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This study examines the concept of human security from two different biopolitical perspectives. Although the works of both Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben offer ground for reading the discourse of human security as limiting the life lived by its subjects, this study will not seek to conflate their works - as is often done in contemporary social sciences and International Relations - but instead seeks to differentiate between a Foucauldian and an Agambenite critique of human security, and between a Foucauldian and an Agambenite account of biopolitics and biopower. Importantly, this study examines also the implications of the different problematics of human security that emerge from Agamben and Foucault's accounts of biopolitics in terms of a discussion of the different accounts of the possibility of political agency that they entail. The empirical material used in this study consists mainly of the 2003 Human Security Now report by the Commission on Human Security, Survival, Livelyhood and Dignity. Through Agamben's work, the discourse of human security can be read as constituting 'bare life'; the human of which is essentially a desubjectified subject. For Agamben, the human has been captured by (bio)sovereign power, and the discourse of human security can be read as contributing to this (bio)sovereign subjection. A Foucauldian problematic of human security, in contrast, offers an account of the human of human security as both the object and subject of power. Human security can be seen as working through various techniques of power both on the level of the individual and on the level of the population. The framework for the deployment of the techniques of the self and techniques of domination is provided by (neo)liberalism. Whereas Foucault understands resistance as being internal to power, Agamben deems it necessary to escape the power that captures life. Agamben's work entails a rethinking of both politics and ontology as his understanding of political liberation is based on a rethinking of the concept of potentiality. Whereas Foucault's account of power offers a more detailed and differentiated critique of human security, Agamben's metaphysical account of power sees human security as part of the transhistorical workings of power that pervade our whole understanding of life and politics. While Foucault allows for the strategic use of the discourse of rights, Agamben rejects all normative discourse. A Foucauldian critique of human security recognises that the discourse of human security can be reshaped through problematisation and competition between different discourses. An Agambenite critique of human security does not consider it possible to reshape the discourse of human security as it is predicated on the same concepts - the human, the citizen, rights, law, identity - that mark the subjection of life by power. Whereas Foucault's understanding of political agency is grounded on the conditions of the contemporary world, Agamben gestures towards rethinking 'the human' beyond those conditions.

Book Review: Lehti, Marko, Henna-Riikka Pennanen & Jukka Jouhki (ed.). Contestations of Liberal Order. The West in Crisis? Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. 2020. 384 pages. ISBN 978-3-030-22058-7. ; nonPeerReviewed

The study examines the reasons of the social problems among the indigenous peoples in the Arctic from the perspective of indigeneity as a spatial setting where the indigenous self-identification and the self-expression occurs. In such analysis, indigeneity appears as an 'operating condition' which refers to a world view, where universal interrelatedness is emphasized over 'social reality'. The study claims that the social problems among the indigenous peoples in the Arctic, are the consequence of the international practices at the macro-level which have caused the crisis of indigeneity. The conclusion is that 'citizenship' which is emphasized by the recent international paradigm, prevents the fulfillment of a 'social agency' as the basis of indigeneity. For this reason, the study suggests that the 'citizenship' which base on the individual rights, should be replaced with the 'social citizenship'. Accordingly, the study deals with the 'transnationalism from below' as a gateway to 'social citizenship' which would better enable the intervention to the social problems among the indigenous peoples in the Arctic. From this outlook internationalism and globalization appears as the tools of governance against this background. As such, they are analyzed by means of constructivism which suggests that the colonization process still exists. On the other hand, the study presents that constructivism should be completed with the political psychology in order to understand the international relations. From the basis of these methodological solutions, the autoethnography and the narrative criticism are applied as study methods for the recognition of the negations of modernization and the understanding of the governmental practices among the indigenous peoples. Finally, the study pursues to prove the theoretical setting of the study by means of the gaming research.

