Vital Interests
Lecture 1
Vital interests = no clear definition
Safety & security = protection from harm against acquired values
- acquired values: what is of high value to a state, nation, group, individual
- harm: as a result of actors (security threat) and/or circumstance (safety dangers)
- protection: (political) priority, means, organisation, attention
Acquired values → vital interests?
→ subjective and objective
→ is there a hierarchy of ‘vitalness’?
→ who gets to say what is ‘vital’ (for others)?
What does the state protect?
(a temporary definition of vital interests)
The protective state
- the most basic form of protection: against (external) threats: foreign invaders, public
order, water, disease
- from the late 19th century onwards the state’s idea of protection becomes more and
more encompassing
- protection is always a trade off with freedom
Features of the protective state
→ How protective is the state?
- eliminating accidents and tragedy, spread of prevention
- prevention and pre-emption
→ The many faces of risk
- The state protects against risk, but also uses it as a governance technique
- risk and collective versus individual responsibility
→ Security and securitization
- security as a reason d’etre of the state, but an expansive concept
- safety versus security, internal versus external security
Protection as a moving target
→ Protection is politics
- power politics
- framing and agenda setting
- (international) governance
,→ Protection is layered
- history adds layers to protection
- technology add layers to protection
- globalization adds layers to protection
Layers of protection
→ national, population and systems security
Globalization and vital interests
- not all protection can be organized at the national level
- not all vital interests can be achieved at the national level
- international cooperation is sometimes needed to avoid problems (global public
bads) or to safeguard an interest (global public good)
From national to global
- the global arena lacks a government (singular)
- THe global arena requires thinking about ‘the public’ (who are the beneficiaries, who
are the free riders)
- What is the global public? countries? socio-economic groups? generations?
Global public goods as vital interests
- Where does one buy a traffic light?
→ Global Public Goods (GPGs):
- benefit a large international public (non-rival and non-exclusive)
- benefits must be quasi universal in terms of countries, people and generations
- Pure public goods: are non-rivalrous in consumption and non-excludable
- impure public goods: good that only partly meet either or both of the criteria
→ club goods (non-rivalrous in consumption, but excludable)
→ common pool resources (mostly non-excludable, but rivalrous in consumption)
Supply problems and collective action problems
- free rider problem: why contribute if it is non-excludable?
- tragedy of the commons: why limit yourself if you are not sure others will?
- prisoners’ dilemma: lack of information leads to a collective suboptimal outcome
→ bring in the state!
A pure global public good is marked by universality-- that is, it benefits all countries, people
and generations
an impure global public good would tend towards universality in that it would benefit more
than one group of countries, and would not discriminate against any population segment or
set of generations
- in the absence of a global government, how do we produce GPGs?
→ final global public goods (environment, peace)
→ intermediate global public goods (UN, Paris climate agreement, protocols,
standards)
, - so we negotiate and cooperate (or we fail to)
→ two tier negotiation: among states, and each state with its own constituency
Two main questions for GPGs
- prioritization: who defines the political agenda, and hence the priorities for resource
allocation?
- access: who determines whether GPG are in fact accessible to which population
groups?
Politics: who gets what, when and how
Three key questions:
1. what is a vital interest and to whom?
2. How are vital interests identified?
3. How do decision-makers prioritize and choose which interests to protect?
1. What is a vital interest and to whom?
- an interest is always an interest to someone (including institutions like the state)
- who benefits, who doesn’t?
- who defines? (conflicts/power/calculation/rational bureaucracy/agenda setting..)
2. How are vital interests identified?
- what is the role of expertise (knowledge, risk assessment, etc.) and instruments in
shaping vital interests?
- what are the challenges in assessing risks and threats? What is the role of likelihood,
probabilities, risk assessment?
3. How do decision-makers prioritize and choose which interests to protect?
- who decides? WHo/what do they favour/promote?
- on which basis: risk/vulnerability assessment, political considerations, etc?
, Readings lecture 1
Ansell
- the protective role of the government has changed over the past half century
→ extensive, elaborate, politically contested
→ social contract between state and society: citizens expect protection
→ responsibility to protect citizens of other states from genocide or humanitarian
disaster
→ protection from physical harm & property (rights), data, infrastructure, animals,
buildings
1. Welfare state → provides ‘social protection’ to individuals and families against the
vagaries of the labor market
2. Protective state → seeks to protect against discrete harms, accidents, hazards,
threats and risks (who bears the risk?)
Demands for state protection cross partisan lines
- left: concerned about protecting citizens from the market and corporate power
- right: prioritize harms that threaten or result from social disorder and national security
→ To protect citizens from terrorism, the protective state may normalize emergency powers
that infringe on civil liberties → moral ambiguity
- Why focus on the state when scholars speak of ‘risk society?’
→ the changing protective role of the state is a barometer of public demand for
protection and for whom it hold responsible to provide it
→ Analytical concept = the protective state is meant to illuminate how protection serves as a
basic source of political legitimation.
- The mission is to explore the political and institutional dynamics that arise around the
state’s protective role
Three broad features of protective state politics:
1. debates about prevention
2. debates about its focus on risk
3. debates about its tendency to securitize issues
Prevention vs Reaction
- The public often expects the state to prevent accidents and disasters from happening
in the first place (disasters are framed as failures of the state to take adequate
precautions)
→ the politics of the protective state tend to become structured along a reactive-preventive
dimension
→ limits of a reactive approach = arguing for more preventive action
Lecture 1
Vital interests = no clear definition
Safety & security = protection from harm against acquired values
- acquired values: what is of high value to a state, nation, group, individual
- harm: as a result of actors (security threat) and/or circumstance (safety dangers)
- protection: (political) priority, means, organisation, attention
Acquired values → vital interests?
