Christian Bueger
Biographic Data
| ID | 282799 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christian Bueger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christian |
| FAMILY NAME | Bueger |
| SIGNATURE | BUEGER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4259-9299 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 481 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Sites of Ritualized Practice: Observations from Multi-National Military Gatherings and Naval Symposiums
Multi-national military gatherings are important sites of international interaction. High-level military officials meet on a regular basis in different configurations, and a carefully orchestrated global calendar coordinates these events. States build, maintain and strengthen diplomatic, organizational and interpersonal relations at these events. This article argues that understanding the logic and global political functions of such gatherings re…
The Politics of Global Ocean Regions
Pragmatic Spaces and the Contestation over the Western Indian Ocean
UNCLOS under Fire: Recalibrating Maritime Security Governance
Maritime security challenges are intensifying globally, from armed attacks on shipping in the Red Sea to critical infrastructure sabotage and environmental threats from shadow fleets. These developments have led some to question whether the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) remains ‘fit for purpose’. This article reframes that debate, suggesting that maritime security operates through a complex assemblage of institutions an…
From mitigation to adaptation: Problematizing climate change in the maritime transport industry
The literature on climate change in the maritime transport industry has grown rapidly in the last few years. Yet as the research agenda has progressed, scientific debates have become more isolated and fragmented, making it difficult to translate new findings into broader policy debates. This article draws on problematization methodology to help organize the scientific debate on maritime emissions and to identify analytical gaps and challenges. We…
Maritime security and the inter-agency challenge: The case of Ghana
Maritime security is a major international concern with the Gulf of Guinea recognised as one of the global hotspots of blue crime, such as piracy, kidnap for ransom, trafficking of narcotics, human and arms, and illegal fishing. The complex and complicated challenge of maritime security, a wicked problem, calls for inter-agency coordination, synergy of efforts and scaling up of responses. Given the complexity of maritime security threats, no sing…
Global Ordering and the Interaction of Communities of Practice: A Framework for Analysis
Several new frameworks for the study of the differentiation of and relations between global orders have recently been introduced to International Relations. This article demonstrates how the communities of practice (COP) framework provides complementary as well as novel answers to processes of global ordering. COP theory has become a thriving research framework and has led to substantial innovative work on the internal logics of international ins…
Oceans, Objects, and Infrastructures: Making Modern Piracy
The agenda of objectual International Relations has shown why object matters, how they arise and with what effects. Far less attention has been paid to how objects are maintained and stabilized over time and how their coherence is achieved. To add this dimension to the debate, we suggest turning to the infrastructures of object maintenance. Infrastructures are social material arrangements that maintain objects and enable their use. We introduce a…
Critical maritime infrastructure protection: What’s the trouble
The protection of critical maritime infrastructures has become a top political priority, since the September 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. This contribution reveals why the protection of infrastructures at sea is a difficult task. Reviewing the spectrum of maritime infrastructures (transport, energy, data, fishing, ecosystems) and the potential threats to them (accidents, terrorism, blue crime, grey zone tactics) de…
Theorizing Infrastructures in Global Politics
A growing wave of studies in international relations is interested in “infrastructure.” Pipelines, ports, financial transaction arrangements, and other large technical systems increasingly occupy the minds of international theorists. This theory note provides direction to the debate by offering an important clarification of the concept of infrastructure and how it is theorized. Scholars have very different understandings of what infrastructures a…
Blue paradigms: Understanding the Intellectual Revolution in Global Ocean Politics
The oceans have received extraordinary international attention in global policy and research. New insecurities and uncertainties, ranging from intensifying interstate disputes to persistent piracy and overfishing as well as to pollution, deoxygenation and climate change imply that the oceans are increasingly seen as being in crisis. This revolution in thinking about and addressing the oceans is driven by new ideas of why the oceans need political…
Conceptualizing International Practices: Directions for the Practice Turn in International Relations
This book brings together the key scholars in the international practice debate to demonstrate its strengths as an innovative research perspective. The contributions show the benefit of practice theories in the study of phenomena in international security, international political economy and international organisation, by directing attention to concrete and observable everyday practices that shape international outcomes. The chapters exemplify th…
