Human Security, Concept and Practice

Dr Mary Martin, LSE

CN4HS, Kavala August 2014

Understanding human securityCore tenets of human security different from classical state sovereignty expanding the horizon of potential

threats incorporating a bottom-up perspective

empowering individuals FREEDOM FROM FEAR,

FREEDOM FROM WANT DIGNITY

A range of policy applications

• HS provides analytical tool : a different way of seeing insecurity

• Recognising interlinkages between disaster , conflict and global insecurity

• different responses - integrating individual needs and developing, disaster-resilient communities

• People not as passive beneficiaries but as architects of recovery and resilience .

• Not victim culture but emancipation--Closer engagement with affected communities

• a rethinking of the relationship between private and public spheres

Overlooked dimensions Downside risks rather than an expansion of

freedom in general – the distinction between HS, HR and HD

A threshold approach Elementary rather than all human rights. Social arrangements for safety – how does human

security fit with other imperatives? Human security as a guide amidst multiple

legitimate objectives or a cross-cutting theme? The dilemma of trade-offs

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HS Challenges in this region

– Different levels and types of vulnerability

– Managing the transition

– Legacy: Security services; arms

– Crime and porous borders

– Unemployment, and creating legitimate occupations

– Reshaping the social safety net and the political contract

– An inclusive society

– The affective dimension – hope, optimism, managing expectations

– Hidden or unspoken insecurities

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Operationalising a human security approach

addressing complexity

– Grey areas : victims or perpetrators

– Coping mechanisms and survival strategies – heroic or harmful?

– Presence of ambiguous and contradictory markers of human security

Clashes between principles: - the need for trade-offs : eg human rights versus bottom up , universal norms vs particularist cultures ;-legitimating political authority : who decides?

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6 Human Security Principles:Primacy of human rights, legitimate political authority, bottom-up; effective multilateralism, transparency, regional focus

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Challenges of the approach 2...• Coping with messy

outcomes

– Undesirable and unintended consequences

– No neat edges

– Ownership of process and results

– Balance between universal templates and local translation

• Technical assistance or political intervention?

– HS is deeply political

– Outcomes are important not just process

– Examples: ‘Rule of Law’

Conditionality

Are there limits to a human security approach ? - how to address the blurring of private and public spheres -Localism versus universal values

Human Security questions

• What should be the role of the state?

– Eg on natural disasters

– IHL and principles of neutrality and independence constrain intervention

• R2P and crisis response

– Legitimacy, damage to civilians, aftermath

• Food security, climate change, arms control

– traditional discourse , state competition and geo strategic considerations undermine collaborative action

• Risk of securitisation - biopolitics

Bottom-up approach

How do we know which are the good bottoms? [Javier Solana 2004]• Going beyond the usual suspects in civil

society• Inclusive approaches – marginalised

groups, even spoilers • Women and young people • Relationships and networks are crucial• Danger of romanticising the local

Human Security as Method

Good research is research conducted with people rather than on people changing the perspective of the researcher to achieve a different ethical position a different kind of knowledgeunleash social, political processes of change

• Disconnect between new ways of conceptualising security and the application of suitable investigative tools

• Distinctiveness of HS ? lived experiences of security issues

• Requires more attention to people within the research process

• respondents are more than means of access to ‘objective’ facts

• Using research process to redress power imbalances

Human Security Methodology