5 - A conceptual discussion

Summary

The examination of the objectivist tradition of security studies in part I brings the story up to the beginning of the 1990s, with a return to an old idea of ‘common’ in place of ‘national’ security, and implicit reference at least to an image of human security in place of the material one of the ‘political science’ period.

With the collapse of the bipolar system of the Cold War, and the need to define a new international order in the face of the uncertainties of transition, the concept of security came into sharper political focus. In the early 1990s, President Clinton repeatedly referred to ‘human’ security and called for ‘a new understanding of the meaning and nature of national security and of the role of individuals and nation-states’; the United Nations Secretary-General noted: ‘The United Nations was founded fifty years ago to ensure the territorial security of member states… What is now under siege is something different.’ He urged a ‘conceptual breakthrough’ on understanding security in terms of ‘people in their homes, jobs and communities’.

Recalling the discussion in chapter 1, everyday usage of the term ‘security’ tends to reinforce the idea that the concept is ambiguous beyond remedy. On the one hand, it refers to something hard, objective and unproblematic.