The specter of security is haunting politics. In “north” and “south,” on left and right, security is replacing neoliberalism as a dominant political logic. Despite a wealth of securitization studies, we have not yet fully grasped this shift and its political ramifications. Here we consider security’s rise to dominance in three contexts: first, the “postsocialist transition” in Latvia and the demise of Soviet socialism, which facilitated the wider neoliberal takeover; second, Swedish social democracy, which soon succumbed; and third, Anglo-Saxon university culture, where many of the resultant political struggles have played out. In all cases, a form of security “protectionism” stepped in as a solution to neoliberal malaise: yet in practice it has offered an even more far-reaching shift in power relations than neoliberalism before it.
Journal article
2026-06-01T00:00:00+00:00
2026
104 - 118
14