djurdjevic lukic (2005) human security

7/28/2019 Djurdjevic Lukic (2005) Human Security

1/9


2/9

world at the beginning of 21 st century is not more secure than in the 1990s, and the results of

initiatives regarded as key by human security policy proponents (after the Ottawa Convention on

the ban of anti-personnel land mines) are not encouraging: the implementation of the Millennium

Goals, small arms control, child soldiers, acceptance of the International Criminal Court 6 In this

paper, the author argues that the lack of improved multilateral institutions and cooperation, as wellas prolonged problems with the all-inclusiveness of the concept of human security, do not provide

room for further clarification of the concept and its improvement as a policy tool. Under such

circumstances, the relativization of state sovereignty will not necessarily result in enhanced

individual and global security.

Is humanitarianism really embedded?

Within the concept of human security there is no labeling of the current international systemas a world order, but there is an implicit starting premise about the system as almost constitutional

in the sense of how it was described by John Ikenberry. 7 An idealistic dimension of the human

security concept is its neo-institutionalist normative notion that humanitarian ideas have become a

principal normative reference for states and organizations to clarify their international obligations,

or against which to hold others responsible. Citing international regimes for promoting human

rights, protecting refugees and providing humanitarian assistance, Suhrke believes it may be useful

to think of the structure as embedded humanitarianism and that the norms are generallyunderstood in a consensual way and invested with much legitimacy. 8

Although the so-called international community looks over every nations shoulder, and the

Western tradition of humanitarian law and missionary work and aid are integrated into many

existing regimes, a strong framework for the concept of human security is not provided for. The

existing international agreements are far from a comprehensive system of norms for the

implementation of such a broad concept.

Firstly, they include contradictory, or at least non-complementary, approaches by the different

international actors involved. An example related to implementation when it comes to socio-

economic issues within the UN umbrella would be divergence within the UNDP and World Bank.6 Recently published Human Security Report 2005, Oxford University Press , documents a decline in the number of

wars, genocide, and human rights abuses over the past decade, and claims that the explanation for these changes isin the unprecedented upsurge of international activism, spearheaded by the UN, which took place in the wake of theCold War. However, the Report operates with a narrow definition of human security, and unlike this paper, it doesnot focus on the past five years but on a longer period. Internet: http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=84

7 John Ikenberry , After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major War ,Princeton 2001, p. 21-49. The main argumentation for this part of the paper was elaborated previously in SvetlanaDjurdjevic-Lukic, Broadening the Security Concept From National to Human Security, International

Problems Vol. LVI, No. 4, 2004, pp. 397 408.8 Astri Suhrke, Human Security and the Interests of States , Security Dialogue 30, No. 3, 1999, pp. 268-9

2
http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=84http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=84http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=84http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=84


3/9

While safety nets are a precondition for market liberalization in developing countries as per the

UNDP Poverty Reduction Strategy, the World Bank managed to downgrade concept of safety nets

as only simultaneous to economic reforms in its report. 9 Secondly, competing norms and identities

might create different perceptions about security priorities between outsiders and the locals for

whom human security is supposed to be provided, rendering some initiatives useless.10

Thirdly, even when norms are accepted in a more or less integrated region such as the NATO

community, there are no guarantees of an absence of conflicts, i.e. security threats. The Cyprus

conflict in 1974 showed that even the claim that democracies do not go to war with one another is

not a universal rule, that normative explanations for the democratic peace may only be valid

under a limited set of conditions. 11

Fourthly, on the level of implementation, the concept implies humanitarian motives and the

involvement of efficient experts within the international actors engaged in security-related issues. In

practice, international organizations are far from such an expected ideal-type. Their pathology has

been convincingly explained in detail. 12 I will mention here only the arbitrary agenda-setting by

different international actors for self-interested work, even in cases of actors that are supportive of

the human security approach. 13

Fifthly, after the changes in U.S. leadership, the terrorist attack on September 11, and the new

National Security Strategy envisaging pre-emptive attacks and unilateralism, the system-level

framework for human security implementation has been deteriorating. The lone superpower

demonstrates an increasing willingness to go it alone, immunity to the pressures and criticism of 9 On pressure related to the priorities of the World Bank and its World Development Report in Robert Hunter Wade,

US Hegemony and the World Bank: The Fight Over People and Ideas, Review of International Political EconomyVol. 9, No.2, Summer 2002, p.215-243.

