Securing Humanity: Situating ‘Human Security’ as Concept and Discourse

Gasper, Des

doi:10.1080/14649880500120558

Cited by 133 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…But it goes further than this by involving a range of issues that more traditionally sat within the development domain (Thomas 2001). This is not just about ensuring that people have existential basic needs -that they can live their lives secure in the knowledge that they will have enough to eat to survive -but that they can live a life free from "indignity" (Gasper 2005) and can make positive life choices.…”

Section: Defining Human Security (As Not Just Nts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Debating Human Security in China: Towards Discursive Power?

Breslin

2014

Journal of Contemporary Asia

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While the concept of Human Security is sometimes dismissed in China as an irrelevant and alien "Western" concept, it has been the subject of serious academic debate -particularly in the mid-2000s, when a series of crises led to a rethinking of the nature of security in and for China. But like other theories and concepts which have been largely developed outside China, Human Security has been "Sinicised" to reflect Chinese contexts and preferences. In the process, the emphasis on the individual human being that is normally at the heart of Human Security discourses is typically replaced by a focus on the collective humankind, and Chinese analyses are often packaged together with broader understandings of non-traditional security. This results in a Chinese version of the concept where the state remains a key referent point and actor -indeed, the state is the key guarantor of Human Security, not a threat to it. And it is this Chinese definition, so the argument goes, that Chinese practices should be judged against, and not supposed universal definitions that in reality only reflect the history and values (and interests) of Western states.Key words: China, Human Security, global norms, universalism, security studies 2014 marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the UNDP Human Development Report that introduced the search for "a new concept of Human Security" (UNDP 1994, 3) that turned the focus of security from states to people, and saw the solutions to insecurity in "development, not arms (UNDP 1994, 1). The basic thrust of the Human Security (HS) agenda has often been simplified to the objective of attaining individual "freedom from fear and want." Within this emphasis on freedom from fear, there are implications for the nature of domestic political governance that do not sit easily with political systems and processes in non-democratic countries. As such, we might suspect that the HS concept might not be well suited to Chinese understandings and discourses of security. And indeed, this is partly the case -it is not a term that is widely used in official policy discourses, and as we shall see, there 2 is a strand of academic thought that sees it as another way in which the West tries to promote its human rights agendas and impose its liberal preferences on places like China under the false banner of "universalism" (Hu 2011).But this rejectionist position does not tell the full story. While freedom from fear forms a core part of the HS agenda associated with Norwegian and Canadian approaches, preferences associated with Japanese conceptions stress the importance of freedom from want instead. This has provided a conceptual ambiguity that allows Chinese analysts to focus on socio-economic agendas rather than more "problematic" political-legal ones. Moreover, a series of crises since the late 1990s have resulted in a rethink of what constitutes the nature of security, and what constitute the major security challenges not just to China, but also in China. As part of this process, issues relating...

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Section: Defining Human Security (As Not Just Nts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Debating Human Security in China: Towards Discursive Power?

Breslin

2014

Journal of Contemporary Asia

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“…On the basis of 11 theories, namely Maslow's theory of human motivation (Maslow, 1943), the basic human needs approach (McHale and McHale, 1979;Doyal and Gough, 1984;Weigel, 1986), human-scale development (Max-Neef, 1992;Cruz et al, 2009), the capability approach (Sen, 1985;Anand et al, 2008;Gasper, 2007;Nussbaum, 2000), human security (Gasper, 2005;UNDP, 1994;King and Murray, 2001), sustainable livelihoods (Scoones, 1998;Chambers and Conway, 1991), quality of life (QoL) (Cummins, 1996;Costanza et al, 2007), subjective well-being (SWB) (Diener et al, 1999, cited in Alkire, 2002, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005), dimensions of poverty (Narayan et al, 2000) and the measurement of economic performance and social progress (Stiglitz et al, 2009), we identify a set of 16 elements which are relevant to measure AHEAD for climate impact research (see Fig. 1).…”

Section: Identifying Elements Of Aheadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate impacts on human livelihoods: where uncertainty matters in projections of water availability

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Climate change will have adverse impacts on many different sectors of society, with manifold consequences for human livelihoods and well-being. However, a systematic method to quantify human well-being and livelihoods across sectors is so far unavailable, making it difficult to determine the extent of such impacts. Climate impact analyses are often limited to individual sectors (e.g. food or water) and employ sector-specific target measures, while systematic linkages to general livelihood conditions remain unexplored. Further, recent multi-model assessments have shown that uncertainties in projections of climate impacts deriving from climate and impact models, as well as greenhouse gas scenarios, are substantial, posing an additional challenge in linking climate impacts with livelihood conditions. This article first presents a methodology to consistently measure what is referred to here as AHEAD (Adequate Human livelihood conditions for wEll-being And Development). Based on a trans-disciplinary sample of concepts addressing human well-being and livelihoods, the approach measures the adequacy of conditions of 16 elements. We implement the method at global scale, using results from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) to show how changes in water availability affect the fulfilment of AHEAD at national resolution. In addition, AHEAD allows for the uncertainty of climate and impact model projections to be identified and differentiated. We show how the approach can help to put the substantial inter-model spread into the context of country-specific livelihood conditions by differentiating where the uncertainty about water scarcity is relevant with regard to livelihood conditions -and where it is not. The results indicate that livelihood conditions are compromised by water scarcity in 34 countries. However, more often, AHEAD fulfilment is limited through other elements. The analysis shows that the water-specific uncertainty ranges of the model output are outside relevant thresholds for AHEAD for 65 out of 111 countries, and therefore do not contribute to the overall uncertainty about climate change impacts on livelihoods. In 46 of the countries in the analysis, water-specific uncertainty is relevant to AHEAD. The AHEAD method presented here, together with first results, forms an important step towards making scientific results more applicable for policy decisions.

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“…St. Clair 2004, 2005Gasper 2005a) -and then connected to the powerfully focusing and motivating theme of human rights. Attention-catching, thought-provoking indices were devised: the Human Development Index (HDI) and its siblings.…”

Section: The Fall and Rise Of Needs Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%