→ subjective and objective
→ is there a hierarchy of ‘vitalness’?
→ who gets to say what is ‘vital’ (for others)?
What does the state protect?
(a temporary definition of vital interests)
The protective state
- the most basic form of protection: against (external) threats: foreign invaders, public
order, water, disease
- from the late 19th century onwards the state’s idea of protection becomes more and
more encompassing
- protection is always a trade off with freedom
Features of the protective state
→ How protective is the state?
- eliminating accidents and tragedy, spread of prevention
- prevention and pre-emption
→ The many faces of risk
- The state protects against risk, but also uses it as a governance technique
- risk and collective versus individual responsibility
→ Security and securitization
- security as a reason d’etre of the state, but an expansive concept
- safety versus security, internal versus external security
Protection as a moving target
→ Protection is politics
- power politics
- framing and agenda setting
- (international) governance
,→ Protection is layered
- history adds layers to protection
- technology add layers to protection
- globalization adds layers to protection
Layers of protection
→ national, population and systems security
Globalization and vital interests
- not all protection can be organized at the national level
- not all vital interests can be achieved at the national level
- international cooperation is sometimes needed to avoid problems (global public
bads) or to safeguard an interest (global public good)
From national to global
- the global arena lacks a government (singular)
- THe global arena requires thinking about ‘the public’ (who are the beneficiaries, who
are the free riders)
- What is the global public? countries? socio-economic groups? generations?
Global public goods as vital interests
- Where does one buy a traffic light?
→ Global Public Goods (GPGs):
- benefit a large international public (non-rival and non-exclusive)
- benefits must be quasi universal in terms of countries, people and generations
- Pure public goods: are non-rivalrous in consumption and non-excludable
- impure public goods: good that only partly meet either or both of the criteria
→ club goods (non-rivalrous in consumption, but excludable)
→ common pool resources (mostly non-excludable, but rivalrous in consumption)
Supply problems and collective action problems
- free rider problem: why contribute if it is non-excludable?
- tragedy of the commons: why limit yourself if you are not sure others will?
- prisoners’ dilemma: lack of information leads to a collective suboptimal outcome
→ bring in the state!
A pure global public good is marked by universality-- that is, it benefits all countries, people
and generations
an impure global public good would tend towards universality in that it would benefit more
than one group of countries, and would not discriminate against any population segment or
set of generations
- in the absence of a global government, how do we produce GPGs?
→ final global public goods (environment, peace)
→ intermediate global public goods (UN, Paris climate agreement, protocols,
standards)
, - so we negotiate and cooperate (or we fail to)
→ two tier negotiation: among states, and each state with its own constituency
Two main questions for GPGs
- prioritization: who defines the political agenda, and hence the priorities for resource
allocation?
- access: who determines whether GPG are in fact accessible to which population
groups?
Politics: who gets what, when and how
Three key questions:
1. what is a vital interest and to whom?
2. How are vital interests identified?
3. How do decision-makers prioritize and choose which interests to protect?
1. What is a vital interest and to whom?
- an interest is always an interest to someone (including institutions like the state)
- who benefits, who doesn’t?
- who defines? (conflicts/power/calculation/rational bureaucracy/agenda setting..)
2. How are vital interests identified?
- what is the role of expertise (knowledge, risk assessment, etc.) and instruments in
shaping vital interests?
- what are the challenges in assessing risks and threats? What is the role of likelihood,
probabilities, risk assessment?
3. How do decision-makers prioritize and choose which interests to protect?
- who decides? WHo/what do they favour/promote?
- on which basis: risk/vulnerability assessment, political considerations, etc?
, Readings lecture 1
Ansell
- the protective role of the government has changed over the past half century
→ extensive, elaborate, politically contested
→ social contract between state and society: citizens expect protection
→ responsibility to protect citizens of other states from genocide or humanitarian
disaster
→ protection from physical harm & property (rights), data, infrastructure, animals,
buildings
1. Welfare state → provides ‘social protection’ to individuals and families against the
vagaries of the labor market
2. Protective state → seeks to protect against discrete harms, accidents, hazards,
threats and risks (who bears the risk?)
Demands for state protection cross partisan lines
- left: concerned about protecting citizens from the market and corporate power
- right: prioritize harms that threaten or result from social disorder and national security
→ To protect citizens from terrorism, the protective state may normalize emergency powers
that infringe on civil liberties → moral ambiguity
- Why focus on the state when scholars speak of ‘risk society?’
→ the changing protective role of the state is a barometer of public demand for
protection and for whom it hold responsible to provide it
→ Analytical concept = the protective state is meant to illuminate how protection serves as a
basic source of political legitimation.
- The mission is to explore the political and institutional dynamics that arise around the
state’s protective role
Three broad features of protective state politics:
1. debates about prevention
2. debates about its focus on risk
3. debates about its tendency to securitize issues
Prevention vs Reaction
- The public often expects the state to prevent accidents and disasters from happening
in the first place (disasters are framed as failures of the state to take adequate
precautions)
→ the politics of the protective state tend to become structured along a reactive-preventive
dimension
→ limits of a reactive approach = arguing for more preventive action
