Event Date: November 16, 2017 - 14:30 to 16:30
Location: FSS5028, 120 University Private, Ottawa

Sebastian Schmidt, Johns Hopkins University

For much of the history of the modern state system, the presence of a military force in a given territory was tightly linked with authority over that territory. That is, the territory on which a state’s military was stationed was either an integral part of that state or a subjugated territory. In contemporary politics, however, this linkage has become contingent, as is apparent in the advent of the long-term, peacetime stationing of military forces abroad either in the form of a foreign military base or the presence of internationally-mandated peacekeeping forces. I argue that this historically novel relationship between military presence and territorial authority is ultimately made possible by the “paradox” of territorial integrity: as state territory is progressively secured through broadly held normative injunctions against its redistribution, opportunities for the disaggregation of security responsibilities and privileges have multiplied. This paper traces the progressive deterritorialization of security politics by detailing the historical evolution of occupational regimes and the legal regulation of foreign military presences. The appreciation of this paradox and the security practices it makes possible have important consequences for the field of security studies, historical analyses, and the analysis of hierarchical and imperial relations.

Sebastian Schmidt is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University.  Professor Schmidt is interested in the sociological foundations of security strategies and in particular the conditions under which novel strategies emerge. His research is closely tied to understanding how norms change in international politics and the role of tacit knowledge. He also has a long-standing interest in the historical development of sovereignty. His work, which has appeared in the American Political Science Review and International Studies Quarterly, has investigated the origin of foreign basing practices and has sought to shed light on how concepts used by international relations scholars influence assessments of historical change. His current and future work is focused on the elaboration of a pragmatist theoretical perspective on international politics with attendant empirical applications as well as on exploring the development of security strategies through history.

Presented by the Security Studies Network

This presentation is in English and open to the public.