University, works and partners with academics, policymakers, practitioners, and activists across Canada and around the world. Our members include York faculty and graduate students, and visiting scholars from inside and outside Canada.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 83

Open Access
Institutional Change and the New European Politics: The European Community, European Political Cooperation and the Western European Union
(YCISS, 1990) Mutimer, David
The object of this paper is to examine a small section of these political questions. There are several pressures building for a more united and independent Western Europe. The market completion will almost certainly result in a more politically united Community. The lessening of East-West tensions and the growth of West-West tensions are already impelling Europe to take a more independent and unified approach to its foreign and security policy. If Europe is to respond to these pressures and begin pursuing European policies in its foreign and security affairs, there will need to be an institutional focus for such policy. There are already institutions in place, which are designed to provide fora for the consideration of these very policy areas. The European Political Cooperation (EPC) is an intergovernmental body whose function is to coordinate the foreign policies of the members of the EC in order to work toward a European foreign policy. In addition, the Western European Union (WEU) was originally founded to act as a focus for the development and execution of a European security policy. While the WEU had fallen into obscurity, it is still available and, in fact, has been recently reactivated. The central question of this discussion, therefore, is what role can be foreseen for the European Political Cooperation and the Western European Union in the new European politics.
Open Access
Completing Europe's Internal Market: Implications for Canadian Policy
(YCISS, 1990-03) Mutimer, David
The 1992 project in Europe promises to be one of the most significant developments of the contemporary international political economy, and Canadians need to be ready to meet the challenges and opportunities it presents. The focus of the present paper is to consider these challenges and Canada's response from the perspective of government trade policy. While obviously industry will need to consider the specific effects of the 1992 project, it is for the government to set the broad goals for the Canadian economy in light of a changed international environment. This paper's object is to examine, first of all, the recent patterns of the trading relations between Canada and the EC, and the current trade policy of the Canadian government, and thus the expectations Canada has for the future of this trading relationship. Having considered the context of the trading relationship, the project to complete the internal market by 1992 will be examined. The paper will then consider the expectations and the likely results of the programme, and how these results will influence Canada's position. Finally, a set of conclusions will be drawn from this analysis for the conduct of Canadian trade in the face of 1992.
Open Access
A Survey of Game Theory Models on Peace and War
(YCISS, 1990-03) O'Neill, Barry
This paper will present a survey of game theoretical applications to peace and war relevant to the continuing debate on the theory's place. (Some contributions are by Deutsch, 1954, 1968; Waltz, 1959; Quandt, 1961; Snyder, 1961; Shubik, 1968; Robinson, 1970; Rosenau, 1971; Junne, 1972; George and Smoke, 1974; Plon, 1976; Martin, 1978; Wagner, 1983; Maoz, 1985; Snidal, 1985a; Hardin, 1986; Larson, 1987; Jervis, 1988a; O'Neill, 1989b; and Rapoport, 1989.) The review will be non evaluative, and will focus on the areas chosen for applications rather than developments in the mathematics. It will be fairly comprehensive in the international relations (IR) section, and include the main subjects in the military operations part. In regard to IR, I examine the mutual influences of the mathematics and the conventional theory or policy questions. The military section notes the interaction of game applications with new military strategy and technology. A companion paper (O'Neill, 1990b) surveys introductory writings for each game theory subfield that might be relevant to IR.
Open Access
A Survey of Military Cooperation among ASEAN States: Bilateralism or Alliance?
(YCISS, 1990-05) Acharya, Amitav
The question of whether a military/security arrangement binding the ASEAN states, if it is to take place, should be constructed within or outside the formal framework of ASEAN itself remains an open and thorny issue. But the issue itself has received little systematic treatment in the literature on Southeast Asian regional security. This is largely due to two factors: a general unwillingness among policymakers in the ASEAN states to release information on military matters in the name of national security, and second, the political sensitivity surrounding the specific subject of intra-ASEAN military links. As a result, debates on ASEAN security and defence cooperation have been marred by a paucity of reliable information. This paper, based on extensive primary research, is intended to fill the information gap and facilitate efforts by scholars towards more conceptual generalizations on the subject.
