State Security, Societal Security, and Human Security

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State Security, Societal Security, and Human Security

Article in Jadavpur Journal of International Relations · June 2017

DOI: 10.1177/0973598417706591

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Hawre Hasan Hama

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Article

State Security, Societal Security, and Human Security

Hawre Hasan Hama1

Jadavpur Journal of International Relations 21(1) 1–19

2017 Jadavpur University

SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0973598417706591

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Abstract

Generally speaking, the traditional approach of security mainly regards states as a sole referent object of security and refutes any attempt to broaden the concept of security. This understanding is known as a realist approach. This approach, however, has been recently challenged by the Copenhagen School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach. The Copenhagen School assumes that there is now a duality of security: state security and societal security. However, both the Welsh School and the human security school look at individuals as a sole referent object of security. This article critically reviews the traditional approaches of security, the Copenhagen School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach. This article finally argues that the Copenhagen School could successfully broaden the concept of security, and therefore, it is more convincing when compared to other schools.

Keywords

Security, state security, societal security, human security

1 Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan of Iraq, Sulaymaniyah city, Iraq.

Corresponding author:

Hawre Hasan Hama, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan of Iraq, Sulaymaniyah city 46001, Iraq. E-mail: hawrehasan87@gmail.com

Introduction

Traditionally, security has been thought of in terms of security of states from military attacks by other states. This is a realistic approach which views states as the sole referent object of security and rejects any broader concepts of security. This approach, however, has been strongly challenged by more recent schools of thought, namely The Copenhagen School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach. The Copenhagen School assumes duality of security: state security and societal security. The Welsh School and the human security approach, on the other hand, regard individuals as the referent objects of security, with states being viewed as the means to serve such ends. This study will argue the case for the Copenhagen School. First, realism is unable to draw a comprehensive picture of current security issues; in many parts of the world today threats against states are internal rather than external, and state security is not the only consideration. Meanwhile, the Welsh School is a normative theory of security that lacks a realistic basis. Finally, the human security approach is flawed because its adherents disagree about what constitutes human rights, whilst humanitarian intervention is not an appropriate mechanism to protect human rights. The Copenhagen School, however, could contribute significantly to security studies by considering both the state and societal security, and thereby explaining recent internal conflicts around the world.

This article consists of four sections. The first section discusses the traditional approach to security. The second section looks at the main concepts of the Copenhagen School. The third section deals with the Welsh School, and the final section concentrates on the human security approach.

Traditional Approach (Realism)

The Realist School had been making a great contribution in security studies from the beginning of the World War II to the end of the Cold War. This school, however, has been challenged by many schools of thoughts after the end of the Cold War on the ground that realism has no place for security studies any longer because it does not fit in the contemporary changes and challenges. Despite these arguments, the adherents of the realism claim that the school is still relevant in dealing with the security issues because realists believe that globalization does not change

their principles, as Kenneth Waltz (2000: 5), the father of neorealism, argues that such changes did not occur at the level of the system. Waltz (1993: 60) views international politics as being in an anarchical condition, with states choosing relative gains over absolute gains. Similarly, John Mearsheimer (2002: 20) argues that the architecture of the interstate system is still dangerous; states are still the main actors in international politics, which implies that realists have a state­centric understanding of security. This approach, as Baylis and Smith (2013: 143) note, views states as the main actors in international politics because they strive to maintain their sovereignty in anarchical conditions.

It can thus be claimed that realists still regard states as the main referent object of security because of the constant threat of war, and therefore limit security studies to the military threat against state sovereignty and security. Stephen Walt (1991: 213) argues that broadening the field of security in order to include serious problems such as pollution and disease may devastate the logical meaning of the term and make it difficult to offer solutions to these problems.

Nevertheless, realism still has two strong dimensions. First, states still choose relative gains over absolute gains, and therefore it can be said that anarchy still plays a crucial role in determining states’ behavior in international politics. Second, states still fear military attacks from their counterparts, as evidenced by states’ continuing obsession with their own military power, and the vast amounts of money spent by great powers on maintaining such power. For example, in 2005 the Human Development Report by Watkins estimates that developed countries’ military budget allocations are ten times greater than their aid allocations. This case indicates the fact that states still feel the effects of anarchy and therefore one might argue that the end of the Cold War does not mean the end of anarchy at all. Thus, since international politics is still dangerous, security can be indispensable for any state (Watkins 2005: 8). This is because, as Waltz reports, in international politics the use of force is always possible. Thus, for realists, international politics is still anarchy, and in anarchy states act in a self­help and self­defense system in order to survive (Waltz 1979: 102). This argument is further enhanced by the evidence that the USA fought three wars after the end of the Cold War to ensure its national security.

