The Concept of Security: Should it be Redefined?

Abstract

This essay addresses the debate on the expansion of the concept of security, which emerged especially after the end of the Cold War. My argument is based on a distinction between the phenomenon to be explained and the explanations, which include all the relevant competing causal factors affecting the explained phenomenon. The subject matter, that the security field addresses, is the threat of organized inter-group violence, and the ways to manage and to prevent it. Here a somewhat broadened version of the traditionalist security concept is in order, which should treat peace as a central element of the field alongside war. Yet, regarding the competing explanations of war and peace, the door should be kept wide open to a great variety of causal factors, theories and explanations, on the condition that they logically and empirically affect war and peace.