State, Society and Environmental Security in International Relations Theory


Publisher: Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Author(s): Justin Joseph

Date: 2023

Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Conflict Prevention, Governance

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As emerging non-traditional security issues in global politics such as environmental crises offer new avenues of research on the state-society behaviour in non-western political orders, this study applies an integrated conceptual framework of Copenhagen School’s securitization, constructivism and green theory in international relations theory (IRT). One of the key objectives of the study includes to provide a theoretical explanation on the role of non-state agencies in ameliorating the environmental condition. With the support of an illustrative case study, the researcher argues in line with the finding of Acharya and Buzan (2007) that there is no need to replace Western IRTs, but they should be enriched with more voices from non-western political orders. In other words, the emerging non-traditional issues in global politics are not “noises” to weaken existing IRTs but “voices” to strengthen their theoretical foundation.