Maritime security and the Western Indian Ocean’s militarisation dilemma
Ten years after the last large scale piracy attacks in the Western Indian Ocean, other maritime crimes such as illicit fishing and maritime smuggling have emerged. The spill over of conflicts in Yemen and Mozambique and maritime grey-zone activities have also become major maritime security issues. Yet, perhaps the most worrying – though largely underappreciated – trend is the surge of naval activity and strategic competition in the region. This i…
Conceptualizing International Practices: Directions for the Practice Turn in International Relations
Making Grand Strategy in Practice
Theories of practice are widely seen as the most innovative recent research program in international relations. They also provide important avenues to understand how grand strategy is made and why and how it has effects. Strategy is understood as the outcome of practical activities and struggles between actors. This chapter presents an overview of how practice theories have productively revisited concepts such as “strategic culture” or “security …
Protecting hidden infrastructure: The security politics of the global submarine data cable network
Undersea communication cables are the core critical infrastructure of the digital age. 99% of all transoceanic digital communication—financial transactions, emails, or voice messaging—is transported through undersea fiber-optic cables. The global submarine cable network is a critical infrastructure that does not receive the analytical attention it deserves. We argue that cable security is a core dimension of current and future international secur…
Pragmatic ordering: Informality, experimentation, and the maritime security agenda
The question of when and how international orders change remains a pertinent issue of International Relations theory. This article develops the model of pragmatic ordering to conceptualise change. The model of pragmatic ordering synthesises recent theoretical arguments for a focus on ordering advanced in-practice theory, pragmatist philosophy, and related approaches. It also integrates evidence from recent global governance research. We propose a…
Blue crime: Conceptualising transnational organised crime at sea
Transnational organised crime at sea is a growing international concern. However, and despite its importance, the concept remains uncertain and contested. This ambiguity has led to a tendency to focus on individual challenges such as piracy or illegal fishing, rather than convergencies and synergies between and across issues, and has stymied a concerted international policy response. Debate continues over the term itself, what illicit activities …
Meditating deformalization: Remarks on ‘Of experts, helpers, and enthusiasts’
Moving away from studying actors to studying practices opens a fascinating vista of global governance. Kratochwil provokes inquiry into the practical work actual people do in international relations. He helps to move beyond binaries by offering a pragmatic approach to global governance in a fragmented institutional environment. Yet, his criticism of best practices for their problems of applicability and perverse side-effects misses the existence …
Into the sea: Capacity-building innovations and the maritime security challenge
Maritime security capacity-building is a growing field of international activity. It is an area that requires further study, as a field in its own right, but also as an archetype to develop insights for capacity-building and security sector reform in other arenas. This article is one of the first to analyse this field of activity. Our empirical focus is on the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Here, international actors have launched multiple ca…
Maritime security: The Uncharted Politics of the Global Sea
In this introduction to a special section of the September 2019 issue of International Affairs, we revisit the main themes and arguments of our article 'Beyond seablindness: a new agenda for maritime security studies', published in this journal in November 2017. We reiterate our call for more scholarly attention to be paid to the maritime environment in international relations and security studies. We argue that the contemporary maritime security…
International Practice Theory
How do small island states maximize influence? Creole diplomacy and the smart state foreign policy of the Seychelles
A lack of capabilities is most often taken to imply a lack of influence. The foreign policy of the Seychelles provides a surprising case of successful small state diplomacy that counters this claim. With a population of less than 100,000 and a diplomatic service of 100 staff, Seychelles is recognized as a broker in international organizations and as an agenda setter in ocean governance. This article explores this success in four steps. First, we …
Territory, authority, expertise: Global governance and the counter-piracy assemblage
This article presents an empirical study that aims to draw out core elements of an assemblage theory of global governance. Situating assemblage theory in the third, practice-oriented generation of global governance research, I argue that it provides us with a feature-rich toolbox sensitive to the routine matters of international cooperation, the role of artefacts and the vitality of territories of governance. To showcase the advantages of an asse…
