School of Social and Political Science

Content

Terrible things are done in the name of security; national, international, or otherwise. I have been studying them for my whole adult life. However, I have learned that it is not always wise to approach security with the assumption of encountering violence and injustice. ‘Security’ does not always mean trying to secure an unjust order with force, such as by persecuting minorities. And ‘security’ does not always mean a failure to address problems via ‘normal’ politics. For example, securing the green transition for the sake of the planet does not have to mean doing appalling things. Many backbench politicians, whatever their failings, have worked hard to hold governments to account and prevent unwise courses of security action. Challenging assumptions about security has been central to my work. In this lecture as a recently appointed Professor of International Security, I will survey my research career and the conclusions I have so far reached. Sometimes, it is possible to pursue security prudently, in good faith, for positive outcomes. Spoiler alert: I have not really learned to stop worrying.
 

Introduction and closing remarks

Professor John Devaney's introduction

Good evening everyone. You're very welcome to the School of Social and Political Science. My name is John Devaney, and I'm the Head of School. And I have the absolute pleasure and delight of being the person who moderates, or hosts, this inaugural lecture, by the newly minted Professor Andrew Neal.

We've got a mixed audience here, so it's always worthwhile just reminding everyone about the purpose of an inaugural lecture. It really is an opportunity for a new professor, either a new professor to the university or somebody who's been at the university for a while, who's been recently promoted, to introduce their field of expertise both as a public lecture and, therefore, to anyone who may be interested in hearing about the type of work that goes on in an institution such as this, but also to talk to their colleagues. And I'm never unsurprised by the fact that when I hear colleagues who I have known for a number of years, like Andrew, talk about their work, firstly how fascinating it is, but secondly, how did I not knew about this beforehand? Because in such a large institution, and one that is incredibly busy, it's very easy to know something about some of this work, but not much about the detail.

So I think an inaugural lecture provides a wonderful opportunity not only to delve inside that black box of somebody else's expertise, but to hear, as we will tonight, not only about Andrew's areas of interest and expertise, but also the intellectual journey that he's been on to this point.

Some housekeeping rules. If you've got a mobile phone on you, and who doesn't these days, can you please just check that it's on silent just so it doesn't interrupt Andrew while he's speaking. We're not expecting a fire alarm at this stage of the evening, so if the alarm does go off, please get up from your seats calmly, but quickly, and exit. And I think we go up the corridor and out into the quad, and then we'll be directed from there if there's a need to move further afield. If you need to go to the toilets at any stage, please feel free to do that. Not necessarily in here. Go out into the corridor, turn right, go through a set of double doors and you'll see the toilets on the left hand side. Now, that's all of my sort of auditioning to be in an airline taken care of.

We're really delighted that alongside many colleagues and students from across the university, we've also some other really important guests here. Firstly, we have, Rebecca, who's Andrew's wife, who's here, and also his children, Juno and Tarn. We've also joined, I'm really pleased, by Andrew's mother, Helen, and also his in-laws, Ray and Steve. Thank you for coming along this evening, because I knew these things are personal as well as professional, and there's nothing that any of the rest of us do that hasn't been achieved because of those people around us, whether it's our biological families or our relational families. It's lovely to have other guests here this evening as well. Thank you for taking the time.

The structure of the evening is that Andrew's going to speak for about 45 minutes. He's open to questions, and answering our questions, afterwards, and he'll only give answers to nice questions. And then once we've had enough of that, there'll be an opportunity for those who are able to stay on to retire to the foyer of the Chrystal Macmillan building, which is only a couple of minutes’ walk away. It will be an opportunity to show your appreciation to Andrew for his talk this evening, and also just to talk to Andrew about his contribution in your own work and in your own life.

I'm given a briefing note ahead of these events, and that's always really helpful because alongside telling me what the talk is actually about, and you see it on the slide here, “how I learned to stop worrying and love security”. Now there's a catchy title, if ever I heard one. It also gives some details about, the person who we're all here to celebrate in terms of, Andrew himself. He was born in London. He holds a first degree in international relations and strategic studies from Lancaster University. And although he started a master's degree at Keele University, as he was the only student in the cohort, he ended up transferring to a PhD programme. I think that's the quickest progression and upgrade that I've ever heard about. He completed his PhD in politics and international relations in 2006, and his thesis was titled The Politics of Exception Theorizing Discourses of Liberty and Security. His thesis won BISA’s Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize in 2006.

As well as roles at this university, he's also worked at other institutions and alongside being a very established and well-regarded professor in his field, he also happens to work very closely with me as the School's Director of Postgraduate Research, which is a vital role in terms of a school of this size, where we have hundreds of PG students who are all studying various research projects, right across all of the disciplines represented in the school. I would have to say that Andrew is both a champion of the place of doctoral students within the institution and the school, as well as also somebody who's prepared to look at the fine detail of how we try and make sure that we have systems and processes that work for those individuals.

As I've said, his research focuses on critical security studies, including topics such as critical maritime infrastructure protection, parliamentary security politics, securitization, the security implications of Scottish independence and his work's been informed by the writings of Michel Foucault. His career highlights include publishing his most recent book, Security as Politics Beyond the State of Exception, which was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2019. Alongside his academic interests, Andrew also has interests outside of work. And, yeah, it will be interesting for anybody who wants to ask him over a glass of wine later on about how many bicycles does he have? I see his family smiling there at the front. Needless to say, probably like to spend more time on his bicycles than he has time to do because of family commitments and work commitments. But it's obviously not only a hobby, but almost a way of life.

Andrew, we're really looking forward to hearing, your presentation and your lecture this evening. As I say, it's a real opportunity and a privilege for us to hear about the work that you've been engaged in. And I'm going to sit down and hand over to you.

Professor John Devaney's closing remarks

Andrew, thank you very much for that. First, I have an apology to make to your sister Catherine, who's here because I think I sort of salute you. When we started off into that. So forgive me for that oversight, but thank you for what's been a really interesting, lecture. It's good to see you embracing your inner quants. And there will be many colleagues here who'll be signing up to join in their classes, to learn even more statistics going forward. And it's good to see that you and I started our PhDs in the same week, in different places, in different universities. And it was a bit that I think my experience of doing a PhD in social work was equally shaped by what was happening in the wider world, and I think that's something that's come across from your work, is how you've actually been able to maintain a thread through it, of looking at this idea of security for what that means at a point in time and over time. And I think that's a really, important and significant contribution that your work makes. Because really, you are asking that question. When we study the pursuit of security, we shouldn't start from the position that is inherently good or bad. But there's a tension there, both in terms of the discourse that we engage in, but also this sense of the experiences and how we make sense of the world around us and how we feel secure, but also how we sometimes feel secure on our own terms, not necessarily somebody else's terms. And I thought that came through really clearly and partially from the examples that you drew upon. So thank you very much for that. I'm going to open it up now to reflections, questions, comments from those around. I'm going to pause the recording at this stage because this is the point part that won't be recorded.