Introducing The Handbook of Security

Abstract

This second edition of The Handbook of Security is very different from the first. There are more chapters, tackling a wider range of issues, reflecting the quite diverse subject matter of security management studies and the vast literature that supports it. Relevant research is being conducted in both the hard and soft sciences: indeed, every academic discipline has a contribution to better understand some aspect or manifestation of security and in providing theories and frameworks which can help enhance our comprehension of security and insecurity (see Smith and Brooks, 2013; also Brooks, 2013). The diverse subject matter that characterizes security studies is reflective of the broad range of activities that are involved in attempting to create secure environments to live and work. Moreover, there are multiple agencies, with different structures and accountability mechanisms, that are involved in providing security, or attempting to provide it. These points alone make security an exciting subject to study, but it does mean that a handbook of security that seeks to provide an insight into this broad subject matter — with a primary focus on security people, premises and communities — will necessarily be incomplete in its coverage. More of that later.