Informed by the ’nonhuman turn’ in social sciences and humanities, this panel examines the relationship between democracy and security in a posthumanist analytical framework. On the one hand, it discusses the role that liberal democracies play in countering new and emerging threats to global peace and stability. To what extent, for example, are democratic institutions fit to address climate change and other security challenges emerging from our radical interconnectedness with other species and populations? What relevance does the answer bear on our understanding of the future of democracy? On the other hand, the panel explores the contribution that posthumanist, ’new’ materialist, and other non-anthropocentric analytical perspectives can make to our understanding of ’security’ itself. In other words, what can a more serious consideration of nonhuman forms of life and matter add to our understanding of the ways in which security is made and unmade in contemporary society? To what extent is such radical de-centring of the human warranted in the broader ethico-political tradition of democratic thought?

The panel will be held in English.

Panelists: Academy of Finland Post-Doctoral Researcher Gitte du Plessis, Tampere University; Professor Sami Pihlström, University of Helsinki; and Academy Research Fellow Rune Saugmann, Tampere University.

Chair: Doctoral Researcher Iida-Maria Tammi, University of Helsinki.

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