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"Croft, Stuart"
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Securitizing Islam : identity and the search for security
\"Securitizing Islam examines the impact of 9/11 on the lives and perceptions of individuals, focusing on the ways in which identities in Britain have been affected in relation to Islam. 'Securitization' describes the processes by which a particular group or issue comes to be seen as a threat, and thus subject to the perceptions and actions which go with national security. Croft applies this idea to the way in which the attitudes of individuals to their security and to Islam and Muslims have been transformed, affecting the everyday lives of both Muslims and non-Muslims. He argues that Muslims have come to be seen as the 'Other', outside the contemporary conception of Britishness. Reworking securitisation theory and drawing in the sociology of ontological security studies, Securitizing Islam produces a theoretically innovative framework for understanding a contemporary phenomenon that affects the everyday lives of millions\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Recovery of cirl bunting, Emberiza cirlus, song diversity after translocation
In order to improve conservation outcomes translocation or reintroduction of individuals may be necessary. When song learning birds are translocated, changes in the cultural diversity of song repertoires, or abnormal vocalizations, in the new population can be a problem. We monitored song production over 8 years in a reintroduced population of the cirl bunting (Emberiza cirlus). Chicks were removed from nests in Devon, UK, between 2006 and 2011, translocated at 6 days old to be hand‐reared and released in Cornwall, UK. Recordings at the release site in 2011 showed a significantly reduced population repertoire and individuals sang abnormal song types compared to the source populations in Devon. However, recordings in 2019, showed population song repertoire had reached the level of source populations of similar size, and song types were species typical. Our study shows that species can recover from a cultural bottleneck and suggests that, for some song learning birds, if translocation of nestlings is necessary it may not lead to long‐term problems for communication and thus population persistence. For future translocations of nestlings, we recommend that efforts are made to provide tutoring to enable song learning. This may be achieved by providing recordings, but may also include providing adult song tutors. In addition, playback of “normal” songs to translocated populations may aid in development of species typical song repertoires, although care must be taken that this is not disturbing the reintroduced birds. (a) Locations of cirl bunting populations sound recorded for this study, points reflect the center of the location. Location 1 is the reintroduced population in Cornwall. Locations 4 and 5 are near each other but are separated by water. Inset photo shows a cirl bunting (Ben Andrew rspb-images.com). (b) The relationship between the number of males recorded and the number of different song types in the population (location of population on map in label brackets). Confidence interval and fit line displayed. ▲ Source, ◯ Reintroduced 2011, * Reintroduced 2019.
Journal Article
Fit for purpose? Fitting ontological security studies ‘into’ the discipline of International Relations
The performance of International Relations (IR) scholarship–as in all scholarship–acts to close and police the boundaries of the discipline in ways that reflect power–knowledge relations. This has led to the development of two strands of work in ontological security studies in IR, which divide on questions of ontological choice and the nature of the deployment of the concept of dread. Neither strand is intellectually superior to the other and both are internally heterogeneous. That there are two strands, however, is the product of the performance of IR scholarship, and the two strands themselves perform distinct roles. One allows ontological security studies to engage with the ‘mainstream’in IR; the other allows ‘international’elements of ontological security to engage with the social sciences more generally. Ironically, both can be read as symptoms of the discipline’s issues with its own ontological (in) security. We reflect on these intellectual dynamics and their implications and prompt a new departure by connecting ontological security studies in IR with the emerging interdisciplinary fields of the ‘vernacular’and ‘everyday’via the mutual interest in biographical narratives of the self and the work that they do politically.
Journal Article
The evolution of threat narratives in the age of terror: understanding terrorist threats in Britain
This article examines the evolution of threat narratives in the age of terror, focusing on the United Kingdom. The analysis is broken down into two sections. The first part of the article presents four distinct and yet overlapping notions of the threats which have influenced both the West, and more specifically the UK, in debates about counterterrorism since 9/11. The four threat narratives—Al-Qaeda as a central organization; decentralized terror networks; home grown; and finally apocalyptic threats—have all been used to inform counter terror measures in the West. The second section of the article argues that terrorism has evolved strategically, and is hybridized owing to the security environment—interpenetrated by globalization, digital media and information communication technologies—in which it occurs. The article concludes with a preliminary discussion of some strategic and operational themes which have influenced the form and character of terrorism and insurgency, exploring how they impact on the ways in which threats are constituted and countered, illustrating that what is new maybe the nature of our own fears.
