Many of the most interesting issues in post-Cold War international relations can be usefully examined through a prism labeled "security studies". These issues include challenges to the state from "below" by ethnic and regional fragmentations, and from "above" by global economic, cultural, and environmental dynamics. This new volume brings together a diverse group of analysts seeking to explore these issues and contribute to the development of a self-consciously critical perspective within security studies. Chapters address such topics as security-building in postapartheid South Africa, the discourse of security in post-Cold War Europe, and the construction of the problem of weapons proliferation.