However, it should be noted here that on many grounds realist perspectives on security appear very limited. First, Brown and Ainley argue that states lived virtually in peace with neighboring states after the Cold War, but other threats to human security have emerged, such as pollution

and environmental degradation, the drugs and arms trades, and international terrorism. Second, realists regard states as the best providers of security for their own people, but in today’s world politics states themselves are perpetrators of breaches of rights of their own citizens (Brown and Ainley 2005: 4–5). In this regard, Keen Booth (1991: 320) argues that it is irrational to put states at the center of the thinking because states are means of security rather than ends. Third, as Barry Buzan (1997: 11–12) argues, in contemporary world politics referent objects exist above, alongside, and below states. Finally, realists assume that threats against states are external, but as Alam Saleh notes, since the end of the Cold War conflicts have significantly changed in nature from interstate to intrastate. For example, ‘[o]f the fifty­seven major armed conflicts occurring from 1990 to 2001, only three were interstate’ (Saleh 2010: 229).

Copenhagen School

The Copenhagen School has a direct relationship with Barry Buzan’s research. Buzan (1991: 19) divides security into five traditional sectors: military, environmental, economic, political, and societal, which, according to Ole Wæver et al. (1993: 24), made the state the only referent object. However, as Buzan and Wæver (2003: 70) claim, if security is always for the state, it will imply that ‘societal security’ is the security of the state against society, that is, society itself might be insecure and societal security high. Moreover, Wæver et al. view the state as the referent object for political, military environmental, and economic security, whilst society is the referent object for societal security (1993: 23). This view implies a duality of security, namely the state and societal security, with the former guarding its sovereignty whilst the latter attempting to keep its identity (Wæver 1993: 67). Thus, Wæver et al. (1993) conferred on societal security the new status of a separate referent object of security. As mentioned earlier, survival of society is different from survival of the state. In this light, Wæver et al. argue that in some cases an outside threat against the state is not seen by society as a threat against itself, but rather seen as attempts to liberate an oppressed minority or community within the target state (1993: 46–47). Furthermore, Wæver et al. claim that security of the society often increases the insecurity of the state, or in the case of state homogenizing programs societal security will decrease (1993: 27). This is partly due to the fact that state boundaries are fixed whereas the

boundaries of a society are not fixed; they may cross the borders of two or more states (e.g., the existence of Kurds in four neighboring countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria; Buzan et al. 1998: 119).

The Copenhagen School concentrates mainly on societal security, with Wæver claiming that whilst in today’s world politics states feel secure in their own regions, societal identity is largely at risk (Wæver 1995, cited in Sheehan, 2005: 84).

This unique position accorded to societal security has led the school to define this term. Wæver et al. (1998: 119) regard societal security as ‘about identity, about the self­conception of communities and of individuals identifying themselves as members of a community’. Furthermore, Wæver (1995: 67) asserts that if a society cannot protect its identity, it will no longer exist as a society.

It should be noted that societies consist of nations and ethno­political communities, and their struggles are to protect their identity (Wæver et al. 1998; 41). A nation is thus a special case of society characterized by an affiliation to a land, attaching past members to current and future generations, and a feeling of being one of the actors of an international community, with a natural right to build a nation state (Wæver et al. 1993: 27).

The essential question is—what are those threats facing society?

Buzan et al. classify threats to society into three main categories: migration, horizontal competition, and vertical competition. In the first case, society is threatened by outside migration through shifts in the population’s composition. In the second case, society is threatened by a dominant culture from outside (the dominance of Russian culture over Latvia, Estonia, and Ukraine). In the final case, societal security is threatened by integration or disintegration (EU and former Yugoslavia). There are, however, other threats to the societal sector, deriving from the military sector (external and internal aggression), environmental sector (loss of lands tied to a particular group identity—indigenous people), economic sector (influence of capitalism), and political sector (suppression of minorities by the home government; Buzan et al. 1998: 121). Moreover, Wæver et al. argue that such threats range from the suppression of societal expression to interference with its capability to reproduce, including killing members of the community, preventing the use of language, and so on. Likewise, reproduction of society would be threatened by repressive mechanisms against the expression of identity. If the institutions of reproducing language and culture are prevented from operating, then identity cannot be transformed (Wæver et al. 1998: 43).

