Multiple Securites

SPS 102 - Week 10 - Spring 2025

Melike Ayşe Kocacık Şenol
 ● “the state of being free from danger or threat.”
● International security was changed continually over
time.
What is ● “The permissive or pluralistic understanding of security,
as an objective of individuals and groups as well as of
Security? states – the understanding that has been claimed in the
1990s by the proponents of extended security- was
characteristic, in general, of the period from the
mid-seventeenth century to the French Revolution”
(Rothschild, 1995, p.60).
 SPS 102
Week 5,6 and • Rise of the modern state SPS 101
8 • Nationalism
French Revolution
• The Great War and WWII
• Fascism and Socialism

Declaration of Rights of Revolutionary and End of the Cold War

Man (1789) Napoleonic Wars 1990
1803-1815

Extended security

Security including collective good, to be

individual and collective ensured by military
good or diplomatic mean
International Security
and Old Wars
● WWI, WWII, the Cold War – before 1990s
● A state-centric approach to security and war- making
• Modern territorial states as the primary actors of
international politics
• Self-interest
• Reasons for war: power-maximization (geopolitical
aims, state ideology) or self- defense
• Security defined in military terms
• Extreme militarization (WMDs, nukes), aggression
from other countries, foreign policy as understood to
safeguard national interests
 Week 9

Cold War

● Bipolar international
system with two powers
Soviet Union and the
United States
● NATO was formed to
“restore and maintain”
the security of the ally
states.
● State security was the
utmost importance
 ● The change in the international system from bipolar to
unipolar system.
● UN 1994 Report
● By virtue of distinguishing ‘human’ security from ‘security’, the
fears, needs and priorities of ordinary people were brought to the
forefront, highlighting that the security (and interests) of states
What did not necessarily coincide with the security (and interests) of
people.
changed
after the end
of Cold War?
Human Security
● Economic Security: Poverty,
youth unemployment, general
population unemployment, and
temporary or contract work
● Food Security: adequate
access to food, both
physically and economically
● Health Security: access to
general health care, maternal
health care services, clean water
and food sources and affordable
medicines.
Human Security
● Economic Security: Poverty,
youth unemployment, general
population unemployment, and
temporary or contract work
● Food Security: adequate
access to food, both
physically and economically
● Health Security: access to
general health care, maternal
health care services, clean water
and food sources and affordable
medicines.

The full report is in this website:

https://www.fsinplatform.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/GRFC2
023-country-palestine.pdf
Human Security
● Economic Security: Poverty,
youth unemployment, general
population unemployment, and
temporary or contract work
● Food Security: adequate
access to food, both
physically and economically
● Health Security: access to
general health care, maternal
health care services, clean water
and food sources and affordable
medicines.

The figure is from :

https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/corona
virus-covid-19-vaccines-for-developing-countries-an-equal-
shot-at-recovery-6b0771e6/#section-d1e467
Human Security
(cont)
● Environmental Security: Deforestation,
overgrazing and poor conservation
methods lead to environmental
degradation such as desertification
where the land can no longer support
communities
● Community Security: community
security addresses the security
individuals get within a group,
establishing a sense of belonging and
identity rooted in shared values.
● Political Security: the freedom to be
governed in a way that respects basic
human rights, protected by democratic
institutions in which individuals are
given a voice.
● Personal Security: threats from physical
violence including threats from the
state (including torture), from other
states (war) and from other groups of
people (ethnic tension), as well as
violence stemming from crime,
gendered violence or threats against
women, threats against children and
threats against oneself (suicide).
http://africarenewal.un.org/en/magazine/drying-lake-chad-basin-gives-rise-crisis
Human Security
(cont)
● Environmental Security: Deforestation,
overgrazing and poor conservation
methods lead to environmental
degradation such as desertification
where the land can no longer support
communities
● Community Security: community
security addresses the security
individuals get within a group,
supporting the security sector.
● Political Security: the freedom to be
governed in a way that respects basic
human rights, protected by democratic
institutions in which individuals are
given a voice.
● Personal Security: threats from physical
violence including threats from the
state (including torture), from other
states (war) and from other groups of
people (ethnic tension), as well as
violence stemming from crime,
gendered violence or threats against
women, threats against children and
threats against oneself (suicide).

