Critique of Professor Hansen's Ranking

Professor Hansen gave a highly informative and revealing guest lecture about the discursive approach to International Relations. Applying the post-structural approach to conflicts ranging from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s to the current European schism stemming from an increasing immigration wave, Hansen sought to understand how conflicts are shaped in official discourse. Specifically, she aimed to determine how policy decisions are securitized and based around the need to protect certain tangible and intangible revered objects. In the case of the Balkan conflict, whether the official perception was one of a regional war in need of containment and threatening state sovereignty or a campaign of genocide perpetrated against select ethnic minorities led to very different proposals for action.

Posted by Boris Ryvkin on November 14, 2006 01:29 PM | Permalink

« Extended Critique--Continued from First Entry | Main | My Interpretation and Critique of Lene Hansen’s Threat Assessment »