On June 26th/27th we are organzing an IdeaLab on Maritime Security at Cardiff University. The objective of the two days IdeaLab is to explore how the maritime as a security space can be grasped from different disciplinary and practical perspectives. The intent is to discuss work in progress, exchange perspectives and develop ideas of what theoretical and practical contributions a collective project of transdisciplinary Maritime Security Studies can make to understanding the maritime and to facilitate the governance of maritime life. The aim is to address general theoretical questions pertaining to the maritime space as a field of international activity, to consider the governance of the maritime and the securitization processes underlying it and to study the international strategies towards maritime capacity building in regions such as Eastern and Western Africa. The IdeaLab will hence focus on the following themes:

• How can the maritime as a space of international practice be theorized?
• From Seapower to Maritime Security: How does the securitization of the maritime unfold?
• After UNCLOS: What are the challenges for governing the maritime?
• What responses to maritime threats such as piracy are available?
• What maritime security strategies are required for just and sustainable order at sea?
• What are the roles of navies, coast guards and development agencies in capacity building and external assistance in maritime security and developing the blue economy?
• What are the objects, methods and priorities of Maritime Security Studies?

We invite contributions which address one or several of the workshop themes. Please submit an abstract of up to 500 words, together with a brief biography (up to 300 words) and your full contact details, by April, the 1st, to stockbrueggerj@cardiff.ac.uk.

I uploaded a forthcoming book chapter to my Academia page. The chapter is part of Maximilian Mayer’s forthcoming grand edition on Science, Technology and International Relations which is expected to come out in autumn this year. In the chapter I review how IR has dealt with questions of expertise and I argue that there are three generations of research. Here is the abstract:

The role and functions of expertise in international politics is, since decades, a core research theme in IR. This chapter outlines a history of how the relation between science and international politics has been approached in IR through the lenses of expertise. My intention is to offer a heuristic device. I argue that the debate can be structure in three generations. A first generation is interested in experts as actors that have a causal influence on international politics. The second generation scrutinizes discourses of expertise and their constitutional role in making the international. And the third generation concentrates on practices of expertise and the way these perform the epistemic arrangements of the international. To think about the study of expertise in the frame of three generations each offering different insights and carrying advantages and problems provides not only a practical tool for sorting ideas, but clarifies what one ‘buys in’ by following a specific generation.

The chapter will be of interest for those working on expertise and the relation between science and politics in general, as well as those interest in how this plays out in an international environment in specific. I sample research from research fields including international organizations, security studies, international law and international environmental politics.

My article that develops an understanding of piracy as a community of practice and investigates why Somali pirates rely on the narrative that their actions are a form of protection is now available as Open Access with Third World Quarterly.  In the article I develop a practice–theoretical account to provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali piracy. Arguing for an understanding of piracy as a ‘community of practice’, I show how this community is organised by a ‘grand narrative’ that projects piracy as a quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persistence of piracy and assists us in understanding the phenomenon. Relying on publicly available interviews with pirates, I deconstruct this grand narrative and detail the different functions of the narrative in the light of situations in which it is told. The article develops an alternative perspective on piracy based on the study of practice, narrative and situation that provides new avenues for the study of clandestine, illicit or violent practices.

Maritime security has been a long-neglected issue on the African security agenda. This situation is changing incrementally, not the least because of the attention to the problem of piracy in the continent’s waters. The “piracy momentum” has led to a significant intensification of maritime security cooperation. This article analyzes current processes, strategies, and institutional responses to maritime security challenges. Drawing on a practice-theoretical constructivist reading of regimes, the article investigates how continental actors interact, develop a common repertoire, and engage in joint enterprises to address maritime security challenges. It argues that several nascent transnational collectives are developing that can be interpreted as providing the nucleus of maritime security communities. It is one of the first articles analyzing African maritime security from a theoretically informed perspective. It is available as Open Access with the Journal African Security. 

From the 5th to the 6th of December I will participate in “The Blue Conference 2013” on Maritime Risk and Risk Management. The conference is organized by Copenhagen Business School and the Maritime Development Center Europe. At the conference I will give a presentation that discusses how the new maritime security agenda places new demands on the shipping industry, including new modes of public-private relations. Further details on the conference are available here

On November 28th I will give a presentation at the international conference on: “The threat of contemporary piracy and the role of the international community” organized by the Istituto Affari Internazionali and the International Institute for Humanitarian Law. The one day conference in Rome brings together a number of academics and policy practitioners to discuss the current state of counter-piracy. The program is available here.

On October 30th I will present the draft of a new paper titled “Problems, Practices, Pirates: Outline of a Theory of Problematization” at the research seminar series of the Centre of Advanced Security Theory (CAST), Copenhagen, where I am a visiting fellow until December. The paper intends to develop a framework for studying problematization practices and their interaction by drawing on the case of maritime piracy. Drawing on ideas first presented in my 2013 Global Policy paper I develop a typology of five problematizations of piracy and discuss how these are coordinated as well as create controversy in policy making. Further information is available here