The core question here is—how does a threatened society defend itself against threats? Wæver et al. (1998: 191) believe that a convenient mechanism is to strengthen societal identity by using cultural means to enforce societal cohesion and distinctiveness. However, Roe argues that from the perspective of society, the preservation of identity relates to control over those institutions accountable for cultural reproduction and/or over districts to which societal identity is bound. Roe (2005: 157) also argues that when identity is attached to the protection of historic territory, society undertakes military means as a defense; hence the preservation of territorial integrity is consistently as important for societal identity as it is for state sovereignty.

Whilst the Copenhagen School could determine the referent object of security and threats facing society in general, how, specifically, does a security issue emerge? To answer this question, it is wise to refer to the view of Buzan et al. who believe that

‘[s]ecurity’ is a move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics. In theory, any public issue can be located on the spectrum ranging from non­politicized (meaning the state does not deal with it and it is not in any other way made an issue of public debate and decision) through politicized (meaning the issue is a part of public policy, requiring government decision and recourse allocation or mere rarely, some other form of communal governance) to securitize (meaning the issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure). (Buzan et al. 1998: 23)

Therefore, for the Copenhagen School, the public issues are first politicized and then securitized. Before discussing the concept of securitization, the politicization concept needs to be explored in detail because, as Buzan et al. (1998: 24) state, securitization is an extreme version of politicization. According to Caroline Kuzemko, ‘politicization is understood here as an act of politicians or politicizing actors which makes an alleged security issue public and political within a community. The act of politicization allows for the issue to be acted upon ‘beyond the normal bounds’ of political procedure (Kuzemko 2012: 130). Furthermore, Neumann looks at politicization as

[a] matter of inscribing certain differences between self and other with meaning as the defining diacritics of self and other. That is, certain differences, which until now have not been activated as a part of the political, are being

politicized that makes it possible, retrospectively to talk about them as having non­politicized before they politicized. (Neumann 2002: 68)

It should be noted that, as Tarimo (2010: 304) argues, the politicization is done by political elites to gain their political and economic interests. However, as mentioned earlier, securitization is an intense version of politicization, coming back to the aforementioned question, how, specifically, does a security issue emerge? According to Buzan et al. (1998: 24–25), a security issue emerges not necessarily because there is a real existential threat but rather because the issue is presented as a threat, and therefore security is a self­referential practice. This is known as a securitization process, which is defined by Buzan and Wæver as a successful ‘speech act’ whereby the members within a community develop meaning in terms of a threat to something to which they collectively attribute value and demand an effective response, however drastic (Buzan and Wæver 2003, cited in Stritzel 2007: 358). This process, as Floyd (2007a: 42) mentions, needs three steps to be implemented successfully: identification of current threat (securitizing move), emergency actions (breaking normal rules), and acceptance of this process by an audience. Buzan et al. (1998: 25) argue that securitization requires in addition an existential threat legitimatizing the breaking of rules, entailing a specific rhetorical structure ‘survival, because if the problem is not handled now it will be too late, and we will not exist to remedy our failure’. It should be noted here that, as Buzan et al. argue, both securitization and politicization processes are essentially intersubjective (1998: 30).

The essential question here relates to the units that are amenable to the securitization process. Buzan et al. (1998: 36) believe that in practice only ‘the middle scale of limited collectivizes has proved the most amenable to securitization as durable referent objects (states, nations, and civilization)’. Thus, individuals are practically not securitized because they are not referent objects of security, but as Martin Shaw (1993, cited in Croft and Terriff 2000: 84) argues, individuals only make sense in the sociological framework, namely society. However, Wæver (1995) perceives securitization to be undesirable and antidemocratic and supports a de­securitization strategy ‘returning issues to the realm of normal politics’, which comprises three options (Wæver 2000: 253): First, simply not speaking about issues in terms of security; second, responses in a securitized situation should not generate the security dilemma, and finally, security issues should return into normal politics.