Open Access
The Reflexive Turn and International Relations Theory
(YCISS, 1991-01) Neufeld, Mark
The paper examines the prospects for the development of theoretically reflexive theory in the discipline of international relations. First, the issue of theoretical reflexivity is discussed in terms of the "reflexive turn" associated with post-positivist philosophy of science in contemporary social and political theory. The question of whether a parallel to the "reflexive turn" in social and political theory can be identified in theorizing about international relations is then addressed. It is argued that in the context of international relations theory's Third Debate one sees evidence of the growth of the "broader and deeper kind of political and epistemological self-consciousness" which is fundamental to the development of a theoretically reflexive disposition. As a consequence, if it remains premature to speak of an authentic "reflexive turn" in the discipline of international relations, it can nonetheless be argued that the prospects for the growth of theoretically reflexive international relations theory are real and significant, while the need for such theory is urgent.
Open Access
The Future of Strategy
(YCISS, 1991-01) Williams, Michael C.
The ontological claims which provide the very content of Third Wave strategic thinking, and its self-defining opposition to the forms of analysis which dominated the preceding Second Wave, bring it into contradiction with the epistemological stance underlying the neo-realist theory which it claims to represent. The recognition of this fundamental contradiction at the heart of contemporary strategic thinking has important theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical standpoint it leads to a re-engagement between strategic studies and current debates in International Relations theory, and to the startlingly ironic realisation that contemporary strategic thinking may find its natural evolution in the direction of recent attempts to develop a "critical" theory of international politics. At the level of practice, it is vitally important in determining the ways in which we understand, and thus react to, the transformations currently at work in the realm of international security in this apparently pivotal era. In both cases the question of the "future" of strategy is amongst the most important and interesting issues confronting the contemporary study of international politics. But to more fully understand the way in which the strategic thinking of the Third Wave leads contemporary strategy beyond itself, and into a real sense of the future, it is necessary to return to the past. In this case that past is the relationship between strategic studies and the neorealist theory of international relations.
Open Access
Global Communications and Culture: Implications for International Security
(YCISS, 1991-03) Bell, David V.J.
A paper with this `modest' title poses daunting problems for research and analysis. The Conference organizers specified in some detail the questions they wanted addressed, namely: (a) to assess the current debate on whether communication has the ability to transform international consciousness, i.e., is it likely to lead to a less nationalistic world or more? (b) are some technologies likely to be more conducive to 'consciousness' transformation than others? (c) how genuinely global is the spread of integrated communications networks and systems? (d) has the communications revolution empowered citizens vis-à-vis their states or states vis-à-vis their citizens? (e) can you identify any `breakthrough' technologies, in communications, that might have a major impact on international security in the coming decade? As far as I can tell, their charge was not, however, informed by any knowledge of the state of social science research in this area. These questions cut to the heart of scholarly debates that have raged for decades (if not centuries) without resolution. What shapes consciousness? What is the relative importance of ideational factors, structural change, and technology? To these mind-boggling questions, around which have formed whole schools of thought associated with figures like Hegel, Marx and Weber, the Conference organizers have added a further concern about international security at a time when unp recedented changes are occurring in both global geopolitics and in our conceptualization of security itself.. I am asked not simply to report on the way the world is now, but in addition to prophesy what it might become in the future. For the ancient Greeks, the gift of prophecy, the ability to foresee the future, was given as compensation for the loss of `normal' vision . The prophet could see what lay ahead but could not see what lay around, for he or she was by necessity blind. At the risk of total loss of vision, I will confine my attempts at prophecy to a brief section at the end of the paper. To paraphrase Woody Allen, I will only attempt to predict the future 'until I need glasses.'
Open Access
The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War
(YCISS, 1991-03) Workman, Thom
This paper calls attention to the social costs of the war through an exploration of its social foundations. The Iran-Iraq war was largely engendered through the play of indigenous social forces. External actors had little direct role in its outbreak. In its most straightforward formulation, the Iran- Iraq war may be understood as a dramatic political manifestation of extended social struggles endemic to both societies. We must contemplate this war, therefore, from the perspective of the Iranian and Iraqi social tapestries first and foremost. Analysis must unravel the complex class, communal and state dynamics at work in both countries. Through this society-centred approach we will arrive at a richer account of the origins of the Iran-Iraq war, a clearer explanation of its protracted course and why efforts to resolve it relatively quickly were largely unsuccessful, and foster a deeper appreciation of its stunning social costs.
