Human (in)security

The 1990s was host to a range of conflicts emerging from failed or failing states. These conflicts typically involved significant humanitarian crises and widespread human rights abuses. Within this changing global environment, new security thinking started to engage ‘people’ as the referent of security, moving away from the previous privileged status granted the state as the only referent of security. During the Cold War, a mindset shaped around superpower competition and state-based conflict dominated strategic thinking. However, for many people globally daily insecurities shaped their notions of what real deficits in security encompassed. The end of the Cold War enabled the human security paradigm to provide a significant challenge to the primacy of the state in security thinking. On the other hand, human security has been subject to much criticism and there has been heated debate over its applicability within the security agenda. This chapter argues that despite earlier concerns over its efficacy, human security has made inroads into security thinking and is mutually reinforcing to national security.