Virtuous imperialism or a shared global objective? - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 61

'Human security' was popularized in the 1994 United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report, expanding the notion
of security to include dimensions of food, health, community, environmen-
tal, economic, personal and political security, with the intention to, in part,
address some of the glaring weaknesses of security policy, but also spurred on
theoretical debates. Human security focuses on the individual as the security
referent. In the UNDP report, human security is defined as 'freedom from fear,
freedom from want', and consists of four essential characteristics: universal,
interdependent, easier to ensure through early prevention, and people-centred
(UNDP 1994). Almost 20 years later, both academic and policy literature are
still ambivalent about a definition. At the turn of the twenty-first century
when Canada was developing its own position on the concept, Rob McRae
claimed the Canadian position on human security was solely 'freedom from
fear', which was understood as prior to development (McRae and Hubert
2001). Human security applied to migration required a broader definition,
using the definition parameters of the UNDP report which went beyond the
Canadian application (Poku et al . 2000). The human security concept has,
since then, been subject to much discussion and debate, both arguing how the
concept is difficult for policy makers to operationalize when it is defined too
broadly, how it is meaningless to focus upon individuals per se, and how it
is a necessary concept that finally brings non-state actor voices into the secu-
rity debate (Hansen 2000; Paris 2001; Burgess and Owen 2004; Buzan 2004;
Hoogensen and Vigeland Rottem 2004; Burgess et al . 2007; Hoogensen Gjørv
2012). Although not supportive of a human security concept, the Copenhagen
school's securitization process opens up the potential for non-state actors to
have a voice in the security dynamic (see Åtland and Pedersen, this topic, for
a more thorough discussion about the Copenhagen school). Through a speech
act or an articulation of security, security becomes 'what we make of it' (Buzan
et al . 1998). Human security can indeed be a platform to allow for more voices
to decide what security is made of.
As noted in Chapter 1 of this topic, the concept of security is not a neu-
tral concept but a political concept that is subject to struggles of power. A
problematic dynamic of the speech act process described above is the relation-
ship between the speech actor and the respondent or audience, or those who
'hear' and respond to the security speech act. Whose expressions of security
are actually 'heard' by those who have the power to act on these articulations
(Hansen 2000)? And if security speech acts of security are made but not rec-
ognized by those with the choice and power to respond, does that mean these
are no longer articulations of security or insecurity? Another difficulty lies in
the assumption about who provides security. Narrow conceptions of security
assign the role of security provider to the state (often through the tool of the
military). This assumption makes it problematic if one is going to recognize
a broader and more complex understanding of security. The state (particu-
larly the military) is not capable of addressing all 'on the ground' human