Rethinking the Concept of Threat: Threat Studies and the Limits of Security

This paper lays out Threat Studies as an emerging sub-discipline of International Relations and Security Studies. It breaks from the conventional reactive, state-centric approaches that dominate Security Studies by proposing an interdisciplinary model that, instead, analyzes how threats are constructed, perceived, and mobilized politically, economically, technologically, and environmentally. Drawing upon critical perspectives, discourse and political psychology, systems theory, and integration theory, the study argues that threats do not simply exist; they are crafted socially and politically, usually as mechanisms of domination, exclusion, and securitization. By analyzing the ontological and epistemological questions regarding threats, the paper provides a bounded classification distinguishing between material versus perceived threats, and direct versus indirect threats. The paper defends Threat Studies as an intellectually and strategically pertinent innovation that shifts security from militaristic reaction to ethical and preventive engagement with the causes of instability in a hyperconnected world.