However, Claudia Aradau (2004: 389) criticizes the concept of desecuritization of the Copenhagen School, arguing that the concept of de­securitization first needs to be tackled politically, not analytically. As Andreas Behnke (2006: 63) asserts, following Aradau, to attempt to eliminate security is trying to eliminate politics. Therefore, Aradau mainly concentrates on the way in which this process recalls and reaffirms the power of the sovereign that decided upon the securitization of the issue in the first place. In other words, de­securitization still leaves the previously securitized issue or actor at the mercy of the undemocratic and exceptional power of this sovereign. De­securitization in this sense simply reintroduces the very problem that securitization introduces into a political order, that is, the authority to suspend deliberative democratic processes. Therefore, Aradau (2004: 389) believes that de­securitization has to imbibe the lessons of the democratic politics of emancipation. To solve this problem, Aradau decouples emancipation from security, as she opposes the Welsh School which equates emancipation and security (e.g., as Keen Booth [1991: 319] argues, ‘Emancipation and security are two sides of the same coin’). For according to Behnke (2006: 63), Aradau believes that the logic of security contaminates the logic of emancipation without breaking the exclusionary logic of security itself. Securing one group, according to Aradau, always excludes other groups, defines them as a new threat, and therefore reproduces the security problem all over again. As a result, Aradau (2004: 401–404) offers two strategies to solve this problem under the umbrella of emancipation. The first strategy is associated with the others inside our community, and the second strategy is related to those ‘dangerous, risky others’ who have no place in the community and therefore can make no claim to the rights of citizenship or other rights equally shared by all members of the community. For the first group or ‘security have­nots’, Aradau suggests the strategy of realizing the universal norms. By virtue of their being universally applicable, such rights can be reclaimed by those particular groups which are excluded from it. Those who are insecure might challenge the logic of security by claiming rights that are universally given but not practically applicable to a specific group. This strategy needs a process of dis­identification, a rupture from the assigned identity, and a partaking of a universal principle. Thus, women are not women but equal citizens, or migrants are not migrants but workers with equal rights. By invoking a universal principle, such a move avoids the exclusionary trap of securitization and addresses everybody in the community, without difference.

The second strategy pertains to those who have no place in our community. This strategy questions the relation between the members of the political society and practices of their institutions/state, practices undertaken ‘in our name’, for example, practices that states employ regarding those who are not the members of the community. Here too, emancipation works as a strategy of dis­identification The London antiwar march under the banner ‘Not in our name’ is indicative of such a strategy of dis­identification from state practices. Thus, the members of the political community challenge the nondemocratic practices that are employed by their states against others. Thus, Aradau, as Andreas Behnke (2006: 63) believes, ends up in a de­politicized and transcendental space.

However, Behnke (2006: 63–68) argues that Aradau ignores the central, indeed constitutive, role that security can play in the ontotheology of politics. According to Behnke, both strategies suggested by Aradau are problematic, as both involve exclusion and the return of the political. In Aradau’s first strategy, something is still excluded and a political order is reaffirmed even in this emancipatory project, based on ‘recognition and universality’, the identity of security have­nots (others as others) should be eliminated, ‘her identity to be universalized so as to fit into the “universal principle”’. The price of emancipation, in other words, is the ‘elimination of difference’; recognition can only be approved if the issue of identity and difference is settled in terms of the former. Physical inclusion therefore requires ontological exclusion; the other has to cease to be who she used to be. Exclusion therefore also reestablishes hierarchy, and with that, authority, as a decision on the proper (Universalist) identity, has to be made, and this decision in turn has to be enforced. Second, as she notes: ‘In this case too, emancipation functions as a strategy of dis­identification. The London antiwar march under the banner “Not in our name” is indicative of such a strategy of dis­identification from state practices.’ In other words, in this case, the entire process concerns those members of the society that emancipate themselves from the authority of the state, challenging this state the democratic legitimacy on which its political practices depend. The issue is therefore less one of inclusion of these others and more about the relationship between community and state. But as with the first strategy, dis­identification reintroduces exclusion and hierarchy into the language game of emancipation. To quote Behnke,

