National Security: Concepts and Methods

This course is available for on-campus & remote (online) learning. All students participate in interactive, real-time classes. National security challenges facing Australia and the world involve many complex risks and challenges from diverse sources. What exactly is national security? How does it relate to international and domestic security? How does national security relate to interests, values and identity? Beyond the headlines and the politics, how can we distinguish what really constitutes a national security threat? How can we critically assess the security policy responses that governments make? This course equips students with conceptual and analytical skills and frameworks to address these core questions. Having established the complexities of 21st century national security and assessed different definitions of national security in terms of interests, values and identity, we will look at threats and risks emanating from the international, domestic and individual realms. The course enables student to assess the causal role of these variables, looking at the comparative method and more complex causal dynamics including path dependence and feedback, as well as how to use (and not to use) history to support policy prescriptions. Students will apply these tools to texts ranging from Australian government policy statements to canonical scholarly works to illuminate their strengths and weaknesses. Students will interact with policy practitioners to understand how conceptual frameworks help explain the ways in which contemporary security challenges are understood by government. The course concludes by setting the scene for a subsequent course on translating conceptual analysis into making policy. Learning activities will include lectures, tutorials, analytical exercises and interactive discussions with a team combining academic experts and senior policy practitioners, in line with the National Security College’s signature pedagogy.