Security and Emancipation

Abstract

In this article Booth critiques the speed with which the International Relations discipline adapts to the changing context of the post-Cold War era. He proposes a shift in how one of the disciplines key concepts, security, should be understood, distancing it from the Nation-State. For Booth the Nation-State should be the means but not the end of Security. The concept of security should be equivalent to emancipation. Emancipation understood as the economic and physical security of individuals and social justice. He names this new approach Utopic Realism.