The designation of certain state practices as, for instance ‘un­American’, a designation that is currently en vogue in the United States as a way to

de­legitimize the incarceration of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, of course excludes the advocates and supporters of the Bush Administration’s policies as outside the proper American identity. To support this policy is to betray the very fundaments of America’s values and commitments, and to condone the values of its enemies. Moreover, by assuming a position from which to judge about such inclusion and exclusion, about belonging to the community of values that constitutes the American people, the critics and opponents of the current administration re­invoke the position of the People as Sovereign, to which the government owes its legitimacy. By questioning the authority of the administration to speak in its name, it re­invokes in a sense the original social contract through which this authority was founded in the first place. (2006: 67–68)

Thus, Behnke (2006: 65) argues that despite Aradau’s efforts, the political, sovereignty, and the decision have a way of returning. Furthermore, Behnke argues that de­securitization as a speech act is contradictory. As Behnke states, to declare that a particular issue no longer constitutes a security threat opens up a ‘language game’; once de­securitized, the issue never leaves the discourse on security. An issue becomes de­securitized through a lack of speech, not through speech acts affirming its new status.

The Copenhagen School seemingly managed to broaden the concept of security, as Eriksson (1999: 5) argues, by combining the realist and constructivist theories on security and thereby achieving the security of both state and society through adding a unit (society) into the security agenda that the traditional approach had ignored. As argued by Mary Kaldor (2012: 71), new wars are fought on the basis of identity, whilst Roe perceives this addition as a significant phenomenon:

Societal security is not only important because there are many stateless, yet politically significant, units, but also because people’s political loyalties are increasingly being expressed in terms of units other than the territorial state. (2005: 43)

Furthermore, Williams (1998: 435) believes that broadening the concept of security and its ability to understand current events ‘allows a systematic incorporation of “the national” into the traditional state­centric vision of security studies and an examination of the ways in which “state” and “societal” security concerns may develop in unifying or fragmentary directions’.

Thus, the Copenhagen School bridges the gap between realism and constructivism by introducing the dual approach to security. Nevertheless, the Copenhagen School has come under a cloud of criticism by various

scholars. First of all, McSweeny claims that societal security regards society as having one single identity, which can give rise to intolerant identities that make interethnic conflict more possible (1996: 88–93). Furthermore, McSweeny (1999: 73) argues that identity is not a fact of society, but rather a negotiating process among people and interest groups. However, Buzan and Wæver (1997: 243–244) agree that identity is socially constructed (process), but they look at it as ‘often solidly sedimented’. Consequently, identity becomes a referent object of security, once it is socially constructed. Second, Matt McDonald (2008: 10) argues that

[the Copenhagen reliance] on language as the exclusive form of ‘securitising move’ is problematic for two reasons. First, language is only one means through which meaning is communicated. In this regard, a number of authors have suggested the need to take account of the role of images as potential forms of securitisation. Second, an exclusive focus on language is problematic in the sense that it can exclude forms of bureaucratic practices or physical actions that do not merely follow from securitising ‘speech acts’ but are part of the process through which meanings of security are communicated and security itself constructed.

Finally, Roe (2004: 280) argues that while the concept of desecuritization is a convincing strategy to the issue of migration, the de­securitization of minority rights is logically inevitable because minority rights may depend on an underlying situation of securitization. Hence, a pervading sense of ‘security­ness’ of the group may be required, without which the very destruction of that minority could ensue. This view is based on two particular suppositions. First, theories on de­securitization have mainly related to the deconstruction of ‘collective identities, in situations where relations between friends and enemies are constituted by existential threats’. Second, minority rights mainly relate to preservation ‘of distinct collective identities’. In response to such a criticism, Buzan and Wæver (1997: 246) assume that such a conflict is not solved by exposing the contingent nature of both identity groups. It might be a part of conflict resolution to stimulate collective redefinition in each group to change the constellation away from complete incompatibility, but no solution is viable that denies either group a right to survive. This means that the de­securitization strategy should regard that both majority and minority ‘have genuine security’. This is true because, as Roe argues, the strategy should recognize that both sides have their own distinct security.