Journal Article
Evangelicalism, race and world politics
American identities have traditionally been bound up with racial and religious markers – the WASP marker being for many, many decades and that which described the fullest state of American-ness. In the age of an African-American President, such conventional wisdoms are clearly challenged; and yet race and religion still describe different degrees of American-ness. This article investigates these identity themes not through the traditional duologue of white and African American, but seeks to understand in different communities how race and religion combine to produce different American-ness. Through an examination of two communities deemed problematic because of the high percentage of unchurched among them – First Peoples and Asian Americans – the article describes different processes at work. First Peoples are often seen in racial rather than national terms. The work of evangelicals ‘among’ such peoples is assessed within the United States and beyond. In contrast, Asian-American identities are often articulated through evangelism, particularly on the campuses of the United States. Together, these case studies show that American-ness is being redefined, to include new racial categories and groups newly empowered by their religious activity. This connects to issues of migration; evangelism is now active in America as well as beyond, as the world comes to live in the United States, traditional boundaries – inside/outside and white/African American – carry different and often less weight than hitherto has been the case.
Journal Article
‘Thy Will Be Done’: The New Foreign Policy of America's Christian Right
America's evangelical community are usually seen to be little more than cheerleaders for the Bush administration's activist foreign policy. However, there is much going on in this diverse community, which has begun to develop its own ideas about foreign policy, many of which contradict realist and neo-conservative approaches. Tracing the development of the community's interest in foreign affairs, the article focuses on the three most important contemporary issues for America's conservative Protestants (CPs): solidarity with the oppressed; concern over and use of international institutions (and with Europe); and support for Israel. There is a growing coherence among America's (white) CPs, which will be of increasing relevance to America's partners and friends.
Journal Article
Review Exchange: Counterterrorism and Securitization
There are institutional variations; in France, there is an integration of security agencies and elements of the judiciary, whereas in the United Kingdom, there is an adversarial legal system and a fierce independence of the judiciary. [...]there are differences in routines; in France, police and intelligence agencies' coordination works in an informal way, and change tends to be bottom up, whereas in the United Kingdom, there are formal coordinating routines, and change tends to be top down. [...]it is the power of that claim that leads to a wider sense of that which is existentially threatening; in this analysis, then, not simply those committed to the Al-Qaeda narrative, but for some, to all Muslims - hence the title, Securitizing Islam, not Securitizing Al-Qaeda.
Journal Article
The governance of European security
This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involving the coordinated management and regulation of issues by multiple and separate authorities, the interventions of both public and private actors (depending upon the issue), formal and informal arrangements, in turn structured by discourse and norms, and purposefully directed toward particular policy outcomes. Three issues are examined to demonstrate the utility of the concept of security governance for understanding security in post-Cold War Europe: the transformation of NATO, the Europeanisation of security accomplished through EU-led initiatives and, finally, the resultant dynamic relationship between forms of exclusion and inclusion in governance.
Journal Article
South Asia's arms control process: cricket diplomacy and the composite dialogue
Nuclear arms control on the Indian subcontinent has had a rather chequered immediate past. In far less than ten years talks have begun, both sides have formally become nuclear powers, fought a war, nearly fought another, have threatened each other with dire consequences, and yet have reached important agreements. This article traces those developments, particularly focusing on the recent talks, from the end of 2003. It sets out the limits to the current process, but also the possibilities for further important advances. This is a crucial process: Indian-Pakistani relations are highly crisis prone, and the nuclear dimension may add to that. Symbols-as in all processes-have been very important, and the ability of the two countries to talk politics and play cricket has been highly significant; it symbolizes the hope for the future.
Journal Article
Introduction
The 'war on terror'--perhaps how it has led to an 'age of terror'--has come to dominate many aspects of international relations and indeed of relations between the state and the citizen since the 'defining moment' of the 2001 attacks. This special issue examines whether there is an 'age of terror', and if so, how that 'age of terror' has led to new approaches and to new thinking on the part of Western states and establishments by drawing on the UK's experience in Northern Ireland, the nature of collaboration on counter-terrorism across the European Union and in thinking about the implications of terrorism for strategy. State approaches are critiqued, and alternatives suggested, in thinking about the relationship between human rights and the 'war on terror', and indeed in reconceptualizing the study of terrorism. In the final articles of this issue alternative and non-state critiques, approaches and analyses are developed. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Journal Article