Het wetenschappelijke werk van Christopher Browning verdiept zich in kritische benaderingen van veiligheid, identiteitspolitiek en geopolitiek, met een bijzondere focus op de Noordse regio, Europa en trans-Atlantische betrekkingen. Zijn onderzoek bevraagt de ingewikkelde verbanden tussen identiteit, macht en geografische ruimte. Hij biedt lezers inzichtelijke perspectieven op de dynamiek die internationale betrekkingen in de hedendaagse wereld vormgeven. Zijn analyses staan bekend om hun diepgang en breedte.
Since the end of the Cold war, the international security agenda has become increasingly important. This Very Short Introduction considers traditional topics such as war and peace, military strategy and nuclear weapons, alongside other issues such as climate change, international migration, poverty, and international terrorism.
Building on constructivist approaches to international relations this book develops a narrative theory of identity, action and foreign policy, which is then applied to account for the evolution of Finnish foreign policy. The book adopts an innovative approach by showing how foreign policy orientations need to be seen as grounded in overlapping and competing sets of identity narratives that reappear in different forms through history. By emphasising the dynamism implicit within identity narratives the book not only challenges traditional rationalist materialist approaches to foreign policy analysis, but also the current tendency to depict the story of Finnish foreign policy, identity and history as one of a gradual move towards a Western location. Rather the book emphasises elements of multiplicity and contingency, whilst re-establishing foreign policy as a highly political process concerned with power and the right to define reality and national subjectivity.