Philippe Bourbeau

What does it mean to be resilient in a societal or in an international context? Where does resilience come from? From which discipline was it “imported” into International Relations (IR)? If a particular government instrumentalises the meaning of resilience to its own benefit should scholars reject the analytical purchase of the concept of resilience as a whole? Does a government have the monopoly of understanding how resilience is defined and applied? This book addresses these questions. Even though resilience in global politics is not new, a major shift is currently happening in how we understand and apply resilience in world politics. Resilience is indeed increasingly theorised, rather than simply employed as a noun; it has left the realm of vocabulary and entered the terrain of concept. This book demonstrates the multiple origins of resilience, traces the diverse expressions of resilience in IR to various historical markers, and propose a theory of resilience in world politics.

People are undoubtedly on the move, when one out of every 33 people in the world is an international migrant. Concurrently, nation-states are attempting to curb migration for security reasons. International migration is perceived, in some eyes, as an existential security threat in the post-Cold War era. This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art analysis of the critically important links between migration and security in a globalizing world. Experts from different fields reflect on their respective conceptualizations of the migration–security nexus, and consider how an interdisciplinary and multifaceted dialogue can stimulate and enrich our understanding of the securitization of migration in the contemporary world.

Security is one of the most daunting subjects of the 21st century. This edited volume provides a comparative analysis of the ways in which the concept of security is theorised and studied across several disciplines. This book has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of theories, paradigms and methods developed to study security; second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, paradigmatic, and normative aspects of security studies in social sciences. Drawing content from a wide range of international scholars, this volume examines the study and theorisation of security across several disciplines and issue areas. Readers from different fields are invited to reflect on their conceptualisations of security and to consider how an interdisciplinary dialogue can stimulate and enrich the understanding of security in our contemporary world.

"The international movement of people is provoking worldwide anxiety and apprehension. Nation-states around the globe, especially Western ones, are cracking down on migration for security reasons. International migration has become a key security issue and is perceived, by some, as an existential security threat.
The Securitization of Migration is about the movement of people and the system of order underpinning the movement. In undertaking a comparative study of Canada and France, the study analyzes the process of securitizing migration. It explores the process of discursively and institutionally integrating international migration into security frameworks that emphasize policing and defense. Drawing upon social theory, migration studies, and Securitization Theory, Philippe Bourbeau seeks to understand the concepts of power underlying security frameworks and how these affect the treatment of migrants and immigrants. This book is one of the first to systematically and comparatively examine the role of political agents, media agents, and contextual factors in the process of securitizing migration.
The book will be of interest to students and scholars concerned with comparative and theoretical approaches to security and migration studies.""

L'objectif premier de cet essai est d'éclaircir la nature des rapports qu'entretient la Chine avec la diaspora chinoise et d'en mesurer la portée. En outre, il tente de cerner en quoi cette relation État-émigré spécifique affecte les relations sino-russes depuis la chute de l'URSS. Comment la Chine perçoit-elle la place de la Russie dans l'espace géostratégique du Nord-Est asiatique ? Cette place est-elle compatible avec la présence de plusieurs milliers de Chinois ayant émigré en Extrême-Orient russe ?

A great deal has been written in the past years about the process of institutionally integrating international migration into security frameworks that employ and induce control, policing, and defence—i.e., the securitisation of migration. The objective of this article is to complement these studies by focusing on the processes that contribute to the continuity of a securitised understanding of international migration. I suggest that the practice of detaining migrants in detention centres plays an important role in how the securitisation of migration gets perpetuated as the dominant lens through which the international movement of people is understood. In studying the securitisation of migration in Canada since the 1990s, I examine three processes: (1) that a mimetic process from criminal law to immigration law was instrumental in linking migration and security; (2) that practices and norms, especially the adjudication norms, were simultaneously at play in casting security as the dominant lens through which international migration is understood; and (3) that the practices of detaining migrants in centres resembling carceral facilities has helped to " lock in " an understanding of migration as a security issue.

