After obtaining PhD in International Relations from the University of Warwick (ESRC + 3 award PTA-030-2005-00283), I secured an ESRC post-doctoral fellowship (ESRC post-doctoral award (PTA-026-27-1675, ‏grant amount £65,641.48). This award enabled me to rewrite my PhD thesis into a monograph for publication. The resulting book was published by Cambridge University Press in May 2010 under the title Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy.

In 2009 I was awarded a three year British Academy Post-doctoral fellowship (PDF/2008/103 grant amount £217,638.00) for my work on the ethics of securitization then under the title: ‘Consequentialist evaluation of security for cooperative international society’. This work is still ongoing.

I continue to have an interest in environmental and climate security. Together with Professor Richard A. Matthew (University of Irvine, California) we have just published a book on environmental security that aims to offer a comprehensive overview of the most important theoretical approaches to environmental security as well as some of the most important issues.

In April 2012 I was appointed as a Birmingham Fellow in Conflict and Security.

I am second PhD supervisor to Jonna Nyman.

My research on the ethics of securitization is concerned with two questions: (1) When, if ever, should we lift an issue out of normal/democratic politics, and treat it as a matter of emergency politics? (2) What exact form should such emergency politics ideally take? Despite the popularity of security studies, the ethics of securitisation - this move from normal/democratic to emergency politics- have thus far been ignored.

Parts of my PhD thesis and subsequent book considered the ethics of securitisation relating to the natural environment. I argued that because human well-being is closely connected to the natural environment, the survival of the environment is for that reason morally required. In order to ensure this survival, governments and other relevant actors (e.g. the UN) will sometimes need to take recourse to emergency politics.

With regards to the moral evaluation of security policies more generally, I am now working on developing a just securitization theory that would allow analysts and practitioners to morally evaluate securitizations both before and after they have occurred. Thus far my central idea has been to develop criteria that, provided they are fulfilled at the same time render a securitization morally right. For more detail on the criteria see my ‘Can securitization theory be used in normative analysis? Towards a Just Securitization Theory’ Security Dialogue,2011, 42 (4-5), 427-439

A first statement on just and unjust de-securitizations will form part of Contesting Security: Strategies and logics (edited by Thierry Balzacq) forthcoming 2013 with Routledge, PRIO series.

• I am a Fellow of the Institute for Environmental Security (IES), (www.envirosecurity.org/). 
• From July 2010 – July 2011 I was an independent consultant to the Climate Change and Energy Programme of the New Economics Foundation (http://www.neweconomics.org/) on a DFID sponsored systematic review.
  See: Johnson, V., Fitzpatrick, I., Floyd, R. & Simms, A. 2011. What is the evidence that scarcity and shocks in freshwater resources cause conflict instead of promoting collaboration? CEE review 10-010. Collaboration for Environmental Evidence: www.environmentalevidence.org/SR10010.html 

Monographs:

Floyd, R. (2010) Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Edited books:

Floyd,R. and R.A. Matthew (eds) Environmental Security: Approaches and Issues, Abingdon Routledge, (2013)

Chapter in edited books:

Floyd,R. (forthcoming in 2013) 'Just and unjust desecuritization' In Thierry Balzacq (ed.) Contesting Security: Strategies and Logics, Abingdon: Routledge   

Floyd, R. and R.A. Matthew (2013) ‘Environmental Security Studies: An Introduction’ in R. Floyd and R.A. Matthew (eds) Environmental Security: Approaches and Issues, Abingdon Routledge

Floyd,R (2013) 'Analyst, theory and security: A new framework for understanding Environmental Security Studies' in R. Floyd and R.A. Matthew (eds) Environmental Security: Approaches and Issues, Abingdon Routledge

Floyd, R. (2013) ‘Whither Environmental Security Studies: An afterword’ R. Floyd and R.A. Matthew (eds) Environmental Security: Approaches and Issues, Abingdon Routledge

Articles:

Floyd, R. and Croft, S (2011) ‘European non-traditional security theory: From theory to practice’ Geopolitics, History, and International Relations, 3(2), 152-179

Floyd, R. (2011) ‘Can securitization theory be used in normative analysis? Towards a Just Securitization Theory’ Security Dialogue , 42 (4-5), 427-439

Floyd, R. (2011) ‘Why we need needs-based justifications of Human Rights’ Journal of International Political Theory, 7(1), pp. 103–115

Floyd, R. (2008) ‘The Environmental Security Debate and its Significance for Climate Change’ The International Spectator, 43(3), pp. 51- 65

Floyd, R. (2007) ‘Towards a consequentialist evaluation of security: Bringing together the Copenhagen School and the Welsh School of Security Studies’ Review of International Studies, 33 (2), pp. 327-350

Floyd, R. (2007) ‘Human security and the Copenhagen school’s Securitization approach: Conceptualising human security as a securitising move’ Human Security Journal, 5, pp. 38-49

Taureck, R (2006) ‘Securitisation Theory and Securitisation Studies’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 9 (1) pp. 53- 61

Other:

Floyd,R. (2012) ‘Climate Change, Environmental Security Studies and the Morality of Climate Security’ e-International Relations, January 20^th. Available at http://www.e-ir.info/author/rita-floyd/

V. Johnson, I. Fitzpatrick, R. Floyd, & A. Simms, (2011). ‘What is the evidence that scarcity and shocks in freshwater resources cause conflict instead of promoting collaboration?’ CEE review 10-010. Collaboration for Environmental Evidence: www.environmentalevidence.org/ SR10010.html

Taureck, R. with G. D. Dabelko, (2006) ‘Profile of the United States’ in Ronald A. Kingham (ed.) Inventory of Environment and Security Policies and Practices: An Overview of Strategies and Initiatives of Selected Governments, International Organisations and Inter-Governmental Organisations (The Hague: Institute for Environmental Security,) pp. 113-121٭

 

Book reviews :

Review of Theorising International Society: English School Methods by Cornelia Navari (ed.) International Affairs, 2009, 85 (3) pp.611-612 

Review of Security as Practice:Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War by Lene Hansen Journal of International Relations and Development 2007, 10 (2) pp.214-217

Review of The Anarchical Society in a Globalized World by Richard Little and John Williams (eds.) International Affairs 2007, 83 (2) p.375

Review of Agents, Structures and International Relations: Politics as Ontology by Colin Wight International Affairs 2007, 83 (1) p.188

Review of Constructivism and International Relations: Alexander Wendt and his critics by Stefano Guzzini and Anna Leander (eds.) International Affairs 2007, 83 (1) pp.187-188

Review of Environmental Peacemaking by Ken Conca and Geoffrey D. Dabelko (eds.) Cooperation and Conflict 2006, 4 (1) pp. 225-227٭

Review of The United States and the Great Powers: World Politics in the Twenty-First Century by Barry Buzan Millennium Journal of International Relations, 2006 (34.3) pp. 981-983٭

Review of Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver Millennium Journal of International Relations 2005, 34, 1 pp.283 -285٭