Theories and concepts of security

Question 1

what is an essentially contested subject

Answer 1

• Essentially contested concepts are said to be so value-laden that no amount of argument or evidence can ever lead to agreement on a single version as the ‘correct or standard use’.

Question 2

Buzan’s definition of security

Answer 2

essentially contested subject
disavows any intention of formulating a precise definition and suggests that to attempt to do so is to misunderstand the function of essentially contested concepts in social science

strong variants of this position lead to a radical sceptical nihilism in which there are no grounds for preferring one conception of security to another.

Question 3

issue with security as essentially contested - appraisive terms

Answer 3

o In the first place, the concept must be ‘appraisive in the sense that it signifies or accredits some kind of valued achievement.
 W. B. Gallie uses the concept of a ‘champion’ in sports to illustrate the point, i.e., to label a team as champion is to say that it plays the game better than other teams. Is the concept of security similar to the concept of a champion? Neorealists seem to imply that it is. For them security is the most important goal a state can have in the same way that winning a championship is presumably the goal of all teams in Gallie’s example…. so states with more security than other states are better at playing the neorealist version of the ‘game’ of international politics. From the neorealist perspective, then, it is plausible to treat security as an appraisive concept.
 But Wolfers contends that states vary widely in the value they place on security and that some states may be so dissatisfied with the status quo that they are more interested in acquiring new values than in securing the values they have

Question 4

issue with security as essentially contested - contested nature

Answer 4

it must actually generate vigorous disputes as to the nature of the concept and its applicability to various cases.
 Gallie deliberately rules out policy disputes in ‘practical life’ that reflect conflicts of ‘interests, tastes, or attitudes’. These, he suggests, are more likely to involve special pleading and rationalization than deep-seated philosophical disagreement. Thus, much of the contemporary public policy debate over whether to treat the environment, budget deficits, crime or drug traffic as national security issues does not qualify as serious conceptual debate by Gallie’s standards

Question 5

Baldwin’s definition of security

Answer 5

• Wolfers’ characterization of security as ‘the absence of threats to acquired values’.
• Since there is some ambiguity in the phrase ‘absence of threats’, Wolfers’ phraseology will be reformulated by Baldwin as “a low probability of damage to acquired values”- also allows for inclusion of events such as earthquakes which Ulman thinks should be included.

Question 6

Baldwin - security as contested subject

Answer 6

Security is more appropriately described as a confused or inadequately explicated concept than as an essentially contested one.

Question 7

Baldwin - things ideas of security need to clarify

Answer 7

Security for whom?

Security for which values?

How much security?

from what threats?

by what means?

at what cost

in what time period

Question 8

Baldwin - security for whom is important

Answer 8

• As Buzan rightly points out, a concept of security that fails to specify a ‘referent object’ makes little sense.

Question 9

Baldwin- meaning of security for which values

Answer 9

• The concept of national security has traditionally included political independence and territorial integrity as values to be protected; but other values are sometimes added. The former American Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, for example, includes the maintenance of ‘economic relations with the rest of the world on reasonable terms

Question 10

Baldwin - importance of how much security

Answer 10

• One reason it is important to specify the degree of security a country has or seeks is that absolute security is unattainable.
• If security is conceived of as a matter of degree, Buzan observes, ‘then complicated and objectively unanswerable questions arise about how much security is enough’.This, of course, is precisely why security should be so conceived.

Question 11

Baldwin - use of from what threats

Answer 11

• Those who use the term security usually have in mind particular kinds of threats. Home security systems, for example, are usually directed at potential burglars; and national security systems are often directed at other states. Since threats to acquired values can arise from many sources, it is helpful if this dimension is clearly specified. Vague references to the ‘Communist threat’ to national security during the Cold War often failed to specify whether they referred to ideological threats, economic threats, military threats, or some combination thereof, thus impeding rational debate of the nature and magnitude of the threat

Question 12

Baldwin - importance of clarifying by what means

Answer 12

• The tendency of some security studies scholars to define the subfield entirely in terms of ‘the threat, use, and control of military force’ can lead to confusion as to the means by which security may be pursued. It can also prejudice discussion in favour of military solutions to security problems.