The use of the concept of resilience in social sciences is far from new. Several disciplines and fields of research, including psychology, child development, criminology, biology, ecology and social work, have laid out the components and strengths of a resilience approach in the past sixty years, if not beyond. While these disciplines have consolidated and expanded these viewpoints, resilience as emerged as an important and much-discussed theme in the public policy realm and in various sub-fields of world politics. At the same time as resilience is gaining popularity in world politics, a particular genealogy of resilience is structuring much of the critical literature in International Relations (IR): resilience was born in system ecology in the 1970s. On the basis of this particular genealogy, many IR critical theorists argue that resilience is a form of reasoning that participates in a neoliberal rationality of governance; seen in this light, resilience is lamentable. In this article, I propose a different, more extensive genealogy of resilience. I argue that before we can conduct an analysis of the application of resilience in world politics, we must understand the diverse paths through which resilience has percolated into international politics. By tracing the diverse expressions of resilience in world politics to various markers within the history of resilience, this article contends that this is an opportune moment to move scattered scholarships on resilience a step further and better theorise the relationship between resilience and world politics.

Practices are capturing increased interest in International Relations (IR) of late. Throughout this article, I demonstrate that the body of work under review contributes to a progressive research agenda in world politics. As such, the high quality of the books under review attests to the dynamism of the practice turn. This review puts forward two main arguments. First, I distinguish at least four different forms of a practice approach on display in the reviewed books. Second, I suggest that practice is an essentially contested concept. Overall, this review article highlights some trends flowing from these books as well as some questions that remain either underdeveloped or unanswered.

The ubiquity of resilience – the process of patterned adjustments adopted by a society or an individual in the face of endogenous or exogenous shocks – across the broad social sciences spectrum is undisputable. Yet, migration scholars have been relatively absent from this vibrant discussion. The present article suggests a theorization of the link between migration, resilience, and security by examining ways in which resilience precedes a socially constructed understanding of international migration as a security issue. The article explores how the surge in worldwide refugee numbers and associated mass migration phenomena were not only interpreted as a shock in post-Cold War France, but also instrumentalised by dominant discourses to underscore the necessity of adopting a particular pattern of adjustments to uphold the status quo against changes provoked by these migratory events. The social construction of refugee movements and mass migration as a significant disturbance requiring France to opt for a resilient strategy has led, ultimately, to the securitization of migration. In a broader sense, the article presents a new lens through which to analyze situations and conditions in which resilience has led to and induced the securitization of migration.

Resilience has gained substantial traction in international politics of late. This scholarship has sparked debates concerning the meaning of resilience and how scholar should go about studying it. Scholars attuned to Michel Foucault’s governmentality thesis argue that resilience is a product of contemporary neoliberalism and constitutes a strategy permitting states to abdicate responsibility in times of crisis. The overarching objective of this article is to tell a different socio-political story of the connections between resilience and international politics. In mapping International Relations scholars working on resilience, the gist of the argument presented here is that although resilience may be in some instances a neoliberal device for governance, it has a wider range of meanings as well. By setting out a different narrative of resilience, this article opens the possibility of an analysis that sees the emergence of resilience in international politics has holding great promise for renewing and deepening current International Relations debates, including securitization, international interventions, vulnerability, resistance, and the political use of myth.

In recent years, a great deal has been written in the scholarly literature about the role of resilience in our social world. This scholarship has sparked vivid theoretical debates in psychology, criminology, social work, and political geography about the nature of resilience and how scholars should go about studying it. Yet, International Relations and security studies have been relatively absent from the vibrant discussion. The term is employed but rarely unpacked, let alone theoretically analyzed. This article outlines some necessary steps of convergence, enabling a coherent framework for a resiliencist approach to the study of the securitization process. The bulk of the article lays out the premises of resiliencism; discusses the added-value of the approach, suggests distinguishing between three types of resilience, and illustrates the set of arguments with the case of the securitization of migration in France and in Canada.

Dans un récent numéro de Critique Internationale (2011), la question de la politisation des individus a été posée avec beaucoup de finesse, rigueur et compétence. Tout en prenant appui sur ces contributions, l’objet de cet article n’est pas d’offrir une nouvelle définition du processus de politisation ou de démontrer empiriquement la validité d’une perspective au dépend d’une autre. Notre contribution à ce débat se veut complémentaire. Nous voulons en effet souligner la justesse et le bien fondé de réfléchir à la question de la politisation dans une perspective internationale en juxtaposant les processus de politisation avec les processus de sécuritisation dans le domaine des migrations internationales de l’après-guerre froide. L’argument central que nous proposons est que les processus de politisation et de sécuritisation sont certes deux processus distincts mais ils ne sont pas mutuellement exclusifs ni intrinsèquement en concurrence directe l’un avec l’autre. Une discussion du cas des migrations internationales au Canada, particulièrement comment les processus de politisation et de sécuritisation ont été mis de l’avant par certains agents médiatiques et politiques, viendra illustrer notre propos.

