Whose anxiety? What practices? The Paris School and ontological security studies

Abstract

The field of international security studies drastically evolved over the last few decades. Critical security studies emerged as one trend, seeking to make explicit statist orientations of traditional security studies, the Paris School being one such branch, highlighting the role of security professionals and the importance of studying repetitive regimes of practices. Other security trends tilted toward the creation of ontological security studies (OSS), placing importance on the concept of autobiographical narratives, routines, and anxiety—bringing importance to the unconscious drivers of actor behavior in IR. Given the shared focus on regimes of practices, it is surprising that these two schools of thought have not paired together to address questions of security. In this article, I will critically interrogate the literature on OSS and the Paris school, drawing out key debates and questions from both schools of thought. I suggest that although these two areas have previously been treated as separate, there is much potential for synthesizing this literature that opens up new spaces for inquiry.