Critical look on the label "critical security studies"

In strategic and security studies, the term "critical" has been applied to research that has successfully deconstructed dominant security practices and discourses over the last twenty years. In this article, I question the impact and the meaning of such labelling by dissecting it according to three scientific approaches. The first is ontological, where "critical" is a reflection of the broadening concept of security in the post-Cold War period. The second is epistemological, and deals with positivist-post-positivist debates in the field. The third has to do with intellectual engagement, which fuels recent works on the "criticality" of methods employed as well as on the contestation of security policies.