We are all islanders now’ – Michel's blue economy kaleidoscope and the missing link to maritime security
The international community has awakened to the importance of the sea. Ocean health, ocean governance, maritime security and the blue economy are concepts that have received increasing attention ov
The Play of International Practice
The core claims of the practice turn in International Relations (IR) remain ambiguous. What promises does international practice theory hold for the field? How does the kind of theorizing it produces differ from existing perspectives? What kind of research agenda does it produce? This article addresses these questions. Drawing on the work of Andreas Reckwitz, we show that practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social rela…
Pathways to practice: Praxiography and International Politics
Political scientists have started to focus on 'practice' as the smallest unit of analysis. Following a broader turn in the social sciences, the practice focus provides multiple advantages, including better conceptualizations of short-term social change, getting closer to the everyday activities of those speaking, writing and doing politics, appropriate conceptualization of agency-structure dynamics, or forms of analysis resonating with other comm…
Making Things Known: Epistemic Practices, the United Nations, and the Translation of Piracy
How are international phenomena rendered knowable? By which means and practical devices is international knowledge generated? In this article, I draw on the case of contemporary maritime piracy to introduce a research framework that allows these questions to be addressed. Arguing that the practices of international knowledge generation are poorly understood, I show how concepts from science and technology studies provide the tools to study these …
Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts
Theorizing Infrastructures in Global Politics
A growing wave of studies in international relations is interested in “infrastructure.” Pipelines, ports, financial transaction arrangements, and other large technical systems increasingly occupy the minds of international theorists. This theory note provides direction to the debate by offering an important clarification of the concept of infrastructure and how it is theorized. Scholars have very different understandings of what infrastructures a…
Territory, authority, expertise: Global governance and the counter-piracy assemblage
This article presents an empirical study that aims to draw out core elements of an assemblage theory of global governance. Situating assemblage theory in the third, practice-oriented generation of global governance research, I argue that it provides us with a feature-rich toolbox sensitive to the routine matters of international cooperation, the role of artefacts and the vitality of territories of governance. To showcase the advantages of an asse…
Expertise in the age of post-factual politics: An outline of reflexive strategies
Communities of Security Practice at Work? The Emerging African Maritime Security Regime
Maritime security has been a long-neglected issue on the African security agenda. This situation is changing incrementally, not the least because of the attention to the problem of piracy in the continent's waters. The “piracy momentum” has led to a significant intensification of maritime security cooperation. This article analyzes current processes, strategies, and institutional responses to maritime security challenges. Drawing on a practice-th…
From epistemology to practice: A sociology of science for international relations
Protecting hidden infrastructure: The security politics of the global submarine data cable network
Undersea communication cables are the core critical infrastructure of the digital age. 99% of all transoceanic digital communication—financial transactions, emails, or voice messaging—is transported through undersea fiber-optic cables. The global submarine cable network is a critical infrastructure that does not receive the analytical attention it deserves. We argue that cable security is a core dimension of current and future international secur…
Beyond seablindness: A New Agenda for Maritime Security Studies
This article examines the rise of maritime security in concept and practice. We argue that developments in the maritime arena have flown beneath the radar of much mainstream international relations and security studies scholarship, and that a new agenda for maritime security studies is required. In this article we outline the contours of such an agenda, with the intention of providing orientation and direction for future research. Our discussion …
Piracy studies: Academic responses to the return of an ancient menace
In the last decade maritime piracy has become recognized as a pressing global problem. Together with the problem the new inter-disciplinary project of piracy studies has emerged. In this article I review the state of knowledge and the character of piracy studies. I present two arguments. Firstly, I review recent contributions and suggest that piracy studies is organized in three pillars. The first pillar studies the phenomenon of piratical practi…
How do small island states maximize influence? Creole diplomacy and the smart state foreign policy of the Seychelles
A lack of capabilities is most often taken to imply a lack of influence. The foreign policy of the Seychelles provides a surprising case of successful small state diplomacy that counters this claim. With a population of less than 100,000 and a diplomatic service of 100 staff, Seychelles is recognized as a broker in international organizations and as an agenda setter in ocean governance. This article explores this success in four steps. First, we …