Question 13

Baldwin - importance of clarifying at what cost

Answer 13

• The pursuit of security always involves costs, i.e., the sacrifice of other goals that could have been pursued with the resources devoted to security. From the standpoint of a rational policy-maker, however, costs always matter
• Wolfers argues against those who would place national security policy beyond moral judgment, he contends that the sacrifice of other values for the sake of security inevitably makes such policies ‘a subject for moral judgment’. Given the crimes that have been committed in the name of ‘national security’, this is a helpful reminder.

Question 14

Baldwin - importance of clarifying in what time period

Answer 14

• The most rational policies for security in the long run may differ greatly from those for security in the short run. In the short run, a high fence, a fierce dog, and a big gun may be useful ways to protect oneself from the neighbours. But in the long run, it may be preferable to befriend them. Short-run security policies may also be in conflict with long-run security policies.

Question 15

prime value approach to security

Answer 15

• One way of determining the value of security is to ask what life would be like without it. The most famous answer to this question is that by Thomas Hobbes to the effect that life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ – so assert the ‘primacy of the goal of security’

Question 16

issue with prime value approach

Answer 16

• The fallacy in this line of argument is exposed by asking the Hobbesian question with respect to breathable air, potable water, salt, food, shelter or clothing. The answer is roughly the same for each of these as it is for security; and a plausible case for the ‘primacy’ of each can be made.

To the extent that the prime value approach implies that security outranks other values for all actors in all situations, it is both logically and empirically indefensible. Logically, it is flawed because it provides no justification for limiting the allocation of resources to security in a world where absolute security is unattainable. Empirically it is flawed because it fails to comport with the way people actually behave. Prehistoric people may have lived in caves for security, but they did not remain there all the time. Each time they ventured forth in pursuit of food, water or adventure, they indicated a willingness to sacrifice the security of the cave for something they presumably valued more.

Question 17

core value approach

Answer 17

• The core value approach allows for other values by asserting that security is one of several important values.

Question 18

issue with core value approach

Answer 18

Although this approach mitigates the logical and empirical difficulties associated with the prime value approach, it does not eliminate them. One is still confronted with the need to justify the classification of some values as core values and other values as non-core values. And if core values are always more important than other values, this approach cannot justify allocating any resources whatsoever to the pursuit of non-core values.

Question 19

marginal value approach

Answer 19

favoured by Baldwin

the law of diminishing marginal utility is as applicable to security as it is to other values. Asserting the primacy of security is like asserting the primacy of water, food, or air. A certain minimum amount of each is needed to sustain life, but this does not mean that the value of a glass of water is the same for a person stranded in a desert and a person drowning in a lake. The value of an increment of something depends on how much of it one has…. the more security one has, the less one is likely to value an increment of security

security is only one of many policy objectives competing for scarce resources and subject to the law of diminishing returns. Thus, the value of an increment of national security to a country will vary from one country to another and from one historical context to another.

Question 20

Human security

Answer 20

• Although definitions of human security vary, most formulations emphasize the welfare of ordinary people. They refer to the individual not the state.

“Human security can be said to have two main aspects. It means, first, safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression. And second, it means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life-whether in homes, in jobs or in communities.

Question 21

Paris - issue with human security

Answer 21

human security-lacks precision. The scope of this definition is vast: Virtually any kind of unexpected or irregular discomfort could conceivably constitute a threat to one’s human security.

Policymakers and scholars face problems in attempting to put these definitions of human security into practical use.

o The observation that all human and natural realms are fundamentally interrelated is a truism and does not provide a very convincing justification for treating all needs, values, and policy objectives as equally important. Nor does it help decisionmakers in their daily task of allocating scarce resources among competing goals.

Question 22

support for keeping human security vague

Answer 22

o the most ardent backers of human security appear to have an interest in keeping the term expansive and vague. The idea of human security is the glue that holds together a jumbled coalition of “middle power” states, development agencies, and NGOs-all of which seek to shift attention and resources away from conventional security issues and toward goals that have tradition- ally fallen under the rubric of international development.
o According to the government of Japan, for example, the concept of human security “comprehensively covers all the measures that threaten human survival, daily life, and dignity-for example, environmental degradation, violations of human rights, transnational organized crime, illicit drugs, refugees, poverty, anti-personnel land- mines and…infectious diseases such as AIDS-and strengthens efforts to confront these threats.”

