State Responses to Human Security: A National Security Framework

The question of defining security has, in the post-Cold War period, gone through considerable revision, challenge, assertions of continuity and normative calls for change (Baldwin 1997; Rothschild 1995). The historical dominance of traditional national security underwent significant challenges during this period, most significantly because of the introduction of the concept of human security. Human security was promoted in the early 1990s as a challenge to traditional statecentric analysis and practice of security in international relations. Human security promoted the ‘individual’1 as the referent object of security and challenged the state-centrism of traditional national security. Nearly 20 years after its creation, questions remain as to its influence.