This module provides students with an understanding of a range of issues that are frequently depicted as part of a new and broadening security agenda. The module emphasises security as a politically contested concept and category and encourages students to critically assess the nature of security claims being made on a range of issues – in particular to consider how security and threat are being defined, which objects of security are being prioritised, which agents are deemed most appropriate for dealing with different security challenges and which policy options are being favoured.

The module is divided into three parts. Part one provides a theoretical introduction to the concept of security and alternative ways of theorising and conceiving security – including, for example, its apparent desirability. Part two focuses on tensions between state vs human security over a range of security issues (migration, health, development, energy and resources). Part three focuses on security challenges raised by various contested sites of security in the global commons (climate change and the environment, outer space, the high seas and Antarctica, global cultural heritage and cyber security).