La perception des migrations internationales a significativement changé depuis la fin de la guerre froide. Auparavant largement traitées sous un angle économique et démographique, les migrations internationales sont depuis quelques années une préoccupation de sécurité de la majorité des pays membres de l’OCDE. Pour décrire ce virage sécuritaire, les chercheurs parlent de la sécuritisation des migrations ou de migrations qui évoluent dans un cadre sécuritaire. Or, si la littérature théorique sur le processus de sécuritisation est bien développée, la base empirique demeure incomplète et limitée, particulièrement l’analyse de contenu de discours réalisée de façon systématique et sur une période de temps relativement longue. Deux objectifs guident cet article. D’une part, nous chercherons à analyser, sur la base d’une étude comparative des discours de plusieurs agents politiques au Canada entre 1989 et 2011, le rôle de nombreux agents dans le processus de sécuritisation des migrations. D’autre part, nous tenterons de dégager, en conclusion et sur la base de notre analyse, des hypothèses de travail pour les études sur la sécuritisation des migrations.

A great deal has been written in the International Relations literature about the role of resilience in our social world. One of the central debates in the scholarship concerns the relationship between resilience and resistance, which several scholars consider to be one of mutual exclusivity. For many theorists, an individual or a society can either be resilient or resistant, but not both. In this article, we argue that this understanding of the resilience– resistance connection suffers from three interrelated problems: it treats resilience and resistance as binary concepts rather than processes; it presents a simplistic conception of resilient subjects as apolitical subjects; and it eschews the " transformability " aspect of resilience. In a bid to resolve these issues, the article advocates for the usefulness of a relational approach to the processes of resilience and resistance and suggest an approach that understands resilience and resistance as engaged in mutual assistance rather than mutual exclusion. The case of the Palestinian national liberation movement illustrates our set of arguments.

People are undoubtedly on the move. The International Organisation for Migration estimated the number of international migrants worldwide at 214 million in 2013. One out of every thirty-three people in the world is an international migrant. At the same time, nation-states around the globe are cracking down on migration for security reasons. International migration is perceived, in some eyes, as an existential security threat in the post-Cold War era.
The Handbook on Migration and Security provides a state-of-the-art analysis of the critically important links between migration and security in a globalising world. This unique handbook has two objectives: first, to explore the growing diversity of approaches, paradigms, questions, and methods developed to study the migration-security nexus; second, to initiate a multidisciplinary dialogue about the ontological, epistemological, explanatory, and normative aspects of the links between migration and security in the social sciences and beyond. Drawing contributions from a wide range of international scholars, this volume examines how the securitisation of migration is studied across several disciplines and issue areas.

Ce chapitre est divisé en trois parties. En premier lieu, nous passerons en revue les différentes applications de la résilience en relations internationales afin de mettre en lumière le sous-développement de ce concept et la nécessité de pousser plus loin une analyse de la résilience en relations internationales. Nous proposerons par la suite un cadre d’analyse en trois points de la résilience. La dernière section de ce chapitre offrira une typologie de la résilience en distinguant la résilience afin de maintenir le statu quo, la résilience en tant que modifications marginales et la résilience entendue comme renouvèlement.

In recent years, a great deal has been written in the scholarly literature about the role of resilience in our social world. This scholarship has sparked vivid theoretical debates in psychology, criminology, social work, and political geography about the nature of resilience and how scholars should go about studying it. Resilience is increasingly making its entries into International Relations (IR) literature. This chapter provides a brief introduction to how the concept of resilience has been defined and deployed within social sciences, suggests a particular definition of resilience, and outlines a terrain of debate and research agendas.

In recent years, a great deal has been written in the scholarly literature about the role of resilience in our social world. This scholarship has sparked vivid theoretical debates in psychology, criminology, social work, and political geography about the nature of resilience and how scholars should go about studying it. Yet, International Relations and security studies have been relatively absent from the vibrant discussion. The term is employed but rarely unpacked, let alone theoretically analyzed. This chapter outlines some necessary steps of convergence, enabling a coherent framework for a resiliencist approach to the study of the securitization process. The bulk of the chapter suggests distinguishing between three types of resilience, discusses the added-value of the approach, and illustrates the set of arguments with the case of the securitization of migration in France and in Canada.

Securitization is one of the most dynamic fields of research in today’s security studies. This article (a) examine the various definitions developed by scholars to make sense of the phenomenon, (b) presents the two logics upon which most of the research is conducted (i.e. the logic of exception and the logic of routine), and (c) identifies avenues of research that will most likely drive future research in this field.