International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

The concept of human security has been subject to considerable debate regarding whose agenda it serves, what it should or should not embrace, and whether it serves any real use at all. We need to ask if it has the potential of furthering the normative causes of critical security studies including feminism, or whether it is a realist tool in disguise ( Nuruzzaman 2006 ; Newman 2010 ). Human security has, to varying degrees, reflected a rhetoric of human emancipation and championed the average or everyday individual, but thus far has not been successful in actively backing up this agenda. To the extent that human security has been practiced, it has been at the policy level and usually in the form of military and humanitarian interventions ( ICISS 2001 ; Shinoda 2004 ; Duffield 2007 ). These complex, usually civil-military, operations which on the surface consist of traditional security approaches (use of military and force at the behest of the state), at the same time employ a rhetoric of human security (security of individuals) which forces attention to the widened security agenda. This has significantly challenged the “tool” of security, the militaries, in that they must relocate themselves within a widened security framework, wavering between ( Smith 2006 ) neorealist security politics (where the state and international system reign) and a liberal, global, humanitarian needs/rhetoric ... log in or subscribe to read full text