Reconceptualization Of Security Research Articles

Content and relationship between the main categories of the modern security environment

The study aims to analyse the connection among types of security intimidations: threats, challenges, vulnerabilities, and security risks, to establish the rapport between national and global threats, to review critical issues of the security environment.The study’s relevance is that the concept of security needs to be updated in the current changes in the global security context and the emergence of an increasing number and variety of threats under the transformations that are taking place. The research shows how the reconceptualization of security in the late twentieth century was influenced by global contextual changes associated with the end of the Cold War and the use of constructivist approaches in the social sciences. This dual change has led to a rethinking of security challenges in the second decade of the 21st century, leading to increased interest in this study. It is exposed that the concepts of vulnerability and risk are used not only in the context of foreign and defence policy, but also concerning ecologic security challenges caused by global environmental change, climate change and dangers and disasters, where there is no consensus within and among the community on vulnerability, and risks. In conclusion, it is proved that conceptual thinking on security threats has necessitated precise definition and consensus on these concepts, especially on practical policy measures to achieve agreed goals, and systematization of types of threats to all types of security and life support. It is determined that the degradation of traditional political institutions, against the background of the degeneration of the established international law system and order, cause the emergence of new threats to national security and, accordingly, political, as its subcategories. It is noted that modern researchers have paid little attention to studying the connection between the concepts of political security, state security and threats to state security. In the context of new globalization threats, states are facing a change in the security context and need to review security strategies and update the discourse on political and national security.

Così vicini, così lontani. Militari e civili nel crisis management dell'Unione Europea

The article describes how the changing nature of international challenges has led to the reconceptualization of security and to the blurring of borders not only between internalexternal security, but also among security sectors, instruments and actors. Critically examining how these changes are shaping EU discourses and policies on crisis management, as well as missions’ implementation, the author shows unresolved problems and potential risks for an effective management of international crises.

Arms Control for the 21st Century: Controlling the Means of Violence

In the past two decades there has been an extensive reconceptualization of security and its associated practices, but there has been scant attention to questions of arms and their control. This article, and those which follow, seek to start a conversation about the control of the means of violence. We begin by drawing on the metaphor of arms control as science fiction in order to highlight notable features of the classical arms control literature. The article then discusses the ways contemporary arms control practice has evolved from a Cold War focus on parity and mutual vulnerability to a global control architecture characterized by the pursuit of absolute security via an ever-expanding range of non-proliferation initiatives aimed at rogues, rebels and terrorists. Consequently, in its post-Cold War, post-9/11 mode, contemporary arms control practice has been transformed into a form of global counter-insurgency. We suggest that the term controlling the means of violence (CMV) better captures the wide range of control initiatives that can be deployed to limit the instruments of armed violence. Finally, we summarize the arguments set out in the rest of the special issue and outline the future directions for research and activism suggested both by the papers collected in this volume and the broader discussions in the conferences that gave rise to them.

Human security and development in Africa

There has been a recent rise in optimism about Africa's prospects: increased economic growth; renewed regional and national political commitments to good governance; and fewer conflicts. Yet, given current trends and with less than eight years until 2015, Africa is likely to fail to meet every single one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Home to almost one-third of the world's poor, Africa's challenges remain as daunting as ever. Despite highly publicized increased growth in some economies, the combined economies of Africa have, on average, actually shrunk and are far from meeting the required 7 per cent growth needed to tackle extreme poverty. A similar picture emerges from the analysis of Africa's performance on the other MDGs. In a world where security and development are inextricably connected in complex and multifaceted ways, Africans are, as a result, among the most insecure. By reviewing a select number of political, security and socio-economic indicators for the continent, this analysis evaluates the reasons underlying Africa's continuing predicament. It identifies four critical issues: ensuring peace and security; fostering good governance; fighting HIV/ AIDS; and managing the debt crisis. In assessing these developmental security challenges, the article recalls that the MDGs are more than time bound, quantified targets for poverty alleviation–they also represent a commitment by all members of the international community, underwritten by principles of co-responsibility and partnership, to an enlarged notion of development based on the recognition that human development is key to sustaining social and economic progress. In recent years, and often following failures, especially in Africa, to protect civilian populations from the violence and predation of civil wars, a series of high-level commissions and expert groups have conducted strategic reviews of the UN system and its function in global politics. The debate has also developed at the theoretical level involving both a recon-ceptualization of security, from state centred norms to what is referred to as the globalization of security around the human security norm. There has also been a reconceptualization of peacekeeping, where the peacekeeping force has enough robustness to use force not only to protect populations under the emergent responsibility to protect norm, but also enough conflict resolution capacity to facilitate operations across the conflict–development–peacebuilding continuum. This article opens up a discussion of how these ideas might be relevant to security regime building and conflict resolution in African contexts, and suggests how initiatives in Africa might begin to make a contribution to the theory and practice of cosmopolitan peacekeeping.

Transforming Globalization and Security: Africa and America Post-9/11

Africa has traditionally had a marginal and decreasing role in international affairs. Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, however, the continent has taken center stage in the emerging security discourse, and access to African oil is now a strategic priority for the United States, which now trades more with Africa than Central Europe and the former Soviet Union combined. This fact, and the potential threat from global terrorism, are reflected in emerging security regimes on the continent, bolstered by increased U.S. military assistance. Thus, global forces have penetrated not only African economic policymaking, but also security; however, increased military assistance and the suppression of human rights are further distancing society from the African state, worsening long-term instability and jeopardizing U.S. access to African oil. The creation of genuine security in Africa and the United States will depend on the reconceptualization of security as human security, and the addition of a substantive social-welfare dimension to globalization.

Non-state regional governance mechanism for economic security: the case of the ASEAN Peoples' Assembly

In Asia, the evolving dynamics in the development of civil society on the one hand and the re-conceptualization of security beyond the traditional notions of state/military security on the other are not mutually exclusive. These dynamics are essentially linked by a common need to broaden both the subjects and the objects of security. This paper looks at the emerging transnational civil society organization called the ASEAN Peoples' Assembly (APA), established in 2000. In examining APA and locating it within emerging regional mechanisms for governance and security, the paper argues that APA can be a significant mechanism for governance since it provides the framework for the numerous civil society organizations in the region to engage with state and other non-state actors that are involved in defining security in Southeast Asia. Moreover, the genesis of APA offers salient developments that should not be missed in the study of civil society in this region.

Women and (in)security: The case of the Philippines

This paper takes as its starting point the need to address a gender void and northern‐centrism in the new/critical security agenda. Basing the paper on the security priorities of women in the Philippines, presented in the form of a ‘Security Pillar’, the paper examines how far new/critical security, and feminist security literature incorporates the concerns of women in Southeast Asia in the reconceptualization of security, and considers the ways in which security can be reformulated to address the security needs of women in Southeast Asia.