Question 23

King and Murray’s attempt to narrow concept of human security

Answer 23

offer a definition of human security that is intended to include only “essential” elements, meaning elements that are “important enough for human beings to fight over or to put their lives or property at great risk.” Using this standard, they identify five key indicators of well-being-poverty, health, education, political freedom, and democracy-that they intend to incorporate into an overall measure of human security for individuals and groups.

Question 24

Paris’s issue with King and Murray’s narrowing of human security

Answer 24

o But they neglect to offer evidence that their five indicators are, in fact, closely related to the risk of violent conflict. In other words, they favour certain values as representative of human security without offering a clear justification for doing so
o their decision to exclude indicators of violence from their composite measure of human security creates a de facto distinction between human security and physical security, thereby purging the most familiar connotation of security- safety from violence-from their definition of human security.

Question 25

Paris’ proposal for new concept of human security

Answer 25

two axis:
security for whom?
- states
societies groups and individual
and what is the source of the security threat?
- military
- military, non military or both

military, non military or both and societies, groups etc = human security

military and states= national security

Societies groups + military = intrastate security

other = redefined security

Question 26

Paris - benefits of his approach to human security

Answer 26

differentiates the principal non-traditional approaches to security studies from one another.

With the broadening and deepening of security studies in recent years, it is no longer helpful or reasonable to define the field in dualistic terms: with the realist, state-centric, military-minded approach to security studies at the core and a disorderly bazaar of alternative approaches in the periphery. Mapping the field in new ways can help us to understand how these approaches relate to more traditional approaches to security studies, and to one another.

Question 27

Newman’s main argument about human security

Answer 27

• human security scholarship must go beyond its (mostly) uncritical conceptual underpinnings if it is to make a lasting impact upon security studies.

combine it with critical security

Question 28

Newman - interaction of state and human security

Answer 28

• human security is not necessarily in conflict with state security; the state remains the central provider of security in ideal circumstances. Human security does, however, suggest that international security traditionally defined – territorial integrity – does not necessarily correlate with human security, and that an over-emphasis upon state security can be to the detriment of human welfare needs. So, traditional conceptions of state security are a necessary but not sufficient condition of human welfare

Question 29

Newman - disagreement between human security

Answer 29

• All approaches to human security agree that the referent of security policy and analysis should be the individual, but they disagree about which threats the individual should be protected from, and what means should be employed to achieve this protection. Eg:
  o 1st approach focuses on the issues which undermine the life chances of the largest numbers of people. The reality is that, by far, the biggest killers in the world are extreme poverty, preventable disease, and the consequences of pollution
  o The second approach to human security is narrower, and focuses on the human consequences of armed conflict and the dangers posed to civilians by repressive governments and situations of state failure.

Question 30

Newman - non traditional security approaches

Answer 30

• Some non-traditional approaches retain the state as the referent object of study, and broaden their analysis of the threats to the state, to include – for example – economic, societal, environmental, and political security challenges

Buzan - the individual is the ‘irreducible base unit’ for explorations of security but the referent of security must remain the state as it is the central actor in international politics and the principal agent for addressing insecurity

• Other critical approaches challenge the state-centricity of security analysis fundamentally, and argue that individuals or humans collectively should be the referent object of security.

