A User’s Guide: Analyzing Security as Discourse

REVIEW BY LAURA SHEPHERD

Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham

Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. By Lene Hansen. London:Routledge, 2006. 288 pp., $135.00 cloth (ISBN:0-415-32653-2), $39.95 paper (ISBN:0-415-33575-1).

In his preface to Security as Practice, Barry Buzan (the editor of the series of whichthis book is a part) suggests that ‘‘the book is set up as a useable text that should fillmany an awkward gap in methodology courses’’ (p. xiiv). Part of the book’s in-novation in this regard stems from the way in which Lene Hansen uses what shecalls the ‘‘ ‘case plus study’ [of the Bosnian war] . . . as a medium for continuedtheoretical and methodological discussions’’ concerning foreign policy analysis andinternational relations (p. 11). This strategy is an entirely successful strategy, al-though Hansen could have pursued it to even greater effect had she not madecertain compromises along the way.

Hansen’s initial argument concerns her focus on ‘‘identity’’ as the central aspectof the research agenda for poststructural international relations. This argumentand approach are eminently sustainable because understanding foreign policy ne-cessarily entails a sophisticated understanding of the identities, not only of thepolicymakers but also of the various ‘‘others’’ in relation to whom policy decisionsare made. However, Hansen communicates this notion in such a way that suggeststhat Security as Practice is primarily aimed at those international relations scholarswho remain skeptical of a focus on identity. Placing analytical emphasis on identityhas become common sense to a vast number of scholars working within what canloosely be termed ‘‘critical’’ international relations (see, for example, Doty 1993,1996; Neumann 1996; Weldes 1996; Campbell 1998a, 1998b; Weldes et al. 1999).Hansen offers a brief recitation of canonical work in this part of the field, but inattempting to affirm the ‘‘real world relevance’’ of poststructural work in internationalrelations (p. 5, emphasis in original), she is attempting to persuade an uncon-vincedFand arguably unconcernedF‘‘mainstream,’’ which implicitly still delimitsthe boundaries of what is considered acceptable research within the discipline.Although this is at times a necessary and worthwhile venture, such an approachprevents Hansen from making some of the more critical claims that are enabled bythe clear and eloquent discussions of ontology and epistemology contained in theopening chapters. In much the same way that feminist international relations, forexample, both benefits from and is hampered by continuing appeals to rationalistorthodoxy in order to be taken seriously within the discipline (see, for example,Tickner 1997; Marchand 1998 inter alia), if the validity of critical research in in-ternational relations is premised on its acceptability to a preconfigured ‘‘main-stream,’’ it is unlikely to present the challenges that need to be posed to the limitedhorizons of that mainstream.

This complex negotiation between these intended readers impacts the way inwhich Hansen describes how to construct a research design for poststructuraldiscourse analysis (pp. 73–92, passim). Despite an early commitment to an

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International Studies Review (2006) 8, 656–658

interrogation of the ways in which ‘‘texts construct acceptable knowledge’’ (p. 8)and a recognition that ‘‘language is ontologically significant’’ (p. 18), Hansenutilizes a problematic coding mechanism for dividing up potential texts to be in-cluded in the analysis. She posits a separation between ‘‘objective forms of fact-finding [and] . . . subjective and personal encounters’’ (p. 66) to explain her ra-tionale for drawing on what she terms ‘‘literary non-fiction’’ in her mapping ofWestern discourses about the Bosnian War. For a project that is avowedly post-structural, this distinction is an odd one to make. Hansen recognizes that ‘‘theseparation of knowledge from power is constituted as crucial’’ (p. 67, emphasis add-ed) rather than being an accurate depiction of the function of power-knowledge(Foucault 1980) in the constitution of meaning. Yet, by reproducing the objective–subjective distinction in her work, Hansen suggests that these categories do func-tion to perform and constitute different types of knowledge. This suggestion hasbeen vehemently refuted by the poststructural international relations (IR) literaturewithin which she situates herself (see, inter alia, Der Derian and Shapiro 1989;Smith 2004).