Many international business organisations, associations and initiatives claim that they are serious about the thread of environmental degradation and wish to contribute positively. This new awareness is explained to be ethical in nature: to take care of the environment is an ethical thing to do, and concerns business, too. Based on the hermeneutic tradition, this study is an attempt to understand this claimed ethically motivated business environmentalism. Through analysing key texts produced by these business actors, I try to make sense about what is it that ethics has got to do with this kind of business activity. Theoretically, the texts are seen as one manifestation of the exercise of discursive power by business. The analysis shows that there is lots of ethically colored argumentation in the texts. However, the negative impacts of business activities on the environment are mostly denied, whereas the changing role of business in international environmental politics is overtly emphasised. Business is represented in positive terms, as an active and serious partner, the one to provide the solution needed to solve the environmental crisis. The texts can be understood as a reconstruction of a new, moral self-portrait for business. They are attempts to participate in the on-going debate about the direction to which environmental protection, the world, and business itself ought to be developed. The role of ethics in the texts is mostly that of legitimating: assuring the audience about the good and altruistic intentions of business. However, the texts are diverse and characterised by internal contradictions. In some of the texts there are traces that suggest that ethics is not only used as an instrumentalist means, but as an end in itself. Close contemplation of these texts helps to understand what these influential actors are about and what is it that they are doing in the international arena.

Greed and Control is an attempt to dissect the international norm against mercenaries to help better understand the normative hurdles faced by the modern private military industry. As previous research has found the French Revolution to have been a turning point in the use of mercenaries, the thesis traces the normative background of this development and applies the findings into the modern discourse. Using a constructivist approach, the thesis analyses a selection of sources from the 16th (Machiavelli, Luther) and 18th (Burke, Rousseau) centuries. The findings are then used to reveal the normative content of the modern discourse, represented by the materials of a military industry trade organization (IPOA) and the work of one of its most prominent critics (Scahill). Based on previous research on the subject, the approach assumes the norm to have to components; one pertaining to motivation, the other to control. The thesis argues that the motivation and control aspects of the norm are closely interlocked, the former serving the latter, a legitimate motivation being one which places a soldier under legitimate control. The growth of the republican tradition has been a major driving force in the development of the anti-mercenary norm. Social contract theory and the concepts citizenship and an impersonal state with the exclusive right to wage war led to the formation of the antimercenary norm in largely the same form it can be found in the present discourse. While the norm is being challenged, it appears presently still quite institutionalized.

Turkey first applied for EU membership in 1987 and started negotiations for full membership in October 2005 after lengthy and challenging negotiations between EU member states. This master's thesis attempts to examine the relationship between the negotiations for EU membership that are going on between Turkey and the EU Commission and the public discussion on the subject. The research material consists of selected posts on the Financial Times discussion forum and the Acquis communautaire and Copenhagen criteria. By comparing the research material this thesis attempts to investigate if the public deliberation and official negotiations focus on the same issues and requirements for membership. The theoretical background for this analysis is deliberative democracy, according to which public debate should be a prerequisite for agenda setting and decision making. The findings of the thesis reveal that the public discussion does touch on the acquis communautaire and Copenhagen criteria to some degree, but the public is also concerned with non-acquis issues such as the culture and history. A unique feature of the accession negotiations is also the amount of commentary from heads of state regarding the negotiations, which was also noted in the research material. In the light of deliberative democratic theory it can be noted that the public may take part in the discussion over Turkey's membership, but it has little or no chances of setting the agenda for the negotiations.

The Cold War used to be portrayed as a global struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. Even if this image has been challenged many times, the main images that come to mind when speaking of the Cold War, are often linked to superpower rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States, the threat of a military conflict, and nuclear armament. These images have proved tenacious regardless of scholarship underlining cooperation across apparent ideological division and cross-border interaction instead of hostility. One of the key weaknesses is that many areas still lack empirical research that would fill in the gaps and provide material to allow us to re-evaluate the extent and impact of the Cold War. This volume is intended to serve these needs. ; peerReviewed