Question 31

Newman - lack of engagement between non-traditional and human security

Answer 31

o Human security scholarship tends to be pragmatic about finding solutions. It challenges the primacy of the state but is willing to concede the reality of state power and to work with the state to find solutions. - human security scholarship has tended to be ‘problem-solving’-Problem-solving approaches take prevailing social relationships, and the institutions into which they are organised, as the given and inevitable framework for action
o Other non-traditional theorists instinctively believe that state elites are unlikely to be truly committed to promoting human welfare because the state is complicit in structural injustices from which it is unwilling or unable to extricate itself

Question 32

Newman- Ways human and non traditional security must learn from each other

Answer 32

human security could develop conceptually and critical security could come closer to its practical applications

Human security needs to make a clear distinction between explanatory and normative theory. At present human security does not make an adequate differentiation between what it claims the world is like and what it would like the world to be like + human security needs to be more explanatory and theoretical sense: in terms of generating persuasive explanations for the nature and consequences of security institutions and go beyond normative advocacy claims

Human security must interrogate and problem Matise the values and institutions which currently exist as they relate to human welfare and question the interest that are served by these institutions

Question 33

Booth’s view of security

Answer 33

• ‘Security means the absence of threats. Emancipation is the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely choose to do. War and the threat of war is one of those constraints, together with poverty, poor education, political oppression and so on. Security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin. Emancipation, not power or order, produces true security. Emancipation, theoretically, is security.

Question 34

Booth - role of states in security

Answer 34

• Those entities called ‘states’ are obviously important features of world politics, but they are unreliable, illogical and too diverse in their character to use as the primary referent objects for a comprehensive theory of security

Question 35

Booth - how domestic and foreign politics should interact

Answer 35

. In this world of turbulent change it is less and less tenable to see the ‘external world —the subject-matter of traditional international politics—as a ‘domain of its own . In the interpenetrating world of global politics, economics and cultures, we need better attend to the linkages between ‘domestic and ‘foreign’ affairs.

Integral to emancipation is the idea of the reciprocity of rights. The implication of this is the belief that I am not truly free until everyone is free . This is a principle everyone can implement in everyday life, and it has implications for international relations. Since ‘my freedom depends on your freedom , the process of emancipation implies the further breaking down of the barriers we perpetuate between foreign and domestic policy

Question 36

McSweeney - issue with societal security as too narrow of a concept

Answer 36

assuming that identity is the unique value vulnerable to threat

• A society’s survival is a matter of identity, they assert. No evidence or argument is offered in support, other than the comment that ‘this is the way a society talks about existential threats: if this happens, we will no longer be able to live as “us”. This observation is made analytically true, of course, if we accept the definition of society in terms of ‘individuals identifying themselves as members of a community’. But that is to reduce our conception of society to its most ephemeral and empirically contentious component and to ignore other elements.

o economic threats to particular groups within a society can affect the security of society as a whole. But this passing interest in the multi-dimensionality of threats is not sustained. Neither does it reflect interest in the multi-dimensionality of values susceptible to threat. The only value which they can conceive as vulnerable in the event of economic threats is societal identity.

Question 37

McSweeney - issue with societal security privileging perception

Answer 37

• Collective identity is first a matter of perception, just as security and insecurity also begin in our perception of vulnerabilities and threats. A critical difference appears, however, when we consider that the perception and fear of threats to security can, in principle, be checked by observing and evaluating the facts external to the subject. . To privilege perception would, in effect, turn security policy over to demagogues and paranoiacs
• if the IRA creates a ‘collective identity’ which incorporates intense anti-British sentiment into a symbol of Irish solidarity? Such hypothetical developments are not wildly improbable, and would immediately present a serious security problem in France and Ireland. From the traditional security point of view, the state would intervene and speak objective security for the society. This means that the racist perception of security would be countered by a decision of the state and a policy strategy to implement it

Question 38

McSweeney - issue with societal security’s macro level approach

Answer 38

Societal security is not a ‘more human’ concept of security, it is used to describe the reality which transcends the individuals who belong to it.

macro level approach prevents insight into social group components and looking at things like economic welfare

We cannot assume, by definition, that ‘society’ embodies a single value or interest—identity—which stands alongside the values of the state as the only object of vulnerability

Question 39

Mitzen- why is ontological security important for states

Answer 39

• The reason is that agency requires a stable cognitive environment. Where an actor has no idea what to expect, she cannot systematically relate ends to means, and it becomes unclear how to pursue her ends. Since ends are constitutive of identity, in turn, deep uncertainty renders the actor’s identity insecure. Individuals are therefore motivated to create cognitive and behavioral certainty, which they do by establishing routines.
• Specifically, the claim that ontological security is a basic need begins with the proposition that actors fear deep uncertainty as an identity threat. Such uncertainty can make it difficult to act, which frustrates the action-identity dynamic and makes it difficult to sustain a self-conception.

the state cannot relate ends systematically to means in the present, much less plan ahead. In short, she cannot realize a sense of agency.

