The Concept of Security in the Postcolonial Context: the Research Agenda

Abstract. One of the greatest challenges facing the future of various regional and transnational integration projects is security. The Munich Security Conference 2020 recalled the merging of the concepts of external and internal security within the European integration project, and the “integration – security” dilemma is again becoming a relevant research agenda. The paper addresses the concept of security not only in terms of its opposition to the concept of “threat”, but also as a point of convergence between the repertoire of the critical school of security studies and the broad postcolonial approach. The paper argues that an approach to understanding security in the periphery is ineffective because global leaders use the same moral imperative of civilizing mission and similar narratives of security as a necessary element of well-being, thereby imposing themselves to help the dependent region.

Keywords: security, leadership rents, clientage, patronage, postcoloniality, critical school of security studies, periphery.