Practices, Norms, and the Theory of Contestation
Wiener is not clear about this. What is the intent of building a theory of contestation? Why a general theory? With what purpose in mind? I am not entirely sure what the theory of contestation, despite its name, is actually a theory of. Is it a theory of norm(ativitie)s in global governance, a theory of legitimacy, or a theory of the practice of contestation? Moreover, what are we supposed to do with it? Verify or falsify it? If not, what is its …
Practice, Pirates and Coast Guards: The grand narrative of Somali piracy
In this article I develop a practice–theoretical account to provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali piracy. Arguing for an understanding of piracy as a ‘community of practice’, I show how this community is organised by a ‘grand narrative’ that projects piracy as a quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persiste…
Global Ordering and the Interaction of Communities of Practice: A Framework for Analysis
Several new frameworks for the study of the differentiation of and relations between global orders have recently been introduced to International Relations. This article demonstrates how the communities of practice (COP) framework provides complementary as well as novel answers to processes of global ordering. COP theory has become a thriving research framework and has led to substantial innovative work on the internal logics of international ins…
Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization
Since its initial formulation in science and technology studies, actor-network theory (ANT) has spread like wildfire throughout the social sciences. Wildfires are fueled by dry and flammable vegetation as well as hot, gusting winds. ANT finds flammable vegetation among those frustrated with many of the conventions, dualisms, and dilemmas of the traditional social sciences. ANT promises to liberate scholars from strict dualisms such as the nature/…
Oceans, Objects, and Infrastructures: Making Modern Piracy
The agenda of objectual International Relations has shown why object matters, how they arise and with what effects. Far less attention has been paid to how objects are maintained and stabilized over time and how their coherence is achieved. To add this dimension to the debate, we suggest turning to the infrastructures of object maintenance. Infrastructures are social material arrangements that maintain objects and enable their use. We introduce a…
Meditating deformalization: Remarks on ‘Of experts, helpers, and enthusiasts’
Moving away from studying actors to studying practices opens a fascinating vista of global governance. Kratochwil provokes inquiry into the practical work actual people do in international relations. He helps to move beyond binaries by offering a pragmatic approach to global governance in a fragmented institutional environment. Yet, his criticism of best practices for their problems of applicability and perverse side-effects misses the existence …
The clash of practice: Political controversy and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission
Controversy is at the heart of politics. Theories of practice offer a productive way of understanding controversies and potentially negotiating in them. In this paper, drawing on the work of Theodore Schatzki, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, I introduce a heuristic for understanding controversies. I argue that what is often at stake in controversies are different types of practices of how a political issue should be handled. I introduce five of t…
Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding: Options for Counter-Piracy Strategy in Somalia
The dominant approach to counter-piracy strategy off Somalia is astonishingly narrow-minded. Deterrence, surveillance and military operations do not provide sustainable or efficient solutions; better strategic alternatives must draw on the lessons of 21st-century peace operations. This perspective leads to an understanding of counterpiracy as a problem of peacebuilding. This allows restructuring and reframing of the problem to permit a much wider…
Pragmatic ordering: Informality, experimentation, and the maritime security agenda
The question of when and how international orders change remains a pertinent issue of International Relations theory. This article develops the model of pragmatic ordering to conceptualise change. The model of pragmatic ordering synthesises recent theoretical arguments for a focus on ordering advanced in-practice theory, pragmatist philosophy, and related approaches. It also integrates evidence from recent global governance research. We propose a…
Learning from piracy: Future challenges of maritime security governance
Is the decade of large scale piracy off the coast of Somali over? What are the lessons from Somali piracy for maritime security governance? This article revisits the triggers of piracy and argues for the need of being cautious since the current success in curbing piracy might not be sustainable. I identify six factors that trigger piracy: (1) geography, (2) weak law enforcement and corruption, (3) maritime insecurity, (4) economic dislocation, (5…
Practical Reflexivity and Political Science: Strategies for Relating Scholarship and Political Practice