https://2020rolhr.undp.org/focus/community-security/
Human Security
(cont)
● Environmental Security: Deforestation,
overgrazing and poor conservation
methods lead to environmental
degradation such as desertification
where the land can no longer support
communities
● Community Security: community
security addresses the security
individuals get within a group,
establishing a sense of belonging and
identity rooted in shared values.
● Political Security: the freedom to be
governed in a way that respects basic
human rights, protected by democratic
institutions in which individuals are
given a voice.
● Personal Security: threats from physical
violence including threats from the
state (including torture), from other
states (war) and from other groups of
people (ethnic tension), as well as See the Vdem Report: https://www.v-dem.net/documents/12/dr_2021.pdf
violence stemming from crime,
gendered violence or threats against
women, threats against children and
threats against oneself (suicide).
Human Security
(cont)
● Environmental Security: Deforestation,
overgrazing and poor conservation
methods lead to environmental
degradation such as desertification
where the land can no longer support
communities
● Community Security: community
security addresses the security
individuals get within a group,
establishing a sense of belonging and
identity rooted in shared values.
● Political Security: the freedom to be
governed in a way that respects basic
human rights, protected by democratic
institutions in which individuals are
given a voice.
● Personal Security: threats from physical
violence including threats from the
state (including torture), from other
states (war) and from other groups of
people (ethnic tension), as well as
violence stemming from crime,
gendered violence or threats against
women, threats against children and
threats against oneself (suicide).
A shift from Old to New Wars
The nature of war today is very different from the old wars.
 Globalization
● Forces of neoliberalism and associated problems such as economic
inequality, unemployment, inflation…
● The erosion of the state’s capability to govern due to external economic
dependency and inability to compete economically
● A reaction against the modernizing and universalizing forces of
The causes of globalization.
● Power vacuum filled by other actors after the weakening of the state,
New Wars communication revolution, diaspora support, transnational networks, so
more ethnic and religious tensions.
Failed states
● The state is extremely weak that it has significant challenges to its
authority, legitimacy, and cannot perform its basic duties (providing
security and services).
● Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia are some failed state examples.
Question? ● How human security was prioritized in the international system?
 ● UNGA was formed in 1945 and now has 193 states, and UNSC was formed in 1946 with 5 permanent
members who had a veto power and ten elected countries in every 2 years.
● Establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions and military action to secure
international peace.

United ● UN Charter state that the UNGA may bring attention to and/or recommend measures to the UNSC on
matters concerning international peace and security. These determine the UNGA’s role as a
recommendatory body, with action taken by the UNSC.
Nations ● United Nations resolutions are formal expressions of the opinion or will of United Nations organs.

General
Assembly
(UNGA) and
Security
Council
(UNSC)

The data is from Eric Voeten’s United Nations General Assembly Voting data, 2009,
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/LEJUQZ
Sustainable
Development
Goals (SDGs)
 ● States protect their own citizens, but what
about the others?
● “human security agenda, rather than
exaggerating new threats, made existing

What is the threats and vulnerabilities more visible since

the end of the Cold War, including the
impacts of disease and extreme poverty and
role of states ‘dire human development conditions’”
(Gjorv, p.230)

for promoting ● Some argue that human security is “nothing

more than a tool to further state and

human international agendas” (Gjorv, p.231)

● “The co-option of human security for state
security in the security purposes thus turned into a sort of
‘virtuous imperialism’, whereby states in the
Global North engage in humanitarian
international interventions or other proclaimed human
security measures for the purposes of
arena? ensuring that unrest in the Global South
does not extend to northern states through
migration or terrorism.” (Gjorv, p. 232)
 ● How does an otherwise non-security issue become a security issue for the
Question international community and nation-states?
 ● Security is about survival. An issue is presented as ”posing an
Security from external threat” to a referent object. (Emmers, p.137)
● Referrent object is “things that are seen to be existentially
the threatened and that have a legitimate claim to survival” (Buzan,
1998)
Securitization ● Military, environmental, economic, societal and political security
have different referent object
perspective ● So not only states but non-state actors are important
Securitization
Theory
Politicization of the Climate
Change
● “Nowhere is the problem more evident than in the Earth's atmosphere. Increases in
concentrations of greenhouse gases and reductions in the protective high-altitude
ozone layer are altering its unique life-support characteristics, while acid rain and
long range transport of air pollutants are affecting fragile eco-systems over large
regions of the globe. These changes are unprecedented in human history and
appear to be escalating in magnitude.”
● Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in the same
year.
● United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted
in 1992.
● Kyoto Protocol 1997.
● “ Industrialized countries and economies in transition to limit and
reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in accordance with agreed individual
targets. The Convention itself only asks those countries to adopt policies and
measures on mitigation and to report periodically”.
 ● First UN Security Council debate on climate change on 17
April 2007.
● “With scientists predicting that land and water
resources will gradually become more scarce in the
coming years, and that global warming may
irreversibly alter the face of the planet, the United
Nations Security Council today held its first-ever
debate on the impact of climate change on
security, as some delegates raised doubts over
whether the Council was the proper forum to
discuss the issue"

Securitization ● European Council in May 2008 summarizing the threats

of Climate of climate change.
● “The risks posed by climate change are real and its
impacts are already taking place. The UN estimates
Change that all but one of its emergency appeals for
humanitarian aid in 2007 were climate related. In
2007 the UN Security Council held its first debate
on climate change and its implications for
international security. The European Council has
drawn attention to the impact of climate change You can reach the report from:
on international security and in June 2007 invited https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E
the High Representative and the European 9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/unsc_climatechange_2022.pdf
Commission to present a joint report to the
European Council in Spring 2008.”
● The draft in 2021 emphasized the need for “a
comprehensive, whole of UN approach to address climate
change and its effects”. So
 ● Securitization of climate
change and the UN Climate
Change Conferences
● Securitization of immigration
Examples and 2022 French elections
campaign
● The war in Iraq and the US
French 2022 Elections
and Migration
● Securitizing Actor: Le Pen (Front National)
● “Uncontrolled immigration is a source of
tension in a Republic which is no longer able to
assimilate the new French. Ghettos,
inter-ethnic conflicts, community demands
and politico-religious provocations are the
direct consequences of mass immigration
which is undermining our national identity and
brings with it increasingly visible Islamization”.
(Front National)
● The referent object: French nation and society

Report on Attitudes towards refugees, immigrants in France, retrieved from

https://www.humandignity.foundation/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Attitudes-towards-refugees-immigrants-and-identity-in-France.pdf