Global security hierarchies after 1919

Since 1919, world leaders have sought to uphold and advance international order by sponsoring a succession of global security hierarchies, understood as authoritative arrangements that are global in scope and dedicated to mitigating international security challenges. These hierarchies have progressively broadened in the inclusivity of their security referents. Explicitly racist and civilizational answers to the question ‘security for whom’ have given way to more cosmopolitan visions of security hierarchy. The scope of the challenges these hierarchies have aimed to mitigate (‘security from what’) has also broadened, alongside the intrusiveness of the measures (‘security through which means’) licenced to manage them. The progression towards more inclusive, ambitious and intrusive global security hierarchies has nevertheless evolved in tension with the parallel globalization of both nationalism and the sovereign state system. These countervailing influences – in conjunction with the recent worldwide resurgence of illiberal forces – now threaten the prospective longevity of today’s United Nation (UN)-centric cosmopolitan global security hierarchy.