The aim of the current research program is to analyse the undergoing evolution of international security within the context of globalization. The program tackles the changing processes that arise from the relationship between security agenda issues, multilateral institutions in charge of providing these with an answer and the distribution of power worldwide.

In the last two decades, a “new” security agenda that includes global-scope issues, such as energy and environmental risks, transnational crime, global terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or mass population movements, has been created. These matters have become reinforced among them and with traditional matters such as armed conflicts or persistent poverty.

From the International Relations perspective, the analysis of security is intrinsically linked to the distribution and practising of power worldwide. The system’s unipolarism, based on the American military power, together with the “war against terror”, have become the centre of attention of politicians and analysts in the last years. In this program, the practising of power as a social relation in the current global world is worth a more in-depth analysis that includes institutional, structural and normative dimensions. In this way, we analyse the role played by several actors such as the emergent powers, the European Union and social movements, as well as by new principles (protection responsibility) which challenge the base of the states’ system (national sovereignty). As a consequence, human security currently plays a key role in the political agendas.

he “no-passport issues” as far as security is concerned have given rise to a wide consensus on the need of multilateral answers. For this program, multilateralism, as an institutional means that coordinates the interstate relations in terms of security and based on common principles, considers various research questions related to its efficiency and legitimacy in the XXI Century.

Thematic Scope of Research:

• Multilateral institutions of security
• The creation of the global security agenda
• Management and prevention of conflicts
• Fragile states, globalization and armed conflict
• The European Union in the sphere of security, power and multilateralism in a global world.