The essential question here is—how does de­securitization happen or what is the best system to implement this strategy? There is no doubt that such a strategy is only viable in democratic states because keeping the

security of both sides in the way that both sides enjoy their unique security needs normalization of security issues. This is seemingly true because Roe argues that such a strategy means the ‘acceptance that both sides have genuine security concerns’, and also moving issues from insecurity conditions to security conditions in the way that the minority feels secure from the state and the state feels secure that the minority does not seek succession. In other words, the strategy means generating the trust between minority and majority to maintain friendly relations in such a way that neither side looks on the other as a threat. In the East, as Roe argues, this strategy is only implemented in the federal democratic system, not because it makes the likelihood of political autonomy and succession normal, but because it offers instruments through which ‘the justification for emergency politics on both sides is reduced’ (2004, p. 293).

Welsh School

According to Buzan and Hansen (2009: 205), the Welsh School or critical theory is part of the Frankfurt School and it is created by the writings of Booth and Jones. The school, as Eriksson (1999: 318) observes, criticizes the state­centric approach for being part of instability, injustice, and hostility, which are unfortunately part of international politics. The aim of critical theory is to deconstruct that practice which is posed by realism. As a result, the Welsh School places individuals as a core reference object of security instead of states. In this light, Booth (1997, cited in Williams 2008: 98) believes that security is what individuals make of it. Thus, Booth refutes the state as being a reference object of security because he believes that states cannot provide security for individuals, sometimes states themselves use force against their own citizens. Furthermore, even if states are providers of individuals, they are in turn means of security rather than ends. The Welsh School, therefore, does not look at the world as it is, but as it should be. That is why Booth believes that neither power nor order can bring security because they are at the expense of individuals, a true security, he assumes, comes with emancipation, that is, the lack of threat. By his account,

Emancipation is the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely choose to do. War and the threat of war is one of those constraints, together with poverty, poor education, political oppression and so on. (1991: 320)

Consequently, Booth believes that ‘emancipation and security are two sides of the same coin’. However, it should be noted that for Booth (1991: 320–322) there is another principle that is an essential part of emancipation. The principle is that ‘I am not truly free until everyone is free’. However, the question that should be asked here is that how human beings will be emancipated? Booth contends that individuals can follow emancipation in what they research, in how they teach, and in how much they support Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and Oxfam (Booth 1991, cited in Peoples and Williams 2010; 28). Thus, Booth (2007, cited in Mutimerd 2009: 12) explicitly believes in reason that is resulted in emancipation. However, recently emancipation has been restated by Jones, who believes that emancipation is an ongoing process that does not stop at one point, but rather there is always a window for improvement. For Jones, a true security comes into being when individuals are saved from military and nonmilitary threats such as poverty, state­based oppression, and environment (Jones 1999, cited in Peoples 2011: 1118).

In general, the Welsh School’s contribution to security studies is normatively attractive, but realistically seems to be very problematic for many reasons. First of all, McCormack (2010: 136) believes that the scholars of critical theory, instead of being engaged with contemporary structures and discourses of power, are engaging with a set of ideas that are nothing more than a statement of their own values. Furthermore, in contrast to Booth, Neocleous (2008: 5) believes that ‘security and oppression are two sides of the same coin’. This statement explicitly indicates that the scholars of critical theory are deeply engaged with their own ethical values. Second, Floyd (2007b: 333) argues that the advocates of the Welsh School cannot provide an appropriate answer to the question as to where security stops. He further argues that neither Booth nor Jones provide a project for when a subject is not a security subject.

Third, it is impossible to ignore the role of the state in bringing security to individuals, it seems individuals have already given some of their own freedoms to the state in exchange for their own security. In this respect, Brown (2010: 4) argues that ‘[t]he state is the institution within which individuals come to realize that constraints which appear to be externally imposed are actually the product of their own will’. Fourth, Shaw criticizes the Welsh School for its direct focus on individuals; by his account, individuals should be understood within a sociological framework, so society needs to be included in security studies (Shaw 1993, cited in Croft and Terriff 2000: 84). Finally, Ayoob (1997: 127)

argues that if the Welsh School project is applied to the Third World, the project will be interpreted by ethnic groups as the right to selfdetermination which results in anarchy and disorder.

