Last week's shadow cabinet reshuffle reaffirmed David Lammy as the UK's apparent Foreign Secretary in waiting. Larry Attree assesses how Labour’s foreign and security policy offer is shaping up.
Blog
Ireland’s Consultative Forum on International Security Policy
This summer Ireland has held its own public national debates on its security context and the potential future direction of Irish international security policy. Andrew Cottey discusses what Ireland did and the potential for any change to its tradition of military neutrality.
The Worries Box: What really makes people feel insecure?
A group of activists in Bath spent the winter collecting the ‘worries’ of their fellow citizens about the future. Their indicative findings suggest a country deeply concerned about the viability of its planet, the misdeeds of its politicians, and a failing and divisive economic system.
The Meaning of the Jenin Raid
The recent Israeli military operation in the Jenin camp marks a change and escalation in Israel’s tactics in the West Bank as it tries to control Palestinian responses to the recent rapid expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territory, writes Paul Rogers.
Weaponising Sheep: Israeli settler colonialism in the South Hebron Hills
While media attention has focused on devastating Israeli military raids on Jenin and Nablus and land expropriations in East Jerusalem, a slower burning form of violence is being perpetrated by settlers against Palestinian herders in the West Bank, seeking to gain control of their land and livelihoods. Andrew Rigby reports from the South Hebron Hills.
Thinking inside the box: How opinion polls shape security debates and policy in the UK
In a major new report for Rethinking Security, Lillah Fearnley explores how public opinion on security is surveyed in the UK, what questions are asked, by whom and of whom, and what policy responses are included and promoted. The following is the Executive Summary of that report, including recommendations for policy-makers, pollsters and media.
Reclaiming peace from patriarchal frameworks of security
Can talking about 'peace and security' be a tool of oppression? What if peace were taken to be a process that begins and ends in the body? Sofya Shahab and Chloe Skinner report on their work with women researchers in Palestine and Iraq to disentangle 'peace' from patriarchal framings of security and relocate it in bodily sensation.
Security and the Politics of Exclusion
If security is such a broad concept, why does security policy so often seek to exclude the most vulnerable from protection? Leonie Mills-Woanya looks at the UK’s approach to international development, border control and policing and finds it consciously polarising and exclusive, not so much from a lack of resources as a lack of political will.
Stick and Twist: The UK bets big on existential competition
The UK has revealed its hand for its new national security strategy, released on 13 March. Or has it? In this new long read, Richard Reeve argues that the UK is placing three big, long bets in its Integrated Review Refresh with major consequences and opportunity costs for tackling the environmental and social crises that threaten us all
Investment, Influence and Integrity: How arms industries compromise universities’ research agendas
Universities are hubs for furthering knowledge and expertise. However, much of their research funding seeks to support the arms industry. Liam Doherty explores the relationship between universities and weapons manufacturing and how it puts academic integrity at risk.
Solidarity and Self-Definition: Can research processes build peace and security?
Understanding the lived experience of marginalised people in situations of violence and insecurity is vital for peace and conflict policy-makers and practitioners, but can being involved in participatory research also contribute to the well-being of conflict-affected people? Four Yezidi women from northern Iraq here reflect on their research into their own experience of and response to insecurity.
What if Ukrainians hadn’t fought back?
Ukraine has endured massive destruction, displacement and at least tens of thousands of deaths as its people have fought against Russia’s invasion over the last year. But, asks Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, were there other, nonviolent paths not taken and would such resistance have fared better than warfare?