V Annual Cycle Young Social Scientists
2009-2010

February 10th, 2010, 17:00, CES Seminar Room
 
Daniel Pinéu (Aberystwyth University - UK and Hildesheim University - DE)

Pedagogy of security – a critical perspective on nation-building

Abstract: Having in mind the reconfiguration of international security that has occurred since the end of the Cold War, this paper aims to analyze, in a critical sense, the processes of nation-building/ state-building carried out by liberal Western states, particularly the USA. As such, the paper applies a Foucauldian theoretical framework which seeks to underline the inherent liaisons of power in development policies, and technical aid, namely reform policies in the security sector. Taking as main example the police reform in Afghanistan, the present paper seeks to demonstrate how security governance is much more than merely the institutional establishment of formal mechanisms of security, on the contrary, aiming at the promotion of a certain kind of political order, a certain kind of liberal and modern subjectivity, through diverse mechanisms. These mechanisms, that will be analyzed in detail, as what pertains to how they are applied by the USA in Afghanistan, oscillate between pedagogy of security, formatted in a system of mentoring assistance, and a set of disciplinary actions more or less violent to those individuals who do not seem suitable for "development". Ultimately, this paper aims to highlight the inextricably political nature of contemporary processes of care and governance in post-conflict state-building contexts.

Biographic note: Daniel Pinéu holds a degree ain Political Science and International Relations at the Universidade Nova of Lisbon, and completed His master in International Policy at Aberystwyth University (United Kingdom), with a dissertation on the imperial idea and the neo-conservative movement in American foreign policy. Presently, he is completing his doctoral degree in Critical Studies on Security, also at Aberystwyth, subordinated to the theme of police reform as instrument of USA foreign policy. In 2006, he was visiting doctoral fellow at the Center for Global Studies of George Mason University, in Washington D.C., where he conducted part of his field research, having subsequently conducted further research in Pakistan (2007) and Afghanistan (2007, 2008). At the moment he teaches at the Institute for Social Studies at Hildesheim University, Germany, where he lectures on international terrorism, security studies and foreign policy.