Security as Politics Beyond the State of Exception

Uses the perspective of parliamentarians to reassess the relationship between security and politics

Andrew W. Neal argues that while 'security' was once an anti-political 'exception' in liberal democracies - a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state - it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical security studies debates and their core assumption that security is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic 'anti-politics'.

Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Neal investigates security politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. In doing so, he develops an original reassessment of the security/politics relationship.

Andrew W. Neal is a Director of the Centre for Security Research (CeSeR) and Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Exceptionalism and the Politics of Counter-Terrorism: Liberty, Security, and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2010) . He the editor of Security in a Small Nation: Scotland, Democracy, Politics (Open Book Publishers, 2017); co-editor with Claudia Aradau, Jef Huysmans and Nadine Voelkner of Critical Security Methods (Routledge, 2014); and co-editor with Michael Dillon of Foucault on Politics, Security and War (Palgrave, 2008 and 2011).