Question 40

Mitzen - Ontological security

Answer 40

• Ontological security refers to the need to experience oneself as a whole, continuous person in time as being rather than constantly changing - in order to realize a sense of agency. Individuals need to feel secure in who they are, as identities or selves. Some, deep forms of uncertainty threaten this identity security. refers to the deep, incapacitating state of not knowing which dangers to confront and which to ignore

achieved by routinising relationships with significant others, and actors therefore become attached to those relationships with significant others, and actors therefore become attached to those relationships.

Question 41

Mitzen - rationalist persepctive fits with need for ontological security

Answer 41

o From a rationalist perspective, faced with uncertainty actors will assign probabilities and maximize their expected utility. They then update probabilities in a Bayesian fashion, i.e. by adjusting their initial beliefs about the relative plausibility of an event in light of new evidence, making optimal use of all available information available This model has the demanding preconditions that actors must know, at least probabilistically, the alternative courses of action, the causal relationship between action and outcomes, and the consequences of possible outcomes… However, this assumes that the actor has confidence in the fundamental cognitive stability of her environment, and such confidence is not automatic.

Question 42

Mitzen - importance of routines

Answer 42

• Routines thus serve the cognitive function of providing individuals with ways of knowing the world and how to act, giving them a felt certainty that enables purposive choice. Because routines sustain identity, actors become attached to them. Individuals like to feel they have agency and become attached to practices that make them feel agentic. Letting go of routines would amount to sacrificing that sense of agency, which is hard to do.
• disruption alone does not make one ontologically insecure. Only if routines are rigidly held does disruption open up the person to deep insecurity. With healthy ontological security, actors can encounter all the hazards of life from a centrally firm sense of their own and other people’s reality and identity’ (Willmott, 1986: 113). In short, basic trust systems condition our ability to tolerate change. If we want to understand why some individuals seem invested in dysfunctional relationships while others are able to grow out of them, one place to look is the individual’s mode of attachment to routines.

Question 42

Mitzen - importance of state perceptions

Answer 42

individuals need to bring uncertainty within tolerable limits, to feel confident that their environment will be predictably reproduced. Importantly, this confidence is independent of the objective level of uncertainty, which might remain high. It is an internal, subjective property

Question 43

Mitzen- example of importance of routines

Answer 43

o Think of the aspiring actor who waits tables. He may see himself as an actor, and take classes, audition and talk constantly about theatre. But until he gets the break- through role, in an important sense he cannot “be’ an actor. He did not intend to be a waiter, but once ontological security needs are met through the relationships that sustain it, it becomes difficult to let go. Ten years on that breakthrough role looks less essential, and the effort of continually trying out for roles hardly seems justified

Question 44

Mitzen - implication of ontological security for states

Answer 44

• Individual level for ontological security is then scaled up to states, and applies the ontological security-seeking assumption to the security dilemma. States may not want to escape dilemmatic conflict. Because even dangerous routines provide ontological security, rational security seekers may become attached to conflict.

Because routines that perpetuate physical insecurity can provide ontological security, states can become attached to physically dangerous relationships and be unable, or unwilling, to learn their way out

• Where conflict persists and comes to fulfill identity needs, breaking free can generate ontological insecurity, which states seek to avoid.

Question 45

mitten - role of other states in ontological security

Answer 45

• States do not have the final say in whether they are security-seekers; other states play a crucial role. There are parameters to the practices that can constitute security-seeking, which are defined at the system level not by the state itself. security seeking is not a property of the state.