Open Access
Why a Good Verification System Can Give Ambiguous Evidence
(YCISS, 1991-04) O'Neill, Barry
The recent debate on ambiguity provides lessons for future arms control verification. American officials sought verification systems that returned unambiguous evidence about Soviet compliance, but a simple model of verification suggests that a verification scheme can be more ambiguous yet better. It may be more effective in deterring violations and avoiding false alarms. The reason is as follows: should the inspecting party come upon suspicious evidence, it will, on the one hand, have a reason to trust that evidence more, as it was returned by a more reliable verification system. On the other hand it will have a reason to be more sceptical that the other is violating since the other would probably not dare to cheat in the face of the improved verification technology. In some situations a reasonable inspector will regard the second factor as weightier than the first, and give lower credence to the evidence. Ambiguity in verification is a tricky notion and misunderstandings about it arise from two sources: from the vocabulary of verification, which suggests that one dichotomously "detects" or does "not detect" violation, when in fact evidence comes in gradations, and from the human tendency not to look at the situation from the other's viewpoint. The model uses game theory's logic to represent the strategic aspects of the situation, and has a mathematical feature different from past models, the notion of continuous degrees of evidence, to give a proper account of ambiguity. It also clarifies past technical studies of verification by locating them within the model's structure.
Open Access
Reading Between the Matrices: Conflicting Strategies in The Strategy of Conflict
(YCISS, 1991-04) Edwards Abbey, Ruth
Thomas Schelling is one of the first writers to apply game theory to the study of international relations and his 1960 work, The Strategy of Conflict, is the first book in which he does this. As such, this work is a seminal text in what is currently one of the dominant family of approaches to international relations theory -- rationalism. This paper offers a close reading of The Strategy of Conflict which highlights the many significant tensions the text is heir to and seeks to demonstrate that in many places and on many important questions, Schelling's arguments undermine themselves. Read in this way, The Strategy of Conflict is not just one of the seminal works in the rationalist tradition of international relations theory, but is also a testament to the limitations, difficulties and perhaps even impossibility of using game theory to explain international relations.
Open Access
The "Modern" State in the Middle East: The Need for a Human Face
(YCISS, 1993-06) Ben-Dor, Gabriel
In my original formulation, I warned against two salient dangers to the state in the region. On the one hand, I felt that a state captivated by a particularistic social force and harnessed to its own radical purposes would be inhuman in pursuing the goals of that force, be it an ethnic group, a tribe, or a religion. The fact that an ethnic group disguises itself in colourful ideological mumbo-jumbo (as is the case of the Baath "party" in Iraq and Syria) does not make matters any better, but only obfuscates the issues. On the other hand, I also felt that if a state attempted to operate in a vacuum, devoid of all social content, it would end up with the deification of the state for its own sake, which I consider a classic case of fascism. In neither case would we have a state structure that is sensitive to the human needs of the population: It would not look after the proper interests of the inhabitants, namely peace, prosperity, security and a sense of dignity and well-being. Indeed, these commodities have been in a short supply in the Middle East, and I am afraid that the Middle Eastern state has not served well the cause of promoting human values. It is this issue that I now would like to explore.
Open Access
Passing Judgement: Credit Rating Processes as Regulatory Mechanisms of Governance in the Emerging World Order
(YCISS, 1993-11) Sinclair, Timothy
This paper argues that certain knowledge-producing institutions located in the American financial industry - debt-security or bond rating agencies - are significant forces in the creation and extension of the new, open global political economy and therefore deserve the attention of international political economists as mechanisms of "governance without government." Rating agencies are hypothesised to possess leverage, based on their unique gate keeping role with regard to investment funds sought by corporations and governments. The paper examines trends in capital markets, the processes leading to bond rating judgements, assesses the form and extent of the agencies' governance powers, and contemplates the implications of these judgements for further extension of the global political economy and the form of the emerging world order.
