Peter Houg
Biography
Peter Hough lectures in International Relations and heads up this subject at Middlesex University.
Book Description
Fully revised to incorporate recent developments, this fourth edition of Understanding Global Security analyses the variety of ways in which people's lives are threatened and/or secured in contemporary global politics. The traditional focus of Security Studies texts: war, deterrence and terrorism, are analysed alongside non-military security issues such as famine, crime, disease, disasters, environmental degradation and human rights abuses to provide a comprehensive survey of how and why people are killed in the contemporary world.
This new edition features:
- Greater coverage of the evolving theoretical literature on security, including more analysis of critical theory perspectives and emerging schools of thought.
- Reflections on recent developments in the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine.
- New data and cases on poverty, hunger and depression and greater analysis of the social and political implications of the prolonged period of stagnation the global economy has gone through.
- New content reflecting the recent resurgence in populist nationalism evident in the election of Trump in the USA, the UK’s exit from the EU and the authoritarian turn taken in many countries.
- Analysis of the 2015 Paris climate change treaty and the international responses to recent pandemics such as Ebola and Zika
- A new section has been included on suicide, plugging a gap evident in the earlier editions.
User-friendly and easy to follow, this highly acclaimed and popular academic textbook is designed to make a complex subject accessible to all and will continue to be essential reading for everyone interested in security.
Table of Contents
1. Security and securitization
Defining security
The international political agenda
The securitization of issues
Conclusions
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
2. Military threats to security from states
Is war inevitable?
Prelude to the present order
A New World Order?
Liberal Perspectives on the New World Order
Realist Perspectives on the New World Order
Marxist Perspectives on the New World Order
Social Constructivist Perspectives on the New World Order
An end to ‘high politics’?
Conclusions
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
3. Threats to security from non-state actors
One man’s terrorist….
Types of violent political non-state actors
The rise of political non-state violence
Responses to non-state violence
Conclusions: Can political non-state violence be defeated?
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
4. Economic threats to security
Economist Insecurity
Famine
Hunger
Depression
Economic statecraft
Achieving global economic security
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
5. Identity, society and insecurity
Security and society
Forms of violent discrimination
Securing the individual- the global politics of human rights
Universalism versus cultural relativism
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
6. Environmental threats to security
Introduction
The rise of environmental issues in global politics
Environmental securitization in theory
Environmental securitization in practice
Evaluating environmental securitization
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
7. Health threats to security
The globalization of ill-health
The development of global health policy
The state securitization of health
The human securitization of health
The globalization of heath security
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
8. Natural threats to security
Natural disasters
The rise of human vulnerability to nature
Preparing for the unexpected- the global politics of natural disaster management
Conclusions
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
9. Accidental threats to security
Accidents will happen? The nature of man-made accidents
The collateral damage of industrialization? The rise of accidental threats.
Securing those at risk in the world- international policy on accidents.
Conclusions
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
10. Criminal threats to security
Introduction
Global crime in historical context
Webs of deceit: the rise of transnational crime
Global crime fighting
Conclusions
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
11. Towards global security
Thinking global: integration theories and global politics
Acting global: global solutions to global problems
Conclusions
Key points
Recommended reading
Useful web links
