Path: K:/ABC-FAGAN-09-0410/Application/ABC-FAGAN-09-0410-intro_V2.3d Date: 8th August 2009 Time: 11:05 User ID: elangok BlackLining Enabled Introduction to Volume 2 G. Honor Fagan and Ronaldo Munck Whatever our perspective on the world around us, we cannot help wondering whether globalization and the end of the Cold War has actually brought us greater insecurity, rather than the increased security promised. The processes of internationalization unleashed by globalization have undermined the once dominant national security model. But the globalization paradigm has not itself been too concerned to map out the new global (in) security dilemmas. We have only rather generalized theories of ‘‘global risk’’ (Beck 1999) and wishful aspira- tions for a ‘‘global civil society’’ (Kaldor 2003). This general introduction thus seeks to develop a fruitful encounter between the globalization paradigm and the new (and old) forms of security and insecurity now becoming manifest across the world with greater intensity. The security dilemmas we all face in the post–Cold War era can be dealt with in various ways. We could just be fatalistic and accept security concerns as an inevitable part of the human condition read in Hobbesian terms. We could also seek to mitigate security and risk challenges through amelioration and conflict containment. Or, finally, as Ken Booth and Nicholas Wheeler argue we can pursue a ‘‘transcender logic [which] argues that human society on a global scale can construct a radically new world order, and in so doing escape the dan- gers of the past’’ (2008, 18). Whether this view is overly optimistic is a matter of opinion, but it t least offers a framework to pursue postconflict security strat- egies. Nor does this view deny that world politics in the twenty-first century will be characterized by deep uncertainties, growing and unpredictable risks, as well as generalized turmoil. Indeed, Booth and Wheeler point to how ‘‘the global agenda will be uniquely dominated by an era of converging global chal- lenges, with potentially catastrophic global and local impacts’’ (268). There will be new challenges overlaid on old ones, combining in new and unsettling modalities. The point is, can we deal with the era of uncertainty and risk by denying it or hiding from it or simply coping with it, or should we seek to address its root causes? This encyclopaedia seeks to address the complex cluster of security challenges in the era of globalization. Our focus is particularly on what is new, and our lens is a critical one that avoids facile orthodoxies. The challenges are very serious, and so our thinking must be equally serious and Page Number: 1