Question 46

Mitzen - example of states being defined by others

Answer 46

o in the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union did try to communicate a status quo type through glasnost and costly behavioural signals such as the INF Treaty and withdrawal from Afghanistan. But the US did not need to recognize these efforts as a sign of security-seeking, and indeed at first it saw them as tactics or tricks. Had that interpretation prevailed, Soviet troop withdrawals would not have become a step in a process of type revelation and the conflict would have persisted. What the revelation story overlooks is that US recognition of Soviet Union as a security-seeking state. Neither private aspiration nor public behavior was enough; social recognition was necessary as well….. In the late 1980s, the US initially rejected the Soviet identity as security-seeker. Only once others began to recognize the USSR’s security-seeking identity did the US move toward recognition

Question 47

Mitzen - state identities are influenced by relationships

Answer 47

• state identities or types are constituted and sustained by social relationships rather than being intrinsic properties of the states themselves. Socializing type is important for my argument because if types did not depend on social relationships, then states could not become attached to those relationships and ontological security would not give purchase on the security dilemma.

Question 48

Mitzen - example that state identities are influenced by relationships

Answer 48

o in the later Cold War the US and USSR both might have seen themselves as security-seekers. On this view, the US would have liked to act as a security-seeker, but was not certain whether the Soviet Union was greedy. Given such uncertainty, the US could not afford to express its true identity and was forced repeatedly to take actions that could be seen as aggressive (and indeed were aggressive). On this realist account, the US conception of itself, not the character of its interactions, defined its type. And since the Soviet Union could not relate to the US as a security-seeker, the two states found themselves in arms races, disputes over missiles in Cuba, and proxy wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Question 49

Hudson McDermott and Emett- how security of women is linked to security of states

Answer 49

Among humans and chimpanzees at least, male coalitionary groups often go beyond defence [typical of monkey matriarchies] to include unprovoked aggression

if domestic violence is normal in family conflict resolution in a society, then that society is more likely to rely on violent conflict resolution and to be involved in militarism and war than are societies with lower levels of family violence. A vicious circle may result, where such state violence may in turn lead to higher levels of gender inequality.

• legal systems and political institutions that allow females to live free of relational violence from males, and therefore free to form countervailing female alliances to prevent male violence and dominance, will also have a profound effect on state security and behaviour. To the extent that the security of women is a societal priority, the security and peacefulness of the state will be significantly enhanced.

that the oppression of females provides the template for other types of oppression, including authoritarianism, in Islamic nation-states.

Question 50

Hudson McDermott and Emett- evolutionary theory of hierarchy

Answer 50

• According to evolutionary theory, human social structures are profoundly - even predominantly - shaped by natural selection for reproductive fitness. Evolutionary theorists explain this system in terms of male reproductive advantage. Simply put, “Better fighters tend to have more babies. That’s the simple, stupid, selfish logic of sexual selection.”
• Evolutionary theorists posit that male dominance hierarchies were naturally selected among humans to maximize protection against out-group males and minimize conflict between in-group males. Dominance hierarchies are a system wherein a subgroup of superordinate (or “alpha”) males dominates subordinate males, and alpha males generally control sexual access to females. In contemporary terms, male dominance hierarchies are the foundation of patriarchy.
• Evolutionary theory tells us that clan or national identity is almost exclusively male-defined, for in the evolutionary landscape, it was males who defined who was a member of the in-group, and who belonged to out- groups, based on male reproductive concerns

Question 51

Hudson McDermott and Emett- existence of patriarchy

Answer 51

• Those with physical power also dominate political power, so that when law developed in human societies, men created legal systems that, generally speaking, favoured male reproductive success and interests - with adultery as a crime for women but not for men

Question 52

Hudson McDermott and Emett- patriarchy as not inevitable

Answer 52

o cultural selection for improved female status in many human societies also changes females in both emotional and endocrinological ways, and these changes have a good chance of being passed to their female offspring, making them less likely to submit and yield to male coercive violence…. Clarice Auluck- Wilson reports how one female village organization in India, the Mahila Mandal, was able to reduce domestic violence by having all the women run as one to the home of any woman who was being beaten by her husband and protecting her from further abuse. The Mahila Mandal was also able to force domestic abusers to temporarily leave the home for a cooling-off period, rather than the victim having to leave her home. By such collective action, levels of domestic violence against women decreased.

