Human Security
| Published date | 01 September 2001 |
| Date | 01 September 2001 |
| Author | Amitav Acharya |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200105600304 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
AMITAV
ACHARYA
Human
Security
East
versus
West
We
need
to
fashion a
new
concept
of
human
security
that
is
reflected
in
the
lives
of
ourpeople, not
in
the
weapons
of
our
country.
Mahbub
ul
Haq!
THE
IDEA
OF
'HUMAN
SECURITY'
has
rekindled
the
debate
over
what
'security'
means
and
how
best
to
achieve
it.
Much
of
the
debate
con-
cerns
the
different
ways
in
which
the
concept
has
been
defined
and
pur-
sued
by
its
various
national
and
transnational
advocates.
Although
it
is
presented
as
a
global
template on which
to
recast
the
security
philoso-
phies
and
policies
of
countries
fundamentally
to
reflect
the
changing
conditions
and
principles
of
world order,
human
security
has
also
been
an
instrument
of
national
strategic
priorities
that
often
have
strong
domestic roots.
As
such,
human
security
has
been
presented
variously
as
a
means
of
reducing
the
human
costs
of
violent
conflict,
as
a
strategy
to
enable
governments
to
address
basic
human
needs
and
offset
the
inequities
of
globalization,
and
as
a
framework
for
providing
social
safe-
ty
nets
to
people
impoverished
and
marginalized
by
sudden
and
severe
economic
crises.
The
different
interpretations
of
human
security
are
not
necessarily
incompatible,
but
they
do
create
ground
for
controversy
and
suspicion
Professor
and
Deputy
Director
of
the
Institute
of
Defence
and
Strategic
Studies,
Nanyang
Technological
Universii>
Singapore;
on
leave as
Professor
ofPolitical
Science
at
York
University
Toronto.
This
article
is
based
on
a
paperpresented
at
the
15th
Asia
Pacific
Roundtable,
Kuala
Lumpur,
4-7June,
2001.
The
author
would
like
to
thank
two
anonymous
referees
for
their
valu-
able
comments
on
an earlier
draft
of
the
article.
1
Cited
in
Kanti
Bajpai,
'Human
Security:
Concept
and
Measurement,'
manuscript,
School
of
International
Studies,
Jawaharlal
Nehru
University,
2000.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL Summer
2001
Human
security:
East
vs
West
in
multilateral
settings.
Reconciling
the
different meanings
of,
and
approaches
to,
human
security
is
thus
crucial
to any
meaningful
effort
to
operationalize
the
concept and
make
it
into
a
potent
instrument
of
a
just
and
secure
world.
For
the
advocates
of
human
security
in
the
West,
a
powerful
chal-
lenge
to
the
idea comes
from the
'East'
(Asia),
a
challenge
that
draws
upon
the
East's
traditional
understandings
of
security,
claims
of
cul-
tural
specificity,
and
relative
abundance
of
illiberal
polities.
To
be
sure,
Asia
hosts some
of
the
strongest
advocates
of
the
human
security
idea.
But
the
understanding
of
human
security now prevalent
in
much
of
Asia
differs
in
important
respects
from
its
meaning
in
Canada
and
other
Western
countries.
Some
Asian
governments
and
analysts
see
human
security
as
yet
another
attempt
by
the
West
to impose
its
liber-
al
values
and
political
institutions
on
non-Western
societies.
Others
question
the
'newness'
of
the
concept,
claiming
that
the
emphasis
of
the
human
security
idea
on
a
broad
range
of
non-military
threats
mir-
rors earlier,
home-grown notions
of
'comprehensive
security'
formulat-
ed
by
many
regional
governments.
I
argue
that
human
security
is
a
distinctive
notion,
which
goes
well
beyond
all
earlier
attempts
by
Asian
governments
to 'redefine'
and
broaden their
own
traditional understanding
of
security
as
protection
of
sovereignty
and
territorial
integrity
against
military
threats.
At
the
same
time,
the development
of
this
notion
has
strong
roots
within
the
region,
which
could
provide an
important
foundation
for
promoting
a
collective
human
security
agenda.
To
identify
a
common
conceptual
ground
between the
East
and
the
West remains
a
challenge
for scholars
and
policy-makers
concerned
with
the
promotion
of
human
security
in
both
arenas.
In
the
first
part
of
this
article,
an
examination
of
the
various
under-
standings
of
human
security,
especially
the
perceived
tension
between
'freedom
from
want' and
'freedom
from
fear'
is
followed
by
an
analysis
of
the
similarities
and
differences
between
human
security
and
existing
security
concepts
in
the
region,
specifically
comprehensive
security
and
co-operative security.
The
extent
to
which
a
new
idea like
human
security
could find
acceptance
in
the
region
depends
very
much
on
how
it
resonates
with
existing
ideas
and
practices
concerning
security.
Here,
human
security
does
pose
some
challenges
to
existing
notions
that
need
to
be
understood
and
reconciled
if human
security
is
to
advance
through
national
and
regional
channels
in
the
region. Finally,
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL Summer
2001
443
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