Zed Books Freedom vs Necessity in International Relations: Human-Centred Approaches to Security and Development

Human-centred understandings of the world have become increasingly dominant over the last two decades. Indeed, it is rare to read any analysis addressing the problems of insecurity, conflict or development which does not start from the need to empower or capacity-build local agency. In this path-breaking book, Chandler undertakes a radical challenge to such human-centred understandings and suggests that, in articulating problems as a result of human behaviour or decision-making, the problems of the world have become reinterpreted as problems of the human subject itself. Within this framework, the solutions are not seen to lie with structures of economic and social relations, but with the social and cognitive shaping of those who are often seen to be the most marginal and powerless. This shift - from the material problems of the external world to the subjective problems of human thought and action - has gone hand-in-hand with the shift from state-based to society-based understandings of the world. In a provocative analysis, Chandler highlights how human-centred approaches have shrunk rather than enlarged our world and have limited our understanding of transformative possibilities Review 'In this important and provocative book, packed with deep insights, Chandler illustrates how global problems are turned into problems of human subjectivity. This book will set the vital question of the discursive shift from the external to the internal world at the top of the agenda.' Jonathan Joseph, The University of Sheffield 'David Chandler's new book leads the exploration of what it means to be a political subject today. Incisive and thought provoking, it captures for the first time the shape of an essential debate about human agency, the state, and the international during the current crisis of liberalism.' Oliver Richmond, University of Manchester '"Better choices" can make individuals more "resilient" in the face of "insecurity." Chandler's book develops this idea as the kernel of post-liberal theories of psychology, the state and international relations and in return offers a trenchant and sweeping critique.' Robert Meister, University of California, Santa Cruz 'David Chandler's Freedom versus Necessity in International Relations retrieves the insights of structural thinking. He demonstrates how social theory's emphasis on "agent-centered" analysis has led to an inward retreat that limits our response to global social problems. He argues that by homing in on the self, we have squandered the human potential to remake and transform the world. Chandler's book recovers this potential and moves us towards projects that aim at freedom and progress. This thoughtful and timely book requires our attention.' Naeem Inayatullah, Ithica College 'In this remarkable book, David Chandler not only develops a robust critical framework for rethinking the place of resilience in neoliberal globalization, he uses the case of securitization in contemporary development discourses to offer a powerful, though sympathetic, rebuttal to Foucauldian governmentality scholarship, which has tended to appraise the politics of development through the discursive prism of cosmopolitan liberalism. This book will be vital reading for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of the primary importance attached to the human subject in contemporary "post-liberal" globalization, or simply to better understand the stakes of the emerging debate about "global governmentality".' - Nicholas Kiersey, Ohio University 'David Chandler's compelling and challenging text demands that we recognize the extent to which North/Western preoccupations with and claims for "human security" have become a battering ram used against (rather than for) the world's poor and dispossessed. Chandler argues that the decidedly person unfriendly shift from state responsibility/ies for citizens to citizens reliance on themselves reeks of (neo)liberalism run amok and elide