Security is about the means that states use for the maintenance of territorial integrity, internal cohesion and political order. It involves the prevention of any threats and the use of force. National security is understood as a comprehensive framework which links the needs of domestic stability, economy and ideology to a states' national interest and strategic framework. Despite the fact that states are primarily concerned with their national security and spend much of their time and budgets to enhance this, conflicts have not decreased the world over. In Asia, the nature and range of conflicts has actually increased; the numbers of civilian casualties has continuously gone up and individuals, communities and groups actually feel more insecure today.

Perception of threats is the most important starting point for a conflict between collective groups and the resulting approaches for security by them. Understanding how a threat is perceived can be much more complicated a process than usually conceived. And threats are usually more constructed than simply given as real. The social and political dynamism surrounding construction of threats involves a complex interplay among state and non-state actors, identities and interests of collective groups involved, legitimisation of those identities and interests, and competition for available resources.

At the same time, threats do not automatically escalate into violent conflicts. They do only under certain conditions. Threats undergo a process of negotiation and redefinition by different actors and for different purposes. They are also heavily affected by existing security actors, and their beliefs and customs, and also by those who want to challenge such structure and customs. Understanding the competition and negotiation surrounding the construction of threats and their link with existing and emerging security practices, will provide us better with how to handle resulting conflicts.

(Kanti Bajpai made this Table and we added our concept; See Kanti Bajpai, Human Security: Concept and Measurement, Kroc Institute for International Affairs, University of Notre Dame, 2000).

Conflict situations are too often reduced into a simple discourse involving the language of ‘security.’ Security discussions therein often disguise the deeper politics and social processes beneath them. In short, security can be viewed as a heavily contested and fundamentally political term, a language used to portray different aspiration and purposes.

What are the reasons for these conflicts and insecurity? Is it linked to the concept of national security itself, where states enhance only state security while maintaining a status quo at the cost of individuals and communities? Is because of excessive reliance on the use of force through police, armies to establish order? Is it because with globalisation and privatisation the state has withdrawn from its traditional tasks and activities and concentrated instead primarily on national security? Instead of regulating production it regulates dissent and the marginalised? Is the task of the state, security of the state or security of the people? And if force is its primary method how different is it from terror?

The Approach: This project wants to look at such questions of national security from the point of view of human security. The human security concept provides a sharp contrast to the national security concept. While national security looks for the security primarily of the state, human security primarily seeks security for the individual. In the national security paradigm, it is the value of territorial integrity and national independence that is important, while human security values personal safety and individual freedom. The threat perception in national security is the threat from other states, whereas the threats for human security are from states and non-state actors and indirect threats. National security uses as its means for achieving security the instruments of force, balance of power, and alliances between states, whereas human security would not rely on force but on norms and institutions of civil society, especially democratic and representative institutions. Further, human development and human rights would be of primary importance. We would move away from the realist to the human security approach

In this project we can further expand the concept of human security to include specifically the interests of women and marginalised communities – the concept by the UNDP and others emphasise primarily on individual needs – since it is these groups and especially women who suffer long-term impact, and tend to be most vulnerable. Moreover, the history of conflicts has shown that these sections derive the least benefits from state policies and are often the last to be rehabilitated. It is therefore to this section that human security must turn to.

And finally, we attempt in this project to understand construction of major threat perceptions and politics of 'security' from those case studies to be conducted in this project. This is to shed more light on alternative ways of approaching insecurity and conflict issues, in particular, away from the existing, heavily gendered and militarized ones. In other words, by way of focusing conflictual and inhuman situations from human and group security perspectives, we aim to demystify the existing politics of security and suggest ways to avoid violent, masculine and militarized ways of statist practices of security.

Human Security understood as “Freedom from fear and freedom from want” has evolved to include “a life of dignity” and encompasses: Security, development and human rights. A discussion on human insecurities will emanate from state oppressions; failed states; from non-traditional threats such as HIV/AIDs, natural calamities; the culture of impunity, migration, to  small arms etc. and threats to individuals’ dignity,  such as poverty, diseases, illiteracy, migration; as alternatives to the current focus on terrorism, WMDs and threats from so-called rogue states.
 
The logic being that: Hunger, disease and natural disasters kill far more people than war, genocide and terrorism combined. People are more threatened by “soft” threats in their every day lives than “hard” threats such as terrorism or with weapons of mass destruction.
To quote John Galtung:  The operational part of human security translates such ideas into ten points:

- Protecting people in violent conflict
- Protecting people from the proliferation of arms
- Supporting the human security of people on the move
- Establishing human security transition funds for post-conflict
- Encouraging fair trade and markets to benefit the poor
- Providing minimum living standards everywhere
- According high priority to universal access to basic health care
- Develop an efficient and equitable global system for patent rights
- Empowering all people with universal basic education
- Clarifying the need for a global human identity while respecting the freedom of individuals to have diverse identities and affiliations
The UNDP states Human Security to be:
Security of people, not just security of territory
Security of individuals, not just security of nations
Security through development, not security through arms
Security of all everywhere, in homes, streets, community and environment.

Broadened these become:
Broadened, these protections came to have seven components:

1. Economic security Freedom from poverty (requires an assured basis income – either from productive and remunerative work (through employment by the public or private sector, wage employment or self-employment ) from government financed social safety nets.
2. Food security requires that all people at all times should have both physical and economic access to basic food – that they should be entitled to food, by growing it for themselves, by buying it, or by using the public food distribution system.
3. Health security requires access to health care and health services. The threats to health security are greater for poor people in rural areas, particularly women and children, who are more exposed to disease. Health security also requires safe and affordable family planning.
4. Environmental security requires a healthy physical environment, security from environmental threats such as the degradation of the local ecosystems, air and water pollution, deforestation, desertification, salinization, natural hazards, etc.
5. Personal security requires security from physical violence and from various threats. People are increasingly threatened by sudden, unpredictable violence (e.g. threats from the state through physical torture inflicted by the military or police), threats from other states such as wars, threats from international or cross-border terrorism, threats from other groups of people such as ethnic or religious conflicts, threats from individuals or gangs against other individual or street violence, from hostage taking, threats directed against women such as domestic violence, abuse or rape, directed against children such as child abuse, neglected child labor, or child prostitutions, and threats to one’s self such as suicides or drug use.
6. Community security, requires security from oppressive traditional practices, treating women harshly, discriminating against ethnic or indigenous groups and refugees, group rebellion and armed conflicts.
7. Political security requires respect for human rights, protection from military dictatorships or abuse, protection from political or state repression, protection from the practice of torture, ill treatment or disappearance, and protection from political detention and imprisonment. [Adapted from the Human development Reports]

Thus Human Security is not just about conflict. Human security takes into account ‘what was actually killing people’: not only war, but also poverty, famine, political repression, disease, and environmental degradation. Human security is about dignity to all.  (Continute..)

Full document please download here