10 For example, as a part of its human security endeavors, the Japanese government provided $1 million for Kosovo to be spent for local developmental priorities within five municipalities which hand over more than 300 illegally possessed arms during an amnesty period in September 2003. The UNDP and local non-governmental organizationsorganized a public awareness campaign explaining the benefits for development and opportunities for localinhabitants, in addition to the enhanced rule of law and physical security. However, none of over 20 communities

qualified in an area with an estimated 300-400,000 illegally possessed Kalashnikovs, the number of gunssurrendered was 155 in all municipalities combined!11 Fiona Adamson, Democratization and the Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy: Turkey in the 1974 Cyprus Crisis,

Political Science Quarterly , Vol. 116, No 2, 2001. It is relevant for emerging democracies most recentcomprehensive research on the limitations of Democratic Peace Theory in: Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder,

Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War , MIT Press, 2005.12 Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, The Politics, Power and Pathologies of International Organizations,

International Organization 53, No 4, Autumn 1999, pp. 699-732.13 Even a benevolent actor such as the European Union imposes its security priorities on neighboring countries. For

example, the EU has proclaimed that human trafficking is a major security threat for the Balkans. The EU and itsagencies and institutions, through the auspices of the Stability Pact plus member-states on a bilateral basis,organizes numerous meetings requiring the time and attention of many levels of authorities in the Balkans bylabeling the issue as a security concern and exercising pressure regarding the establishment of local police priorities.The Balkans is neither the starting nor ending point of the human trafficking chain; there are no attempts from Kurdsor Pakistanis in illegal transit to stay for example in Serbia, nor a notable related rise in crime. There are in factother, local and sub-regional, priorities but for the sake of the EU human trafficking is imposed as a priority securityissue to be dealt with.

3


4/9

others, the assumption that its national values and practices are universally valid and that its policy

positions are always moral and proper, and, crucially, the perception that international institutions,

norms, and even signed conventions are collectively only one of many policy options, no more

relevant than all others .14 The system loses predictability; hence, room for stable expectation on the

international level, as an implicit precondition to human security, is narrowing. Furthermore, theattempt to reduce the threat of terrorism by overemphasizing military means at the expense of other

instruments, 15 illustrates the absence of understanding of the broader notion of security, i.e. there is

a prolonged focus on a state and military-centric perception of security.

A broad versus narrow approach

Alongside problems related to normative weakness, the academic debate on the definition of

human security and its analytical relevance has made little headway in the past several years. Thefirst definitions offered by UNDP and Kofi Annan encompassed a wide range of issues, from

physical to psychological factors, including highly controversial notions such as freedom from

want, making the concept resistant to a comprehensive definition because of its all-inclusiveness.

The UNDP concretization of seven specific elements including economic and food security, health,

environmental security, personal security, community and political security, hardly clarified the

concept. 16 Since then, various attempts to make the concept more stream-lined have not yet

produced a broadly accepted analytical clarification of human security.For Astri Suhrke the essence of human security is reduced vulnerability. 17 She defined

those exposed to immediate physical threats to life or deprivation of life-sustaining resources as

extremely vulnerable: victims of war and internal conflicts, those who live close to the subsistence

level and are thus structurally positioned at the edge of socio-economic disaster, and victims of

natural disaster. Suhrke proposed an internationally supported human security regime to protect

the vulnerable by developing norms, strengthening institutions (national and international) and

operationalizing and implementing strategies. For those who live permanently on the edge of socio-economic disaster some basic standards of socio-economic conditions in aid policy should be

incorporated, safety nets should be established and certain categories of people should be

compensated for direct losses. 18

14 On US unilateralism see: Rosemary Foot, S. Neal MacFarlane and Michael Mastanduno (eds), US Hegemony and International Organizations: The United States and Multilateral Institutions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003

15 P.H. Liotta, Converging Interests and Agendas: The Boomerang Returns, Security Dialogue , Vol. 33, No 3, 2002, pp. 495498.