The topic of this master thesis is the European Union foreign and security policy. More detailed, what sort of foreign policy EU is implementing through its military operation EU NAVFOR Atalanta launched to prevent and combat piracy off the coast of Somalia, and which kind of power position it is seeking through it internationally. The theoretical framework creating the structure of the research comes from Hans Morgenthau and his realistic theory, which he introduced more in detail in his book called Politics Among Nations – The Struggle for Power and Peace (1948). In this book, he separates three different policy types based on the state's foreign policy: policy of imperialism, policy of status quo and policy of prestige. The method of the research is directed content analysis. All the state's actions, especially the ones that are considered to belong to the area of foreign politics, are somehow after power: they either seek to increase, stabilize or show off it. Consequently, the objective is to recognize wether EU is trying to acquire more power, hold on to its present power or mainly just demonstrating its power through Operation Atalanta. Furthermore, embarking upon the identification of the foreign policy type allows us to further see what kind of power distribution EU is seeking in relation to other security actors. By recognizing EU's global ambitions and how it seeks to pursue them in the international security arena predictions can be made of EU's future engagement beyond its borders in the field of foreign and security politics. The analysis shows that EU is implementing mainly policy of prestige in the context of Operation Atalanta; in the beginning policy of prestige contributing towards status quo and later policy of prestige to increase power. Its main purpose was to bring visibility and recognition to EU as a global security actor and increase its estimation of power internationally. Through acquiring more equal power distribution it was trying to place itself next to other big security actors and thus present itself as a credible and capable alternative security source. However, its fundamental objective was not to overthrow the present power balance completely but to make adjustments and shift the power structures towards more beneficial to its global actorness.

This thesis examines the use of resilience in international policy-making. A concept that originally meant an ability of ecosystems to absorb disturbance has not only been welcomed in many disciplines outside ecology, but lately become popular in the policies of international organisations that claim resilience as a solution to various 'global problems' such as climate change, underdevelopment, or economic crises. The study contributes to the ongoing critical discussion on the governance effects of resilience. Here, the Foucauldian theory of biopolitics and the concept of governmentality are useful. Resilience now addresses human systems and communities with concepts from natural sciences, thus making it a biopolitical phenomenon. Specifically, the thesis asks how mainstreaming resilience affects the pursuit of agendas in six organisations: European Commission, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, World Bank, and World Economic Forum. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, the study is thematically divided into adaptive, entrepreneurial and governing aspects of resilience. Each part explicates how truth, power and subjectivity are constructed in the discourse. The analysis shows that contrary to the policy claims, resilience does not function as a solution but is constitutive of the problems it attempts to solve. The current policy discourse confirms pre-existing practices and power relations, and further problematizes issues on the agendas. The thesis confirms that the policies are trapped in a neoliberal biopolitics that has problematic implications for human subjectivity and political agency. It further concludes that if resilience is to have any practical relevance and positive effects, the policy discourse has to be changed, for which current critical accounts do not offer a plausible direction. Therefore, a distinction between resilience as a policy tool and social resilience is needed, whereby the use of resilience as a policy solution is reduced to disaster risk reduction and similar technical functions, and social resilience is recognised as a communal capacity that cannot be subject to policy regulation.

The chapter elucidates the disposition of the critical IR scholar by exploring the resonances between the political subject and the figure of the critic. While the critical disposition is often contrasted with proper politics as overly negative and devoid of constructive effects, I argue that political praxis and critical activity share a similar modus operandi in overcoming exclusions, overturning hierarchies and abolishing restrictions in a given world. The political subject is not a poet, artist or 'world-maker', but a pitiless critic of the worlds s/he finds itself in. Critical IR is therefore a political intervention into the world of the IR discipline that does not seek to consolidate a specific identity within its disciplinary structure but rather to problematize this structure in its entirety. ; peerReviewed

