Governance of Diversity from a Security Studies Perspective: Setting a Research Agenda

Although security concerns have long been embedded in the field of ethnic politics and scholarship on mechanisms of ethnic conflict resolution and management of diversity in divided societies, in the past fifteen year a combination of real-world events and increasing cross-fertilization among research fields have accelerated the field of inquiry. On the one hand, security has become a relevant field of governments’ action with repercussions in several policy areas, including accommodation of diversity and migration. On the other hand, following the broadening and deepening of the Security Studies agenda, many scholars have applied specific concepts of the field of Security Studies to investigate minority issues and ethnic conflicts, from Roe’s “societal security dilemma” to researches on securitization/desecuritization of minorities. A variety of approaches and theories has developed, not always in relationship with each other. The goal of this paper is to provide a state of the art comprehensive overview of the attempts of cross-fertilization between Security Studies and works on conflict regulation/minority accommodation, discussing theoretical underpinnings as well as methodological issues, and set the basis for the development of a future research agenda. Applying a security studies perspective to the politics surrounding the governance of ethnic/cultural diversity offers new perspectives that advance our understanding of minority issues and policy debates around institutional designs in divided societies.