What is...Ontological Security?

In this episode Bahar Rumelili (Koç University, İstanbul) discusses the concept of ontological security (OS) with host Beste İşleyen (University of Amsterdam). By unpacking the notion of ontological security, we learn how OS as a concept relates to, and differs from other critical security concepts within IR scholarship. Arguing that existing critical approaches to security tend to conflate ontological security and physical security, Bahar Rumelili elaborates on the relationship between identity and security, and her work on identity construction through difference. By drawing on the Hobbesian state of nature and existentialist philosophy, Bahar Rumelili emphasises the constitutive notion of anxiety for state behaviour in international relations, while contending that an integration of anxiety into the study of IR theory enriches our understanding of state ontological security. Finally, Bahar Rumelili explains how her understanding of security in Europe from an OS perspective provides fruitful avenues for the study of contemporary conflicts.