Human Security Approach

According to Kerr (2010: 124), human security approach came into being as a challenge to the state­centric approach because it shifted the reference object of security from states to individuals. The notion that individuals are the object of security and states are means to serve such an object is accepted by all supporters of human security. However, adherents of human security do not agree about what human security should consist of. This disagreement divides human security approach into many perceptions. The first perception, according to Hampson et al. (2001: 33), is the school of Rights and Rule of Law, which stems from liberal democratic theory. This school argues that serious threats to human security come from the denial of fundamental rights such as the right of minority (self­determination) and the lack of the rule of law. The second perspective is derived from the Human Development Report issued by the United Nations Development (UNDP) Programme in 1994. According to the report, human security has two aspects: ‘first safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression. And second, protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life—whether in homes, in jobs or in communities’. The report defines human security through seven areas, namely economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security.

The third one is a narrow perspective because it looks at human security as freedom from fear. This approach assumes that war is one of the serious threats to human security (UNDP 1994: 23). According to Krause, the narrow perspective of human security is better than the broad version for two reasons. First, the broad version is like a shopping list that includes a wide range of issues that are not correlated together, and therefore the concept becomes a synonym for bad things. Second, it is unclear what is gained by connecting the human security to education, public health, and fair trade (Krause 2004, cited in Floyd 2007: 39). The fourth approach, according to Dodds and Pippard (2013), looks at human security as an umbrella to cover many contemporary security issues such as HIV/AIDS, drugs, terrorism, small arms, and inhumane

weapons. The last approach is stemmed from the work of scholars like Jorge Nef (1997), who distinguishes several types of human security, which are—environmental, personal, physical, economic, social, political, and cultural security.

In general, human security approach has seemingly made a significant contribution to security studies. This is because, as Newman notes, after the Cold War a great threat facing human beings is derived from internal conflicts, disease, poverty, environmental contamination, or their own states. Thus, human security approach attempted to be a substitute to traditional approach. This, however, does not mean the human security approach rejects the role of the state as a provider of security for its own people, but rather the approach argues that states are providers of security for individuals in ideal conditions, with recognition that sometimes states endanger human security. Furthermore, the approach as a challenge to state­centric approach changes the sovereignty of the state from absolute sovereignty to conditional sovereignty. In this light, Newman (2013: 1–2) argues that the state sovereignty is not only limited to the control of the state on a certain territory but also upon fulfilling certain standards of human rights. Thus, as Kerr (2010: 131) observed, human security discourse is an integral part of the responsibility to protect. In addition, despite being criticized, according to Atanassova­Cornelis (2005: 61), the broad and narrow versions of human security have been adopted by Japanese and Canadian governments, respectively. This allows the discourse to be more effective among policymakers of the state.

However, it should be noted that some argue that human security approach can be problematic for many reasons. First of all, Shepherd (2013: 31) believes that the concept is very confusing because it is used with human rights and human development interchangeably. Furthermore, Buzan (1997) argues that human security approach hopes to include almost everything and, subsequently, in reality includes nothing. Second, Kerr (2010: 130) argues that human security discourses are used as a justification to invade other states. For example, the USA invaded Iraq through adopting human security discourse. Thus, the narrow perception of human security is becoming a tool to intervene in internal affairs of developing countries and impose Western values. Finally, human security is intertwined with the responsibility to protect and humanitarian intervention. These principles, however, are always selective. For example, the international community intervened in Libya, but not Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. In brief, human security promotes national security

and power politics because the discourse to fulfill human security and human rights mainly depends on great powers.

Conclusion

This article critically discussed theoretical approaches to security studies. The main approaches that are discussed are the Copenhagen School, the Realist School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach. Despite the fact that the claims of the Realist School, the Welsh School, and the human security approach have some strengths, the article showed and argued that the Copenhagen School could successfully broaden the concept of security through adding the concept of the societal security into security studies. This addition is significantly vital to understand and explain the intrastate conflicts around the world. As was discussed, realism only concentrates on state security and opposing any attempt to broaden the concept of security, whereas the Copenhagen School looks at both state security and societal security. Consequently, the school could fill the gap that existed in realism. Moreover, the school is more convincing than both the Welsh School and the human security approach. The Welsh School looks at individuals as the referent object of security and offered the emancipation strategy which is realistically very problematic and seen by scholars as being too abstract. As for the human security approach, it is found problematic because of its adherents’ lack of agreement upon certain principles and also because of the reliance on states to implement human rights, thus giving states a mechanism to protect their interests rather than human rights, especially as the principles of human rights are selectively applied by the international community.

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