Insecurity by Impreciseness: Towards a Specific Concept of Security

Abstract

The aim of the following exposition is to critically analyse the concept of human security in security studies and suggest some methodological refinements. First, I will comment on the gradual expansion of the classic concept of security. This expansion comprises two dimensions—deepening and broadening. I will then illustrate how the expansion of security in general is reproduced in the concept of human security and why this presents a problem. To this end, I will first introduce the human security approach and then elaborate on the advantages and disadvantages of the expansion in this context. In particular, I will show how the broadening of human security and its resultant conceptual ambiguity prove to be a fundamental problem. I will establish that the conceptual impreciseness has negative and—regarding human security’s original intention—counterproductive impacts on the concept’s political effect. Here the securitization of originally non-security issues will be central to my argument. This problem with human security is not purely of academic interest, but has impacts on practice, as is illustrated and discussed at the end of this chapter in relation to humanitarian intervention. As a preliminary solution I suggest (from a methodological point of view) the use of a ‘core concept’ of human security which concentrates on the physical inviolability of the individual. Finally, I will elucidate this narrow conception as a first step towards a broader desecuritization process aimed at preserving the adequateness of security ascriptions.