The simplistic, but still influential, idea of a clear-cut boundary between science and politics does not capture the complexities of the ongoing “dialogue between science and politics.” Neither do political scientists live in an ivory tower, nor do they breathe the air of a separate world. However, the relation between political science practitioners and the rest of the world remains knotty. In this contribution we outline the value of a focus o…
Into the sea: Capacity-building innovations and the maritime security challenge
Maritime security capacity-building is a growing field of international activity. It is an area that requires further study, as a field in its own right, but also as an archetype to develop insights for capacity-building and security sector reform in other arenas. This article is one of the first to analyse this field of activity. Our empirical focus is on the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Here, international actors have launched multiple ca…
The clash of practice: Political controversy and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission
Controversy is at the heart of politics. Theories of practice offer a productive way of understanding controversies and potentially negotiating in them. In this paper, drawing on the work of Theodore Schatzki, Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, I introduce a heuristic for understanding controversies. I argue that what is often at stake in controversies are different types of practices of how a political issue should be handled. I introduce five of t…
From epistemology to practice: A sociology of science for international relations
Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding: Options for Counter-Piracy Strategy in Somalia
The dominant approach to counter-piracy strategy off Somalia is astonishingly narrow-minded. Deterrence, surveillance and military operations do not provide sustainable or efficient solutions; better strategic alternatives must draw on the lessons of 21st-century peace operations. This perspective leads to an understanding of counterpiracy as a problem of peacebuilding. This allows restructuring and reframing of the problem to permit a much wider…
Communities of Security Practice at Work? The Emerging African Maritime Security Regime
Maritime security has been a long-neglected issue on the African security agenda. This situation is changing incrementally, not the least because of the attention to the problem of piracy in the continent's waters. The “piracy momentum” has led to a significant intensification of maritime security cooperation. This article analyzes current processes, strategies, and institutional responses to maritime security challenges. Drawing on a practice-th…
Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts
Practice, Pirates and Coast Guards: The grand narrative of Somali piracy
In this article I develop a practice–theoretical account to provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali piracy. Arguing for an understanding of piracy as a ‘community of practice’, I show how this community is organised by a ‘grand narrative’ that projects piracy as a quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persiste…
Piracy studies: Academic responses to the return of an ancient menace
In the last decade maritime piracy has become recognized as a pressing global problem. Together with the problem the new inter-disciplinary project of piracy studies has emerged. In this article I review the state of knowledge and the character of piracy studies. I present two arguments. Firstly, I review recent contributions and suggest that piracy studies is organized in three pillars. The first pillar studies the phenomenon of piratical practi…
Practical Reflexivity and Political Science: Strategies for Relating Scholarship and Political Practice
The simplistic, but still influential, idea of a clear-cut boundary between science and politics does not capture the complexities of the ongoing “dialogue between science and politics.” Neither do political scientists live in an ivory tower, nor do they breathe the air of a separate world. However, the relation between political science practitioners and the rest of the world remains knotty. In this contribution we outline the value of a focus o…
Pathways to practice: Praxiography and International Politics
Political scientists have started to focus on 'practice' as the smallest unit of analysis. Following a broader turn in the social sciences, the practice focus provides multiple advantages, including better conceptualizations of short-term social change, getting closer to the everyday activities of those speaking, writing and doing politics, appropriate conceptualization of agency-structure dynamics, or forms of analysis resonating with other comm…
Actor-Network Theory, Methodology, and International Organization
Since its initial formulation in science and technology studies, actor-network theory (ANT) has spread like wildfire throughout the social sciences. Wildfires are fueled by dry and flammable vegetation as well as hot, gusting winds. ANT finds flammable vegetation among those frustrated with many of the conventions, dualisms, and dilemmas of the traditional social sciences. ANT promises to liberate scholars from strict dualisms such as the nature/…
International Practice Theory: New Perspectives
How does the practice turn play out in international relations? This study offers a concise introduction to the core approaches, issues and methodology of International Practice Theory, examining the
From Expert Communities to Epistemic Arrangements: Situating Expertise in International Relations
What is maritime security?
