Security Studies: An Introduction

Security Studies is the most comprehensive textbook available on security studies.

It gives students a detailed overview of the major theoretical approaches, key themes and most significant issues within security studies.

• Part 1 explores the main theoretical approaches currently used within the field from realism to international political sociology.
• Part 2 explains the central concepts underpinning contemporary debates from the security dilemma to terrorism.
• Part 3 presents an overview of the institutional security architecture currently influencing world politics using international, regional and global levels of analysis.
• Part 4 examines some of the key contemporary challenges to global security from the arms trade to energy security.
• Part 5 discusses the future of security.

Security Studies provides a valuable teaching tool for undergraduates and MA students by collecting these related strands of the field together into a single coherent textbook.

Paul D. Williams is  currently a Visiting Associate Professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, USA.  He is author of British Foreign Policy under New Labour, 1997-2005 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005), co-author of Understanding Peacekeeping (Polity, 2004) and co-editor of Africa in International Politics (Routledge, 2004) and Peace Operations and Global Order (Routledge, 2005).