CFP: Defense and Internal Security in the Americas (deadline extended)

Defense and Internal Security in the Americas

IdeAs. Idées d’Amériques no. 20

Issue edited by Luc Capdevila (Professor of Contemporary History, Université Rennes 2) and Michael Stricof (Associate Professor of American Studies, Aix-Marseille Université).

See the full call for papers here: https://journals.openedition.org/ideas/10711#tocto1n2. The deadline has been extended to November 30, 2021.

Defense in the Americas—in doctrines and their implementation—has been conceived since the 19^th Century at global, continental, national and local scales. While this is unsurprising for great powers and whole regions, the hemispheric dimension of defense is unique to the Americas. It is a fact that organizes inter-American and international relations, in which asymmetrical power has created major tensions and conflicts for two centuries. The other fact that characterizes the history of defense in the Americas is that it is simultaneously at the intersection of global and local scales, taking form in a structural articulation between defense and internal security. Therefore, far from limiting our work to fields traditionally associated with defense (foreign policy, military history), these characteristics of defense in the Americas—its hemispheric nature and the focus on internal security—require us to consider society as a whole. Internal security can be used as a lens for understanding the construction of public space, urban policy, economic systems and the transformation of military and civilian institutions. These factors have unique qualities in each county and region, all while linking the whole of the Americas. Effectively, these interlocking layers and this structural articulation between defense and internal security seems to be a model for defense which is truly hemispheric today. This issue of IdeAs seeks therefore to understand defense in the Americas with case studies, comparative, transnational and theoretical approaches, using the full range of social sciences (history, political science, sociology, anthropology, geography…) in order to understand the developments in this phenomenon at every level—global, hemispheric, national, and local—both in the present and throughout the past.

Particular themes we wish to develop include:

• Defense and internal security in inter-American and international relations
• Defense and public policy doctrines, their history and their diffusion throughout the hemisphere
• The study of military forces and other actors associated with defense and internal security
• Civil-military relations
• The study of the economics of defense and internal security, the privatization of security and the links between private companies and political actors
• The militarization of spaces and societies: borders, cities, institutions, etc.

Proposals may be submitted in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. Proposals must include:

• A title
• An abstract (500 words maximum)
• 5 Keywords
• A short bio-bibliographic notice (10-15 lines)

Proposals should be sent to the editors by email before November 30, 2021:

Luc Capdevila: luc.capdevila@univ-rennes2.fr

Michael Stricof: michael.stricof@univ-amu.fr