Kenneth N. Waltz s Theory of International Politics and its precursor, Man, the State, and War, have shaped the perceptions that the discipline of International Relations has of realism and its revised form, structural realism. While both works have been criticized from various perspectives, this study offers a distinct reading: the works are read through a semiotically minded framework of Jean Baudrillard s post-structuralist theory of simulation. The three images of international relations presented in Man, the State, and War are equated with the three phases of the image in Baudrillard s Simulacra and Simulation. The level of human nature corresponds to counterfeit simulacra, the level of state to productive simulacra, and the level of the anarchical interstate system to simulacra of simulation. The third image, international anarchy, which Waltz formulates as a systemic theory of international relations in Theory of International Politics, is analyzed as a full-fledged simulation, while models and reductionist theories are treated as merely second-order simulacra. It is concluded that Waltz s theory is not in the order of representation, but a simulation theory that is unable to signify real-world referents. It is for this reason that structural realism has failed to develop a progressive research program particularly after the end of the Cold War. Tiivistelmä Kenneth N. Waltzin Theory of International Politics ja sen edeltäjä, Man, the State, and War, ovat muovanneet kansainvälisen politiikan tieteenalan näkemyksiä realismista ja sen uudistetusta muodosta, rakenteellisesta realismista. Siinä missä molempia teoksia on kritisoitu usealta näkökannalta, tämä tutkielma esittää erilaisen lukutavan: teoksia luetaan Jean Baudrillardin poststrukturalistisen simulaation teorian ja semioottisen viitekehyksen läpi. Man, the State, and War -teoksen kansainvälisten suhteiden kolme kuvaa vertautuvat Baudrillardin Simulacres et simulation -teoksessa esittämiin kuvan kolmeen vaiheeseen. Ihmisluonnon taso vastaa väärennöksen simulakrumeja, valtion taso produktiivisia simulakrumeja ja anarkisen kansainvälisen järjestelmän taso simulaation simulakrumeja. Kolma kuva, kansainvälinen anarkia, jonka Waltz kehittää kansainvälisen politiikan systeemiseksi teoriaksi teoksessaan Theory of International Politics, nähdään täysivaltaisena simulaationa, kun taas malleja ja reduktionistisia teorioita käsitellään toisen asteen simulakroina. Johtopäätöksenä on, että Waltzin teoria ei ole representaation piirissä, vaan simulaatioteoria, joka ei kykene merkitsemään tosimaailman referenttejä. Tämän takia rakenteellinen realismi on epäonnistunut progressiivisen tutkimusohjelman luomisessa erityisesti kylmän sodan päättymisen jälkeen.

Climate change has become an important and politicallycharged arena where traditional indigenous knowledges meet Western scientific knowledge. The positioning of Arctic science, at the edges of the scientific discourse but the centre of the climate change debate, makes it a philosophically probable and politically crucial location for questioning the foundations of Western science. By critically examining northern research that attempts to bridge the gap between traditional and scientific understandings of climate change, I ask the question, what do these meetings reveal about science? Studying how traditional knowledge appears through the lens of science can reveal much about science itself. In its attempt to predict the future, science becomes engaged in a neverending battle with uncertainty, but a core element of climate change is increased uncertainty. I discuss how more data may not provide the hoped for answers, but a change in attitude towards uncertainty might. Unlike science, traditional knowledge is more accepting of uncertainty, and while this is often attributed to spiritual elements, the key is nonhuman agency. I introduce new materialism as an emerging philosophy which restores agency to the nonhuman world through its holistic ontologyepistemology, offering science the possibility of accepting uncertainty without invoking spirituality. When traditional knowledge and science meet, boundaries can be created, reinforced, or overcome. By dissolving boundaries without erasing differences, new materialism offers the potential of decolonizing the Western scientific paradigm, thus opening it up to alternative ways of understanding and allowing it to be more effectively used as one of many tools in coping with climate change on both local and international scales.

