The concept of security in international relations has always been prominent, as well as contested. In the mainstream IR discourse, security has been limited to high politics, that is, one that concerns the state and the military apparatus. Theorists Keith Krausse and Michelle Williams (2008) have written about a more inclusive version of security, especially one that considers the individual, and the social, political, and economic arena from their perspective. A broadened idea of security would push for the opening up of International Relations to the people and stories from the below, something that the field severely lacks.
In an attempt to understand such a version of security, one that is cognisant of the narratives of the individuals embedded, we could look into the workers strike in Bangladesh that took place in the latter half of the previous year. Bangladesh is a state where various multinational companies manufacture their garment products and export it to other parts of the world, making it one of the biggest manufacturing hubs of fast fashion. The country provides extremely cheap labour that the corporates could capitalise on; until the year 2023 with the striking by the labour force for better wages. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the state deployed various violent and coercive mechanisms to curb the protesting masses. This has led to the injuring and death of many people, as reported various media houses (The Guardian, 2023) in the same year.
Source: The Guardian, 2023
The aforementioned case complicates the idea of security by taking into account different concepts such as identity, positionality, and state power over individuals. The protestant labourers can be regarded as the referent actor (in security studies, the referent actor is the entity whose security is considered threatened, and requires protection). The threat to the security of the citizens would be the state, with its use of violence and force, as well as the MNCs whose exploitative nature posed a problem in the fist place.
In many ways, this case could be seen as a postcolonial problem. The role of Bangladesh as a state from the global south that has not yet fully developed according to the western metrics needs to be considered. This makes it vulnerable to ‘neo-colonialism’, a new wave of colonial oppression that is found in the structure of the postcolonial world order. Countries without much economic power are often prone to be the place where large state and non-state actors export their manufacturing and polluting industries. The people from such developing states thereby provide cheap labour and could be exploited on various grounds without practical repercussion. In International Relations, the postcolonial theory problematises this hierarchy between countries that stems from the colonial history.
Additionally, the Gramscian world systems theory would encapsulate the situation. The theory talks about how states in the core, that is, the developed states in the global north posits the working class of the periphery (the developing and the under-developed) as the most vulnerable – thereby directly and benevolently exploiting them.
This case study could also be theorised from a feminist lens. Primarily, garment industry mostly consists of women workers who are usually preferred in private corporates due to their assumed inability to unionise and for being ‘docile, disciplined, and nimble-fingered’. Referring to the works of the prominent scholar Ngai Pun (2005), we could see how big corporate bodies, in the neo-liberal world order subjectivise their workers to an exploitative and vulnerable position. Although Pun’s work is contextualised in the exploitation of the workers in China, one could very well draw a parallel with the happenings in Bangladesh, and identify the larger workings of private transnational corporates, and their relation to their workforce.
The feminist theory could further be utilised to render some accountability to the state actor regarding this happening. Here, one is required to understand the way a state or a dominant power structure operates, that is, by taking on a masculine role – the role of the protector – that then invariably puts the citizens in a feminine position (Young, 2003). The citizens are in a subordinate position vis-à-vis the state, which makes them the protected (the feminine role). However, here we witness the state using its dominant position to further repress the citizens. The state now represents a rather hegemonic form of masculinity that is actively working to subjugate those that are subordinate to them, rather violently.
Source: NDTV, 2023
Furthermore, Laura Shepherd (2009) talks about the structural violence – the subtle every violence – endured by people in a position of marginalisation. It is to be considered that violence in this context is not limited to the coercive form that the state deploys, but also the everyday working conditions of the labourers, along with their extremely low wages in a neoliberal ecosystem. Feminist intervention in IR calls for identifying violence that is embedded in the structure, that is inherently disadvantageous to certain groups. The garment workers, in this context, have been prone to low minimum wage which is exploitative and subtly violent.
Source: NPR, 2020
In further understanding the said case study, one could consult the 2016 interview of IR theorists J. Ann Tickner and Philip Darby, conducted by Swati Parashar. It provides an insight into the need for International Relations to move beyond eurocentrism and accept alternate narratives, histories, and stories. Sandra Harding’s ‘gender symbolism’ that Tickner talks about also accounts for the categorising of the protesting workers and the entities that has power. Additionally, it is imperative to realise that the postcolonial and the feminist theories, as mentioned in this essay, are not mutually exclusive of each other. Tickner gives an account of how western liberalism, and modern statehood is gendered in its very essence – as illustrated in this essay.
To take a tangential turn from the main themes of this essay, we initially referred to security as a contested term, that is, it varies for different actors. Providing an antithesis for the initial conceptualisation of the referent actor and the threat, workers protesting and claiming their agency poses a great deal of threat to larger and powerful actors such as the state and the company. Here however, the threat is perceived emanating from the below, from an entity (or entities) that is supposedly subservient to one. The reclaiming of agency by the working class poses a challenge to the modern state system and the neoliberal order that tries to homogenise and scrutinise the people.
Security, in conclusion, plays an important part of the conducting of the state and its relations to the citizens. It could be deemed that almost every, if not all activities would be the quest for security for the referent actor involved. As we have seen with this case, the people, out of concern for their economic security and well-being, have collectivised and protested against the state and the market mechanisms. This is reflective of not only their position in the postcolonial liberal world order, but also with regard to state. The state, on the other hand, is insecure of the protesting masses, thereby deployed violent and coercive means to curb the protests. Security, in its very essence, is a contested term. Different actors and entities use different means to identify and ensure their secured state. Theorists in social science have used various theories to understand security on different grounds, all of which are valid and could be used in real life cases, as has been shown in this essay.
References
“Bangladesh garment workers fighting for pay face brutal violence and threat.” The Guardian. November 15, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/15/bangladesh-garment-workers-fighting-for-pay-face-brutal-violence-and-threats
Krause, Keith, and Michael Williams. "Security and “Security studies”: Conceptual evolution and historical transformation." The Oxford Handbook of International Security, edited by Alexandra Gheciu and William Curtis Wohlforth, Oxford. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Ngai, Pun. Made in China: Women factory workers in a global workplace. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005.
Parashar, Swati. “Feminism and Postcolonialism: The Twain Shall Meet.” Postcolonial Studies 19, no. 4 (2016): 463-477. https://doi.org/10.1080/13688790.2016.1317583
Shankar, Kunal, “The impact of Bangladesh’s garment workers strike | Explained.” The Hindu, November 20, 2023. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/the-impact-of-bangladeshs-garment-workers-strike-explained/article67555639.ece
Shepherd, Laura J. “Gender, Violence and Global Politics: Contemporary Debates in Feminist Security Studies.” Political Studies Review 7, no. 2 (2009): 208-219.
Young, Iris Marion. “The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State.” The University of Chicago Press 29, no. 1 (Autumn 2003): 1-25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/375708
Hello Sreelakshmi
This is a well written Marxist- Feminist critique of the state. I personally loved your connection of Ngai Pun's work on Chinese woman workers to the Bangladesh women workers. By invoking different feminist theorists and their work you have managed to dive deep into the complexities of the lives of these workers (referent objects) who perceive state as the threat object.
While reading your post I was reminded of the Industrial fire incident that happened in Dhaka in 2012. This is just one example of the different industrial hazards faced by workers in Bangladesh. It further complicates the role of the state as a security actor that fails to protect these factory workers. You have made some excellent…