Open Access
Amplifying the Social Dimensions of Security
(YCISS, 1993-11) Workman, Thom
Initially, a group of scholars began to systematically redefine the concept of security in a manner that directed attention towards the limited opportunity that "military" responses offered to "security" problems. Their primary activity was to redefine security in terms of an expanded idea to "threat," with the implication of these efforts necessarily questioning the appropriateness of military solutions - a politically important position given the thrust of Reaganism at that time. With the emergence of a clear post-positivist trend within IR by the late 1980s, however, a number of scholars began to address redefinitional efforts along axiological, conceptual and empirical grounds. These latter efforts - herein identified as an Alternative school - yielded important intellectual sanction for political movements, including women's organizations, aboriginal peoples, labour groups, the urban poor and the ecological movement, that often broach ideas of security within the context of a broader transformative agenda. International relations scholarship is arriving at the point, that is, where the breadth of intellectual activity regarding security reflects its polypolitical imbrications at the global and local levels. An exposition of the full scope of this novel critical line is the primary purpose of this paper.
Open Access
Peacekeeping and the Politics of Postmodernity
(YCISS, 1993-11) Williams, Michael C.
This paper attempts to explicate in a cursory fashion the ways in which theories of peacekeeping are embedded in a much broader set of assumptions about the nature of domestic politics and international relations. These assumptions are inextricably intertwined - both theoretically and practically - with their emergence in what is commonly now referred to as 'modernity'. The theoretical and practical status, not to mention content, of modernity is itself a matter of no small debate. Whether we are now in, entering, or beyond a condition of modernity, high modernity, late modernity or post-modernity is a controversy creating an increasing amount of heat, if a depressingly small amount of light. Yet despite the excesses to which it often leads, the question is an important one since it goes to the very core of how we understand contemporary political life. Still, anyone who wants (is foolish enough?) to invoke such broad concepts faces a series of potential pitfalls. How, after all, does one give adequate concrete content to a concept as broad as 'modernity', let alone its purported successors? Although this treatment will at one level be philosophically inclined, it will not take up directly the myriad controversies between modern and post-modern philosophies of knowledge, ethics or power. Rather, it will seek to outline in general terms the ways in which modernity embodies a set of categories concerning time, space and (in this regard) their political corollary: sovereignty. The representations of these categories of experience specific to modernity are central in coming to terms with the theoretical and practical elements constitutive in the emergence of the modern state system and with the transformations currently underway within it.
Open Access
Middle Eastern States in the Global Military Order
(YCISS, 1994-02) Krause, Keith
More than three-quarters of the weapons traded since 1970 have gone to the developing world, but there are few studies or rudimentary comparative theories that make sense of this process from the recipient state's perspective. Scholars who study the "global arms transfer and production system" have little understanding of the external and internal factors that shape defence and security policies in the developing world.2 Perhaps this was simply an inevitable part of the process of developing a theoretically-informed, well-supported literature; or perhaps analysts who study global arms transfers (as this author has done extensively) have systematically ignored important questions and issues. But it is appropriate, especially in a time of change and turbulence, to reexamine the way in which scholars have studied the arms trade and (intentionally or inadvertently) not given certain questions sustained research attention. In particular, I want to draw attention to four broad issues that must be addressed to strengthen our understanding of the processes and dynamics at work in the global arms transfer and production system.
Open Access
Gender and International Relations: A Selected Historical Bibliography
(YCISS, 1994-03) Boutin, Kenneth
This bibliography is intended to provide a comprehensive reference source for materials which address the question of gender in the study of International Relations, or which employ gender in the analysis of questions examined by this field. It presents a cross section of materials representative of the richness of the field of gender and International Relations in terms of subject, approach and period of focus. A varied selection of books, academic and professional journal articles, review essays, public documents, bibliographies, biographical materials, theses and unpublished conference papers are referenced in this bibliography. The analytical and descriptive materials included represent a wide range of theoretical and normative approaches. These are largely in the English language, though a limited number of French sources are provided as well. The materials dating from as far back as the first half of the nineteenth century as well as to those of more recent vintage have been included. Epistemological materials and those concerned with the philosophy of science have generally been excluded from this bibliography. The selection of materials provided is comprehensive, but is by no means complete.
