Virtuous imperialism or a shared global objective? - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 60

popularization of the human security concept in the 1990s. Canada had been
one of the most prominent proponents of human security, although with a
strictly global South focus (Government of Canada 2004) . 4
A deeper reflection by some of the previously enthusiastic human secu-
rity proponents upon how there might be human insecurity in one's own
state, or shared human security concerns with the global South, has not been
in evidence. Drawing upon some of the concerns articulated by women and
indigenous peoples at the same time as the Canadian government trumpeted
its human security platform, I hope to illustrate some of the problems with a
'one-way' approach to thinking about human security, and encourage debate
on how different understandings of human security from the bottom up (from
people in their different contexts) might lead to a more shared sensitivity to
insecurity across the globe. This argument is inevitably linked to a broader
understanding of what security is, or rather its meaning. Ideally, the debate
could significantly move away from a central problem that plagues assis-
tance-focused concepts and programmes like human security - the 'us-them'
polarization.
Challenges of definition
Mainstream security definitions that isolate security as a matter for high
politics, 'securitizing' as little as possible except obvious threats to national
security, are created by elite interests, or those in power (the state). Preserving
the state and maintaining a focus on the military caters to ensuring and main-
taining security for those interests that are most secure in the first place,
largely the state apparatus and elites within. As much as this aspect of secu-
rity has validity for state security, it does not articulate all security interests.
Nevertheless, its preeminence has remained due to a certain logic connected
to the definition - the state itself is expected to provide security to 'the peo-
ple', to individuals.
State-based security requires a level of state mobilization that would oth-
erwise not be called upon to address a particular issue (Buzan et al . 1998).
Such mobilization is relegated to the level of 'high politics' or the top priority
of the state, and does not include action at the political level (such as social
security or economic policy) or 'low politics' (Robertson 1997). As such, the
state has a central role, and addresses threats by eliminating the chance that
such threats would successfully overthrow the state and its apparatus. It is
largely due to this special relationship of security to the state and to military
or 'high politics' concerns that many in the traditional security community
argue vehemently against a widening of the concept. However, state security,
even in the most allegedly secure state, can and does threaten individual secu-
rity. Military build up and arms accumulation often play a central role in the
design of state security, but these same features have been frequently identi-
fied as threats to human beings, within and across state affiliations.