16 UNDP Human Development Report 1994 , p. 2417 Suhrke, op. cit., 1999, p.27318 Suhrke, Ibid, pp. 2725. It is important to note that in her 2004 short statement, Suhrke expressed pessimism, i.e.

she has changed her position vis--vis the prospects for human security. Washingtons revival of the early ColdWar doctrine of either you are with us or you are against us leaves little room for a coalition of states that wish to

4


5/9

Gary King and Christopher Murray attempted to narrow the concept down by including only

those domains of well-being that have been important enough for human beings to fight over or to

put their lives or property at great risk. 19 They define poverty more broadly to include the

deprivation of any basic capabilities and developed a system for measuring individual human

security and perceived individual human security. Their suggestion for a prudent set of domainswith which to measure human security is income, health, education, political freedom and

democracy. 20 By choosing some aspects and ignoring others, these authors have practically

abandoned the totality of the concept, which was praised as its main positive quality by its founders.

For example, by choosing only five indicators for human security, King and Murray did not address

the huge area of violence, and did not offer an explanation as to why the areas selected were more

valuable than others. 21

Central to the debate has been the dichotomous broad-versus-narrow conceptualization; onethat is more concrete, focused only on violent threats, or the inclusion of a wider range of issues

such as poverty, disease, and environmental disasters, i.e. the social, psychological, political, and

economic aspects of vulnerability. 22 For the proponents of a broader approach, analytical and

normative difficulties are unfortunate but unavoidable consequences of broadening the security

paradigm beyond threats to the state. 23 However, the key problem is not only definition as a

theoretical issue, but the lack of causal relationships among so many equally valid dimensions of

security, and hence the immense difficulties for prioritization on the policy level.

Causation and prioritization

Alongside proponents of an all-inclusive concept of human security who stress its creative

synthesis and theoretical eclecticism, 24 or perceive it as a conceptual bridge between professional

fields of humanitarian relief, development assistance, human rights advocacy, and conflict

resolution, 25 there are ongoing attempts to make the concept of human security more applicable in

policy terms.

promote the security of individuals, regardless of where they stand in relation to Washington. Astri Suhrke, AStalled Initiative , Security Dialogue, Vol 35, No. 3, 2004, p. 365.

19 Gary King and Christopher J.L. Murray, Rethinking Human Security, Political Science Quarterly , Vol. 116, No 4,20012002, p. 585-610

20 Ibid .21 Roland Paris, Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air? International Security Vol. 26, No. 2, 2001, pp. 8710222 Summary of discussions in Taylor Owen, Human Security Conflict, Critique and Consensus: Colloquium

Remarks and a Proposal for a Threshold-Based Definition, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 373 - 38723 Owen, Ibid. p. 37524 Amitav Acharya, A Holistic Paradigm, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 355-5625 Peter Uvin, A Field of Overlaps and Interactions, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 352-53

5


6/9

Ramesh Thakur finds a solution in focusing on security policy in relation to crisis, i.e. on a

situation in which non-traditional concerns merit the gravity of the security label and require an

exceptional policy response: environmental threats of total inundation or desertification, political

threats of the complete collapse of the state structure, population flows so large as to destroy the

basic identity of a host society, structural coercion so severe as to turn human beings into chattels,etc. 26 A similar suggestion which aims to provide for both an analytically useful and policy-relevant

concept, is a threshold-based conceptualization that limits threats by their severity rather than their

cause. Proposing human security as protection of the vital core of all human life from critical and

pervasive environmental, economic, food, health, personal and political threats, 27 such an approach

actually only omitted community security from the original UNDP concept. Kanti Bajpai suggests

a focus on threats that can be traced back to identifiable human agents (at least in principle), not to

structural or natural causes.28

King and Murray are interested mostly in prevention,29

while Suhrkestresses regime improvements mainly for post-factum reactions. 30

Again, these attempts are highly divergent. As Roland Paris noted, the challenge for

policymakers is to move beyond all-encompassing exhortations and to focus on specific solutions to

specific political issues, 31 while the notion of human security lacks the degree of analytical

separation that is required for the study of causal relationships. 32 Simply, the widening of the

concept makes the establishment of priorities in human security policy difficult. 33 Or, as Edward

Newman has noted, the concept is analytically weak because it generates an unmanageable array of variables. 34 At the policy level, devices for the development of priorities for security policy

formulation: time and space, the proximity of threat, intensity and consequences of a particular

threat could be hardly implemented under such a wide range of equally valid security dimensions.

