the-evolution-of-international-security-studies

the outlook for iss 271that had not previously been of much concern within the sub-field. Thereis always the possibility that new intellectual fashions will arise, but thesafer bet now is that for the time being the dynamics of academic debateshave run their course. ISS has now largely absorbed the ‘deepening’ hitfrom all the new epistemological fashions. It is now broadly in tune withthe social sciences as a whole, and is therefore likely to be in ‘working themall through’ mode for some time rather than being subject to immediatebig new inputs from this source. It is not clear now that there remainsanything else out there that has not already been brought into ISS insome way, though this of course does not discount the possibility thatsocio-biology, or quantum social theory or somesuch might emerge asa new source of intellectual pressure on ISS. The academic world neverstands still! The challenge from risk theory to security as the framing ideafor ISS might also grow. Conceivably, the sort of massive modelling beingdeveloped for extremely complex physical systems such as the atmospheremight at some point begin to spill over into the social world, fulfillingthe long-standing dreams of behaviouralists to make social science abranch of physics. But big changes from this driving force look muchless likely than those from great powers, events and technology discussedabove. The current river delta configuration looks relatively stable as themedium-term framing for ISS.InstitutionalisationAs we have seen, institutional factors can be as much expressions of otherdriving forces as driving forces in themselves. The institutional establishmentof university courses and centres, of think-tanks and of journals,tend to act conservatively, reproducing existing lines of thinking andwork, though these, too, can also reflect shifts to new priorities. ISS isnow deeply rooted in this institutional sense, and these roots reflect thewidening and deepening that has gone on over the last quarter-century.It is difficult to imagine all of this crumbling away, so institutionalisationlends a considerable inertia to ISS. But a moment’s reflection on the scenariosabove suggests that quite dramatic changes in funding prioritiesare easy to imagine, perhaps similar to the ones that attended the birthof ISS in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and possibly bigger than the onesgenerated by the ending of the Cold War. Changes in funding fashions caneither promote or reduce the research attention paid to given issues. Thediversification of ISS’s organisational base under the impact of wideningand deepening places it well to respond to such changes when they