Question 53

How to break the cycle of patriarchy

Answer 53

Socialisation-
very young boys do not display more violence toward girls than girls display toward boys…. child witnesses of violence between their parents are more likely to be violent with their peers and with their partners in future relationship.

• legal systems and political institutions

Question 54

McDermott and Cowden’s simulated crisis game

Answer 54

examine sex differences in aggression within the context of a simulated crisis game. In these experiments, all- female pairs proved significantly less likely than all-male pairs to spend money on weapons procurement or to go to war in the face of a crisis. In further research, McDermott and her coauthors find that in simulation, males are more likely to display overconfidence prior to gaming and are more likely to use unprovoked violence as a tactic

Question 55

Rottem - issues with human security

Answer 55

• if we focus on the individual as the new referent, then we succumb to pressures to define security as anything and everything, rendering the concept meaningless

Question 56

Rottem - benefits of human security concept

Answer 56

• reorienting the security referent from the state to the individual, human security embodies a positive image of security. No longer focused on the negative ‘absence of threat’ approach, human security speaks to ‘enabling, making something possible’ and ‘making each secure in the other’
• The security debate has shown that one of the primary reasons for examining security through other referents, especially that of the individual, is that state security does not inevitably transfer to the individual or other referents within the state- State security is essential but does not necessarily ensure the safety of individuals and communities.

Question 57

Rottem - importance of identity in security

Answer 57

it is not sufficient to assume individual security needs from a distance ;rather, it is both necessary and more effective to respond to the security needs articulated by individuals themselves, particularly those who are theleast secure. To do so, we focus on identity as a pivotal feature of securityand look to gender analysis as a basis for this approach.

*
‘discussions on cultural identity and societal security would be enriched by considering different constructions of masculinity (and femininity) as relevant variables of cultural and political identities’

Question 58

Waever’s issue with human security thus far

Answer 58

• Human security = only from position of elites as they determine individual security needs

‘All such attempts to define people’s “objective interests” have failed. Security is articulated only from a specific place, in an institutional voice, by elites.”

Question 59

Waever and societal security

Answer 59

about identity, the self-conception of communities, and those individuals who identify themselves as members of a particular community’

• Where state security has sovereignty as its primary focus, societal security has identity.

Question 60

Rottem - how gender and societal security is linked

Answer 60

• Gender is inherently linked to identity. Gender, reflecting the interests and security concerns of significant groups, can illustrate the impact and importance of societal security, as well as the meaning it gives to the security dynamic
• When women’s articulations of security are recognized and heard, this results in access to the appropriate resources women need to ensure their security, as well as creating new foundations for theoretical reorientations of security.
• we recognize the interconnections between local violence such as domestic violence and global violence such as war, and we recognize that ignoring the former prevents us from fully understanding the causes of the latter

Question 61

Neorealist security argument

Answer 61

• Neorealism, or structural realism, posits that state behavior in international relations is primarily shaped by the anarchic nature of the international system and the pursuit of power and security.

o The security dilemma is the heart of structural realist theory: in anarchy, actions taken for one’s own security can threaten the security of others, leading to arms races, conflict and war. The fundamental cause of the security dilemma is uncertainty.

o An important premise of security dilemma theory is that the security states seek is physical, the protection of their territory and governance structure from others who can cause material harm

Question 62

Mitzen’s disagreement with Neorealist security theory

Answer 62

• No realist argument fully captures the identity effects of persistent conflict, because none acknowledges the social construction of state identity.

physical security is not the only kind of security that states seek.

Question 63

critique of neorealist security approach by Baldwin

Answer 63

• Regardless of what policies states adopt, there is always some chance of survival and thus some assurance of security. The crucial question is not whether security is ‘assured’, but rather, ‘How much assurance is enough?’
• The cost of security also receives little attention in neorealist theory.
• Do neorealists view security as a zero-sum concept in the sense that more security for one actor (unit) means less for another? When states are described as ‘competing’ with one another for security, such a conception seems to be implied. This suggests that the ‘winner’ of such a competition could be a state surrounded by insecure states.