In sum, within current clarifications of the concept, there are still no answers to key questions: who

or what will provide human security? Under which conditions and how? If this right is taken to be

universal, is everyone or no one responsible?

26 Ramesh Thakur, A Political Worldview, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 347-827 Taylor Owen, Human Security Conflict, Critique and Consensus: Colloquium Remarks and a Proposal for a

Threshold-Based Definition, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 373 - 38728 Kanti Bajpay, An Expression of Threats Versus Capabilities Across Time and Space, Security Dialogue Vol 35, No.

3, 2004, pp. 3606129 Gary King and Christopher J.L. Murray, op. cit.30 Astri Suhrke, op. cit. 199931 Roland Paris, 2001, op. cit.32 Roland Paris, Still an Inscrutable Concept, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 370-7133 S. Niel MacFarlane, A Useful Concept that Risks Losing its Political Salience, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3,

2004, pp. 368-6934 Edward Newman, A Normatively Attractive, but Analytically Weak Concept, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3,

2004, pp. 358-59

6


7/9

Conclusion

In the second half of the short life of human security as of 1999 there has been no

substantial theoretical or policy clarification of the concept. Increasingly present in both academic

and policy discussions, human security has not yet offered answers to the question of how to

provide for the security of individuals, ensuring their safety in an era of new vulnerabilities created

by the changed nature of armed conflicts. This paper argues that weak multilateral institutions and

norms, changes on the global scene after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the prolonged absence of a

precise definition regarding the scope of the concept and the causal relationship between its various

dimensions, still do not provide room for analytical clarification of the concept and its improvement

as a policy tool.

Human security is an attempt to oppose the most traditional and the narrowest approach to

security, pursuing the agenda from the opposite end of the continuum. The consequence is that by

going too far afield of basic threats to survival and from national security, human security faces

numerous problems. As discussed above, there is no precise definition of the concepts scope, or the

possibility for establishment of a causal relationship among its various dimensions; and hence no

room for practical prioritisation on the policy level. Proponents of the concept neglect the fact that

current international regimes and norms are not universally accepted, let alone broad enough to

cover an all-inclusive approach of human security. There are some ambiguities in the interpretation

and implementation of norms, contradictory and arbitrary agenda-setting amongst the leading

international actors. Furthermore, people who are supposed to benefit from a human security

approach may have different systems of values and security perceptions, or simply do not follow

outside projected options.

While the results in concrete action that are regarded as the core of a broader human security

network in the past several years have not been impressive, there has been change in an issue

which is related to human security: the understanding of state sovereignty. The chain of

recommendations and documents issued by the United Nations Secretary General, Human Security

Commission, High-level Panel, and concluding with the UN World Summit in September 2005,

broadened the space for external intervention in sovereign states on the grounds of human security.

Keeping in mind the many problems accompanying recent (non)interventions, 35 the outlined

vagueness of the human security concept, current international norms and institutions, and that the

room for stable expectation on the international level as an implicit precondition for human security

35 Such as the possibility that humanitarian intervention will be enacted where geopolitical interests dictate, not whereneeded, that humanitarian-based legitimization for intervention requires that individuals and peoples representthemselves as victims in order to garner international attention redirecting them from the political struggle at homewhere a compromise might emerge, and a like. See Susan L. Woodward, Should We Think Before We Leap? ARejoinder, Security Dialogue Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 277281

7


8/9

is narrowing, the relativization of state sovereignty will not necessary result in enhanced individual

and global security.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Amitav Acharya, A Holistic Paradigm, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 355-56.

