CIAO DATE: 10/02

Human Security: A Brief Report of the State of the Art

Ten years after the end of the Cold War, a revised concept of 'security' has not yet produced as broad or thorough understanding as when security implied a narrow, yet clear framework centered on the state and the military. The classical understanding of security, often referred to as 'national security,' meant different uses of military force to defend the integrity of the state, generally in a strategically ori-ented, rational-choice perspective of analysis. Neither the growing interdependence of the 1970s along with the advance of the neo-institutionalist approach in international relations, nor the more realist-ori-ented efforts of linking the economy with security truly challenged a classical understanding of the con-cept of security. The fact that this theoretical understanding was widely applied in foreign and defense policy contributed to its strength, even if critics maintained that this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a widely quoted 1991 article, Stephen Walt offers a comprehensive review of the evolution of the field of study labeled 'security studies' from the post-Second World War 'Golden Age' to the 'Renaissance' of the 1970s. Although Walt differentiates between the pre-Second World War study of strategy, limited to the professional military, and the expansion of the field with the involvement of civilians for the first time during World War II, he defined the focus of security studies clearly as the study of war. Furthermore, though recognizing the necessity of including several new issues on the post-Cold War research agenda, Walt remains faithful to the evolution and ethos of the knowledge that characterized security studies during the Cold War, especially concerning conceptual clarity and 'policy relevance.' As such, he rejects the inclusion of non-military aspects of international conflict within the field of secu-rity studies.

The unanticipated end of the Cold War spread a wave of criticism about the validity of the classical concept of security with 'Critical Theory' and later 'constructivism' taking the lead in the 're-vision' ing security debate, to use Ann Tickner's term. No wonder, then, that the critical approach par-ticularly targeted Walt's article and its neorealist framework that limits the understanding of security to military threats and ignores the relevance of non-state actors. Within that approach, 'world security' or 'global security' replaces, in general, the traditional concept of international security. Another set of critics came from the 'normative theory' focus and the interdisciplinary approach that reproached Walt, among others, for ignoring the possibility of partial resolution of geopolitical problems through non-coercive approaches, mainly through multilateral institutions. However, it is the need to provide solu-tions to what have become known as the new, non-military threats on the international security agenda that calls for a practical framework based on a broader understanding of the concept. Of course, these new threats are no less violent than the classical military threats. Therefore, even cooperative security frameworks might need to use coercive force against terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, and so on, though not on behalf of a single sovereign state as traditionally understood. Although the new non-military aspects of security are more or less easy to describe, their theoretical conceptualizations are far more difficult to grasp. However, efforts have been made to define a systemic approach for organizing these conceptualizations into a coherent structure that could justify a broader definition of international security.

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