Published Paper Details:

Why do regimes confronted by protest waves, legitimacy crises, and elite fractures increasingly govern through "security" even when such moves intensify instability? Drawing on Critical Security Studies and ontological security theory, this article argues that contemporary South Asian regime instability is partly produced by ontological security strategies, discursive and institutional practices aimed at preserving a coherent state-self amid anxiety. Through comparative vignettes of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka; and interpretive analysis of securitizing narratives of law-and-order, "foreign hand," digital blackouts, emergency governance, this paper shows how identity-preserving state practices can generate tactical calm while deepening strategic volatility. The contribution is a mid-range conceptual framework linking regime anxiety to security performances, and a typology of ontological security strategies that helps explain recurring cycles of repression, backlash, and legitimacy erosion in South Asia.