Fiona Adamson, Democratization and the Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy: Turkey in the 1974Cyprus Crisis, Political Science Quarterly , Vol. 116, No 2, 200.

Kofi Annan, Two Concepts of Sovereignty, The Economist , September 18, 1999; available also atwww.un.org/News/ossg/sg/stories/kaexon.html

Kanti Bajpay, An Expression of Threats Versus Capabilities Across Time and Space, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 360-61

Michael N. Barnett and Martha Finnemore, The Politics, Power and Pathologies of InternationalOrganizations, International Organization 53, No 4, Autumn 1999, pp. 699-732.

Commission on Human Security, Human Security Now , New York, 2003, Internet :www.humansecurity-chs.org/finalreprot/index.html

Svetlana Djurdjevic-Lukic, Brodening Security Concept From National to Human Security, International Problems Vol. LVI, No. 4, 2004, pp. 397 408.

Rosemary Foot, S. Neal MacFarlane and Michael Mastanduno (eds), US Hegemony and

International Organizations: The United States and Multilateral Institutions, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, 2003.

Francois Fouinat, A Comprehensive Framework for Human Security, Conflict, Security & Development , Vol. 4, No. 3, December 2004, pp. 289-297.

Robert Hunter Wade, US Hegemony and the World Bank: The Fight Over People and Ideas, Review of International Political Economy Vol. 9, No.2, Summer 2002, pp. 215-243.

Don Hubert, A Idea that Works in Practice, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No.3, September 2004, p.351.

Human Security Report 2005, Oxford University Press, 2005.

John Ikenberry , After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major War , Princeton 2001, p. 21-49.

International Commission on the Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect ,2001, Internet: http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/isiss-ciise/menu-en.asp

Gary King and Christopher J.L. Murray, Rethinking Human Security, Political Science Quarterly ,Vol. 116, No 4, 2001-2002, p. 585-610

P.H. Liotta, Converging Interests and Agendas: The Boomerang Returns, Security Dialogue , Vol.33, No 3, 2002, pp. 495-498

S. Niel MacFarlane, A Useful Concept that Risk Losing Its political Salience, Security Dialogue

Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 368-69.Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War ,

MIT Press, 2005.

8
http://www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/stories/kaexon.htmlhttp://www.humansecurity-chs.org/finalreprot/index.htmlhttp://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/isiss-ciise/menu-en.asphttp://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/isiss-ciise/menu-en.asphttp://www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/stories/kaexon.htmlhttp://www.humansecurity-chs.org/finalreprot/index.htmlhttp://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/isiss-ciise/menu-en.asp


9/9

Edward Newman, A Normatively Attractive, but Analytically Weak Concept, Security DialogueVol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 358-59.

Taylor Owen, Human Security Conflict, Critique and Consensus: Colloquium Remarks and aProposal for a Threshold-Based Definition, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 373 387.

Roland Paris, Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air? International Security Vol. 26, No. 2,2001, pp. 87-102.

Roland Paris, Still an Inscrutable Concept, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 370-71.

Vesselin Popovski, The Concept of Humanitarian Intervention in: Peter Siani-Davies, International Interventions the Balkans after 1995 , Routledge, London, 2003, pp. 42-58.

Report of the High-level Panel of Threats, Challenges, and Change, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility ; UN, New York, 2004.

Astri Suhrke, A Staled Initiative , Security Dialogue, Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, p. 365.

Astri Suhrke, Human Security and the Interests of States , Security Dialogue Vol. 30, No. 3, 1999, pp. 265-276

Ramesh Thakur, A Political Worldview, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 347-8.

UN 2005 World Summit Outcome , 60 th UN General Assembly, 20 September 2005, A/60/L.1*

UNDP Human Development Report 1994, Oxford University Press, New York 1994.

Peter Uvin, A Field of Overlaps and Interactions, Security Dialogue Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 352-53.

Susan L. Woodward, Should We Think Before We Leap? A Rejoinder, Security Dialogue Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 277-281.

9

djurdjevic lukic (2005) human security

Documents