From Social to National Security: On the Fabrication of Economic Order

This chapter explores some of the conceptual, political and historical links between social and national security. Social security and national security are not often talked about together, despite the recent surge of interest in widening the security agenda. The chapter connects the emergence of ‘national security’ following WWII back to the emergence of ‘social security’ in the 1930s. It links social security and national security via the notion of ‘economic security’, and suggests that these historical links reveal the extent to which ‘security’ operates as a mechanism of liberal order building.