Conclusion: The Virtues of Human Security

Abstract

The chapters in this volume make it abundantly clear that human security is a contested concept. It is resisted by many traditional security analysts and practitioners, and there is disagreement among its supporters on a range of fundamental questions, including how to define the security referent, the sources and types of insecurity, the providers of security, the response to insecurities and the conditions for long-term security. The human security debate has also produced some strange bedfellows among the sceptics. For example, traditional security analysts have resisted the incursion of what they see as an unwieldy and over-burdened security discourse into their narrow and tidy domain, w..