Maritime security is one of the latest buzzwords of international relations. Major actors have started to include maritime security in their mandate or reframed their work in such terms. Maritime security is a term that draws attention to new challenges and rallies support for tackling these. Yet, no international consensus over the definition of maritime security has emerged. Buzzwords allow for the international coordination of actions, in the …
Security Expertise: Practice, Power, Responsibility
1. Security Expertise: An Introduction, Trine Villumsen Berling & Christian Bueger 2. What is Expertise? Technical Knowledge and Political Judgment, Robert Evans 3. What is Security Expertise? From a Sociology of Professions to the Analysis of Networks of Expertise, Gil Eyal and Grace Pok 4. In Defence of Security, Thomas Osborne 5. The History and Social Structure of Security Studies as a Practico-Academic Field, Ole Waever 6. Think Tanks in Sec…
Learning from piracy: Future challenges of maritime security governance
Is the decade of large scale piracy off the coast of Somali over? What are the lessons from Somali piracy for maritime security governance? This article revisits the triggers of piracy and argues for the need of being cautious since the current success in curbing piracy might not be sustainable. I identify six factors that trigger piracy: (1) geography, (2) weak law enforcement and corruption, (3) maritime insecurity, (4) economic dislocation, (5…
From Dusk to Dawn? Maritime Domain Awareness in Southeast Asia
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 37, Number 2, August 2015
Small navies: Strategy and policy for small navies in war and peace. Edited by Michael Mulqueen, Deborah Sanders and Ian Speller
When the United States Navy proposed in 2007 the initiative of a ‘1000 ship navy’ that would collaborate and patrol the oceans worldwide, it was above all an invitation to countries with a ‘small navy’. As the concept suggests, the challenges of maritime security are extensive, and the vastness of ocean space too great for any navy to handle on its own. This in particular applies to small states, which do not have the resources required for inves…
The Play of International Practice
The core claims of the practice turn in International Relations (IR) remain ambiguous. What promises does international practice theory hold for the field? How does the kind of theorizing it produces differ from existing perspectives? What kind of research agenda does it produce? This article addresses these questions. Drawing on the work of Andreas Reckwitz, we show that practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social rela…
Making Things Known: Epistemic Practices, the United Nations, and the Translation of Piracy
How are international phenomena rendered knowable? By which means and practical devices is international knowledge generated? In this article, I draw on the case of contemporary maritime piracy to introduce a research framework that allows these questions to be addressed. Arguing that the practices of international knowledge generation are poorly understood, I show how concepts from science and technology studies provide the tools to study these …
We are all islanders now’ – Michel's blue economy kaleidoscope and the missing link to maritime security
The international community has awakened to the importance of the sea. Ocean health, ocean governance, maritime security and the blue economy are concepts that have received increasing attention ov
Performing piracy: A note on the multiplicity of agency
Expertise in the age of post-factual politics: An outline of reflexive strategies
Practices, Norms, and the Theory of Contestation
Wiener is not clear about this. What is the intent of building a theory of contestation? Why a general theory? With what purpose in mind? I am not entirely sure what the theory of contestation, despite its name, is actually a theory of. Is it a theory of norm(ativitie)s in global governance, a theory of legitimacy, or a theory of the practice of contestation? Moreover, what are we supposed to do with it? Verify or falsify it? If not, what is its …
Beyond seablindness: A New Agenda for Maritime Security Studies
This article examines the rise of maritime security in concept and practice. We argue that developments in the maritime arena have flown beneath the radar of much mainstream international relations and security studies scholarship, and that a new agenda for maritime security studies is required. In this article we outline the contours of such an agenda, with the intention of providing orientation and direction for future research. Our discussion …
International Practice Theory
Political science (32 works) · Law (29 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Maritime Security and History (22 works) · Politics (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Maritime Security (15 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · International Maritime Law Issues (13 works) · Epistemology (12 works)