Abstract
The 20th century has witnessed many struggles for emancipation, and a strong emphasis put on security agenda in many countries. Regarding emancipation, many examples come to our mind like the decolonization era, after World War II, the feminist struggles for equality between genders all over the century, all the movements of the 1970s that are associated, in France, with May 68 etc. Concerning security, one might think of protection of States borders, national defence or measures to ensure domestic order. Hence, the theoretical link between emancipation and security is not evident. In 1991, Ken Booth, a British international theorist, wrote an article titled 'Security and Emancipation'. In this article, he argues that 'it is appropriate to place emancipation at the centre of new security studies because it is in the spirit of our times', and he adds that 'our time refers to the whole of the twentieth century'. This presentation will refer mainly to the 'Welsh School', a branch of Critical Security Studies. Ken Booth, as well as Richard Wyn Jones, aim at re-conceptualizing security within a critical approach of the traditional security studies. Their conception enlarges the realm of security, which is no longer just a matter of State, and seeks to achieve what they call 'true security'. In his article, Ken Booth clearly defines the two main terms he uses. Security 'means the absence of threats'; emancipation is 'freeing people from the physical and human constraints, together with poverty, poor education, political oppression and so on'. From those definitions, Booth wants to prove that 'security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin'. Why should we consider security in terms of emancipation? Why does it imply, theoretically and empirically? First, I'll focus on Ken Booth's approach, that leads him to affirm that 'emancipation, theoretically, is security'. Then, I will develop the implications and the limits of his theory.
