Chapter 16 Self-test questions

. What is meant by 'a duality of state and societal security'?

A duality occurs between the security needs of the state and of society where state security concerns threats to sovereignty and societal security concerns threats to identity

Contemporary processes of globalization and societal conflict required the development of new conceptual tools beyond the state as the referent object. Security was dependent on factors beyond geographically conceived survival: survival of the state was superseded by survival of the nation (ethnic) state

Societal security referred to the sustainable development of traditional patterns of military capabilities. Military threats could be subdivided to include the infrastructural strength, the technology, personnel, the economic base, and the political base of the military security sector.

A duality occurs between state and society where state security concerns (such as war) are intimately connected to the individual and society.

. Which of the following is essential to societal security?

Sovereignty

Identity

Hegemonic ethnicity

All of the above

. Which of the following statements is the odd one out?

Societal groups are constituted by social interaction.

Societal groups have their own reality.

Societal groups are defined by the state.

Societal groups are multiple-identity units.

. Which of the following statements does not describe 'nations'?

Nations may be made up of different ethnic-identity groups.

Nations may be difficult to distinguish from societies.

Nations are defined by the boundaries and borders of the state.

Nations may contain multiple religious identity groups.

. In what ways might a society be threatened?

Societies are threatened when their linguistic heritage and traditions are under attack. The inability to use and develop traditional language signifies the destruction of a society.

Threats to societal security exist when a society regards its collective identity as being under question. Such circumstances include the suppression of expression and interference with a society's ability to reproduce itself across generations.

Military threats to societies in the form of external aggression, mainly through de-population policies with the intent of preventing collective identities from being reproduced over generations.

Migratory influxes into a host receiving state results in a shift in the composition of the population resulting in horizontal competition or vertical competition. This is not an outright threat to survival but part of wider uncontrollable processes of evolutionary identity.

. To what extent can societal identity be defended militarily?

Intra-state collectives faced with a political or military threat to their identity will form their own militia or defensive force as a means of protection. This results in the establishment of quasi-states which may undermine the territorial integrity of the nation.

If a threat posed by one group to another is military—particularly when linked to the defence of the historic homeland-armed response is required. At the intra-state level, many societal groups have no such means of armed protection and are compelled to employ non-military counter-measures.

Being aligned with the state, society has immediate and unequivocal access to the use of state forces (in the form of military retaliation) if there is a threat to societal security.

Societal groups do not face military threats; being constituted by identity and social cohesion, military forces are not engaged against societal groups in any meaningful way.

. Which of the following is a legitimate threat to societal security?

Political policies designed to alter demographic characteristics of a state

The use of military force to conduct ethnic cleansing through displacement and killing

Legislation that criminalizes certain cultural behaviours or practice

All of the above

. Which of the following statements is the odd one out?

Institutions that facilitate the reproduction of cultural values, such as churches and schools, can be used to control and strengthen those cultural values.

Political-nationalist strategies can be employed by the state to boost nationalist interests.

Engagement of military forces to expel certain social groups from within a state

Secession allows a societal group to withdraw from a larger entity where it may be under threat from dilution or destruction.

. Which is not a main category of threat for societal security?

Migration

Vertical competition

Horizontal competition

Religion

. In what ways has the concept of societal security been criticized as an analytical tool?

Charge: Reification. Societies are not objective realities but fluid, continuously being constructed and re-constructed which makes it difficult to discuss with reference to a single societal identity.

Answer: But once constructed societies may temporarily be fixed. Societal security can be useful for accounting for specific events in a specific time.

Charge: Who speaks for society? Where state and society coincide, security concerns are articulated by governing bodies or societal representatives. In these cases state security and societal security is interchangeable.

Answer: States and societies do not always coincide and the voices of state and societal security interests will be different and minorities may be forced to articulate their concerns outside of the state apparatus.

Charge: The danger of voicing societal security. Perceived threats to societal security can be used to legitimize racist and xenophobic political agendas.

Answer: However, the danger can be offset against the necessity of the concept to understand what is happening (Waever: 1999: 337).

All of the above

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