The aim of research in this study is to explain why the Arctic region is in the beginning of the 21st century under politicization, and how the five Arctic Ocean states participate in it by actively legitimating their new leading role in the governance of the Arctic of melting ice and new opportunities. The previous politicization that the region underwent after the Cold War and the changed geopolitical framework for the new one are first written open in order to set the scene for analysis, which is done according to relational constructivist analysis. The historical account of the previous politicization of the region legitimates the claim of a new one and connects the study to other research done of the Arctic. It also helps to deepen the analysis from being mere explanation of activities in the Arctic into offering a more comprehensive understanding of the politicization processes taking place in the region. The theoretical framework of the study constructs of traditional and critical geopolitics and theories of governmentality. It also connects to the constructivist ontology of the study and to theories of legitimacy, which are used as an aid in the research methodology. The main body of work consists of the identification of legitimation discourses that the five littoral Arctic states use when participating in the construction and validation of their new role and identity in the Arctic at a moment of disrupting continuity that the region is undergoing. These discourses are in the analysis mapped out according to their content into story-lines, generative sorts of narratives that allow the actors to draw upon various discoursive categories to give meaning to phenomena. With the help of these story-lines "a rhetorical topography" of the Arctic constructed by the states in their policies is then created. The research material from which the discourses are mapped out into story-lines consists of the Arctic policies of the five Arctic Ocean states published in years 2008 and 2009. As the choice of research material and the theoretical framework of the study emphasize the central role of the sovereign states and the western state-system in the controlling of the politicization processes of the Arctic, the situated nature of the knowledge produced in it is acknowledged. This is done in order to avoid barely repeating, and thus validating the legitimation story-lines constructed by the states in their policies and policy proposals under analysis. The conclusion of the thesis is that all of the five states use similar discourses in the validation of their Arctic identities that can be mapped out into three coherent story-lines. These story-lines are national and international governmentality, security, and science and knowledge. With them the states legitimate the role of the sovereign state as the highest form of political and moral identity in the management of the politicization of the Arctic. The story-lines hence enable the five littoral Arctic states to act in a leading position within the framework of the new politicization of the Arctic, where climate change is opening up new possibilities for development of resource exploitation and navigational opportunities that have not been accessible before in an economically viable way. At the states' part the politicization constructs mainly of the provisions they are negotiating for themselves in this changed geological and thus geopolitical situation in the Arctic. The states are validating with the construction of the three story-lines their shared claims over the construction of a state-led governance of the politicization of the Arctic, and their will for peaceful cooperation with each other. These claims also legitimate the existence of the power vested in the western state-system and its core concept of sovereignty, which weaken the position and possibilities of influence of non-governmental actors in the new geopolitical region emerging from the frost in the Arctic Ocean. This aspect of the legitimation story-lines is what ultimately sets the two politicizations apart from each other, as the main characteristic of the last one was especially the emergence of non-governmental actors into the center of governance of the region, its environment and natural resources. The last politicization thus proceeded from top-to-bottom, not the other way around as the states are trying to legitimate the case to be this time around when taking part in the new politicization of the region. At the end of the study the need for ongoing research of the politicization of the Arctic is highlighted and legitimated as the study is recognized not to give a comprehensive picture of the politicization of the Arctic due to the state-centric framework of it and due to the constant and rapid reconstruction of politics in the region. The study can thus be used as a basis for or a part of a more comprehensive analysis of, which story-lines, identities and roles, will during this new politicization become sedimented and entrenched, and into what kind of actions and governance these will lead in the Arctic of the 21st century.

As the West struggles, China, economically and politically stable, has increased its criticism toward the Western-led international order. According to Chinese arguments, the ongoing decade has demonstrated that the Western liberal international order is no more capable of solving the troubles of the globalizing world. It is as if the Western political imagination has run out of steam and it is now the responsibility of China to take the lead in stabilizing the world. On the side of the official statements, Chinese theorists of world politics are envisioning a new alternative world order, which would be based on a historical, sinocentric system that was in place in East Asia for thousands of years. According to Chinese theorists, this 'tianxia system' was based on completely different philosophical and institutional foundations, and it is a mere historical contingency that it was later left in the shadow of the Western international order. This 'tianxia theory' is one of the main proponents for a new 'Chinese theory of world politics'. It is slowly influencing policy circles in China, and more importantly, globally challenging our ingrained conceptions on world politics. A large part of the work of the tianxia theorists consists of criticisms of the 'west': its religion, political thought, and 'chaotic' individualist nature. The chapter especially focuses on these critical narratives of the 'west'. ; peerReviewed