Discourse, and mapping discourse, is the central concern of Security as Practice.For those readers who are looking for a better understanding of how to designresearch that seeks to use a poststructural form of discourse analysis, Hansen’streatment of this key concept is both sophisticated and useful. She offers three‘‘intertextual research models’’ (pp. 59–64), which are arguably ‘‘ideal types’’ in thatdifferent projects will inevitably blur the boundaries among the three models indifferent ways. However, it is Hansen’s elucidation of the ways in which poststruc-tural discourse analysis might be operationalized through the consideration ofthree key questions (pp. 73–82) that is particularly innovative. These questionsenable the prospective researcher to delimit the specifics of their proposed projectby asking whether the project focuses on one or multiple subjects of discourse, oneor many temporal moments represented in the discourse, and one or many par-ticular events constituted in the discourse. These guidelines are indeed valuable,and they provide a key justification for Buzan’s assessment quoted above. Hansendoes not explore or explain the specific analytical strategies that could be used byscholars undertaking such a projectFunlike, for example, Roxanne Doty’s(1993:306–309) treatment of what she terms a ‘‘discursive practices approach,’’using analysis of presupposition, predication, and subject-positioning. Nonetheless,Hansen clearly outlines a potential research design organized around the questionsthat she deems important. Students seeking to undertake a project using post-structural discourse analysis would certainly benefit from a close engagement withthis section of the book.

The ‘‘case plus study’’ of the Bosnian war is also used to good effect by Han-senFboth to illustrate the relevance of the questions around which the researchdesign is structured and to demonstrate the ways in which an approach that paysattention to the discursive constitution of meaning can offer key insights into thechosen field of study. For example, in detailing the disarticulation and rearticu-lation of Bosnia as a subject of foreign policy discourse, Hansen shows how this shiftin the discursive terrain was necessary for the mobilization of support for an inter-ventionist policy (pp. 112–113). Her treatment of the discourses is convincing andwell argued, and it goes directly to the question of ‘‘real-world relevance’’ discussedabove. Despite the relative brevity of her conclusions (pp. 211–220), Hansenachieves what she sets out to do: ‘‘bring . . . together [a poststructural theory ofidentity and a discourse analytical methodology] in a detailed analysis of the West-ern debate on Bosnia’’ (p. 211). However, she couldFand shouldFhave pitchedher initial arguments concerning the significance of poststructural internationalrelations in less appeasing terms. The analysis she provides demonstrates quiteclearly that the approach she espouses enables scholars to ask and answer questions

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of vital importance both to international relations as a discipline and to interna-tional relations as policy practice.

References

CAMPBELL, DAVID. (1998a) National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity and Justice in Bosnia. Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press.

CAMPBELL, DAVID. (1998b) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Revisededition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

DER DERIAN, JAMES, AND MICHAEL SHAPIRO, EDS. (1989) International/Intertextual Relations: PostmodernReadings of World Politics. Lexington: Lexington Books.

DOTY, ROXANNE LYNN. (1993) Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of U.S.Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines. International Studies Quarterly 37:297–320.

DOTY, ROXANNE LYNN. (1996) Imperial Encounters. London: University of Minnesota Press.FOUCAULT, MICHEL. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, Edited by

Gordon. Colin. New York: Pantheon.MARCHAND, MARIANNE. (1998) Different Communities/Different Realities/Different Encounters:

A Reply to J. Ann Tickner. International Studies Quarterly 42:199–204.NEUMANN, IVER. (1996) Self and Other in International Relations. European Journal of International

Relations 2(2):139–174.SMITH, STEVE. (2004) Singing Our World into Existence: International Relations Theory and Sep-

tember 11. International Studies Quarterly 48:499–515.TICKNER, J. ANN. (1997) You Just Don’t Understand: Troubled Engagements Between Feminists and

IR Theorists. International Studies Quarterly 41:611–632.WELDES, JUTTA. (1996) Constructing National Interest. European Journal of International Relations

2(3):275–318.WELDES, JUTTA, MARK LAFFEY, HUGH GUSTERSON, AND RAYMOND DUVALL, EDS. (1999) Cultures of

Insecurity: States, Communities and the Production of Danger. Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress.

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