Open Access
Redefining International Peace and Security? The Discourses and Practices of Multilateral Security Activity
(YCISS, 1994-03) Krause, Keith
This paper attempts to make a modest contribution to building a research agenda in two ways. It is organized around three "optics" (or logics) of "international peace and security," which serve as a basis for organizing and understanding the various stances that have been adopted. The three stances can be provisionally called international security as "stability," as "order," and as "justice." These terms of course resonate with other meanings in International Relations, and they are not the only way in which these positions could be characterized. But these three categories serve as a useful basis for a discussion of three sets of questions or issues in the debate on "new concepts of security," each of which in turn invoke ontological, epistemological, and prescriptive claims: what are the central tenets and foundation of its security weltanschauung (security from what, for whom, to protect what, and by what means)?; what sort of prima facie evidence exists that the concepts and practices of security in the multilateral arena might be changing (and how would one study this question)?; and what emerges from this account as the desirable scope of multilateral action (i.e., what are its prescriptive commitments)? Although these questions are couched in theoretical terms, this is not primarily a conceptual paper; many such contributions to the debate have already been published, and my purpose is to move towards a research program that could address some of the issues these raise. The analysis instead helps orient the study of changing multilateral practices surrounding security, and offers a preliminary assessment of the current evidence.
Open Access
Reimagining Security: The Metaphors of Proliferation
(YCISS, 1994-08) Mutimer, David
'Proliferation' appears to have been developed as a central image in the new international security agenda in the time between Krauthammer's article and the recent NATO summit. The spur to the construction of this image was the war in the Gulf. In the first section of this paper, I trace the construction of the image of proliferation in the pronouncements and practices of the Western states following the Gulf War. This image of proliferation as a security problem is, as Krauthammer noted, a perception of the state of the world. That perception is a metaphorical one, as the image of a security problem which is created is grounded in metaphor. In the second section I discuss the nature of image and metaphor as they relate to the constitution of international security. Finally, I examine the particular metaphors of the proliferation image, in order to show how they shape the understanding of a problem, and the policy solutions which are developed in response.
Open Access
Security and Self Reflections of a Fallen Realist
(YCISS, 1994-10) Booth, Ken
Personal experience has always been an explicit feature of feminist theorising. Making sense of one's own life has been seen as a way of making sense of the lives of others. The personal, the political, and the international are a seamless web. In this chapter I want to make some reflections, in a similar spirit, about self, profession and world politics. Instead of purporting to describe or explain the world 'out there', as is one's professional training, I want to reflect on the world 'in here'—as 'part of our innermost being' (Berger, 1966, p.140). This is academically and temperamentally a somewhat difficult thing to do. It is especially out of line with the traditions of several decades of strategic studies, which involved 'telling it as it is'—'it' begin a realist account of the purported state(s) of the world. As a profession, security specialists have not been particularly self-reflective. We have sometimes been invited to think the unthinkable, yet 'we' have been out of bounds. At what is thought to be a period of `intellectual crisis' in `security studies', `we' should not be. For most of us we are our last and most difficult frontier. Hence the personal nature of this paper, which attempts at the same time to confuse and clarify what it means to study `security' at the end of the twentieth century.
Open Access
Discourses of War: Security and the Case of Yugoslavia
(YCISS, 1994-12) Crawford, Beverly; Lipschutz, Ronnie D.
The agonizing war in the former Yugoslavia, the interminable parlays about what to do, the innumerable threats made and peace plans offered, retracted and made again have all served to highlight the process by which Western decision-making elites have tried to redefine their own, and their countries', security in the post-cold war world. To the question: "What is to be done in Bosnia?" they have answered: "Almost nothing." To the question: "Why?" they have answered: "Because it does not threaten us." And, so, almost nothing has happened. In this paper, we argue that this policy response is directly related to conceptions of "security" and "threats" that have structured the debate on the causes of the war as well as its potential consequences. In turn, widespread acceptance of the dominant view of those causes has justified a policy of relative inaction, in the process virtually precluding future actions designed to prevent such carnage from becoming an accepted feature of global politics.

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