Human Security and Security Sector Reform: Contrasts and Commonalities

Human security and security sector reform are relatively new to the lexicon of foreign and security policy, having both emerged in the post-Cold War world of the 1990s. The two concepts have much in common but they are also very different. This article reviews the thinking that underlines the two concepts and examines the way they relate to one another. In particular, it looks at their commonalities and differences in terms of core function, relationship to the state and state security, objective, scope, actors, and the criteria that are associated with their successful implementation. By means of a few practical examples, the different discourses that typically characterize the two concepts are contrasted and compared.

ecurity sector reform (SSR) and human security are relative newcomers to the security discourse, having only really entered the lexicon some ten years ago. Although much of the thinking behind human security predates the 1990s, it was the 1994 Human Development Report published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that put it on the map as a full-blown concept. 1 The term »security sector reform« was not coined until 1998, notwithstanding the fact that the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security agreed by the OSCE four years earlier brought into the mainstream the notion that lies at the core of security sector reform -the democratic control of the military and other security actors.
Human security and security sector reform have both been part of the process of reconceptualizing security after the end of the Cold War. This process has involved seven major shifts in focus (see table 1). * David M. Law is Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Working Group on Security Sector Reform at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance in the preparation of this article provided to him by Oksana Myshlovska, DCAF Research Assistant. 1 See Taylor Owen, »Challenges and Opportunities for Defining and Measuring Human Security«, Disarmament Forum, No 3, 2004, p. 18. For antecedents of the human security concept in the 1960-1980s see Kanti Bajpai, »The Idea of a Human Security«, International Studies, No 40, 3, 2003, pp.196-199.  Firstly, there has been a shift in emphasis from the security of territory and borders to the security of individuals and their communities. There has been a second and related shift away from the preoccupation with external security to a heightened focus on internal and transnational security. Thirdly, the tendency to understand security in mainly military terms has yielded to a vision that has security as a multidimensional phenomenon, whose economic and cultural aspects warrant as much consideration as its warfighting ones. Fourthly, whereas during the Cold War era there was a concentration on man-made threats, in the new strategic circumstances natural disasters and environmental degradation have come to be understood as sources of inse-| T H E M E N S C H W E R P U N K T S+ F ( 2 3 . J g . ) 1 / 2 0 0 5 | 1 5 curity that can be just as preoccupying -and on occasion even more so -than the machinations of men and their killing machines. Fifthly, there has been a reorientation of strategic preoccupations, from the East-West theatre to the global one, as entire areas of the world that were previously seen by western and eastern decision-makers alike as the staging grounds for their proxy wars have become theatres of strategic concern in their own right. In addition to the above, there is a new emphasis on conflict prevention, none the least because of the enormous costs of dealing with the real security challenges that had to be addressed quite soon after the celebratory signing of the Charter of Paris.
Finally, the post-Cold War world has brought a distinct relativization of the state, which has gone from being the central figure on the world stage to an actor that finds itself increasingly having to share and leverage responsibilities for security where previously it held -or thought it held -a monopoly. At the same time, the overall credibility of the state's security role has suffered as it has struggled to deal with an increasing number of intra-state conflicts and failing states, and to protect its borders against the nefarious effects of globalization, such as human trafficking and the expanding networks of cross-border crime. The impact of all this on individual states has, of course, varied enormously. That said, the fact that in the 1990s a non-state group emerged that would prove capable, in the first decade of the subsequent century, of challenging even the world's most powerful country -and doing so with a modicum of resources -has pointed to the possibility that the state-centric Westphalian order is under serious fire -and perhaps even finds itself in systemic decline.
In large part, human security and security sector reform both constitute responses to these strategic shifts, of which many have been taken into account in their respective approaches. But notwithstanding their common roots and ideological affinities, there has been very little interaction between the two concepts. Indeed, there is a broadly held view that they are somehow diametrically opposed and incompatible. This article will review the reasons for this. It will explore the different ways in which human security and security sector reform approach the state, discuss the different trends characterizing debate about the two concepts, compare their respective discourses and examine some of the criticisms to which they have been subject. In the concluding section, our attention will turn to what we consider to be the significant commonalities between the two concepts, and the considerable potential that exists for creating synergies between them.
There are four factors that have stood in the way of there greater interplay between human security and security sector reform. In the first place, the two concepts have contrasting perspectives on the role of the state. A second problem derives from the existence of different schools of thought within both the human security and security sector communities. Thirdly, while sharing some methodological features, the two concepts have contrasting functions and objectives. Fourth, a number of misunderstandings about the two concepts have arisen, distracting practitioners from the possibilities for mutual interaction.

Different Views of the State
At their core, human security and security sector reform are both critical reactions to the state in its role as a security provider. The reactions, while similarly inspired, and having much in common, are in essence rather different. Let us look first at the criticisms put forward by human security advocates, of which there are four.
The first criticism concerns the fact that the security of the state and the security of its people are not necessarily synonymous. The erstwhile Soviet Union had secure bordersmost would argue too secure -and faced no threat to its territory; its people were nonetheless insecure. Or to take another case: In Rwanda, the genocides of the 1990s and earlier decades underlined that its people were not secure, notwithstanding the fact that the sovereignty of the country was not endangered.
The second criticism relates to the inefficiency of the state in its role as security provider. One example will suffice to make this point: at the beginning of the 20th century the ratio of dead civilians to dead military in conflict situations was some 1 to 10; by the century's end the proportions had been more or less reversed, such that by the latter part of the twentieth century, in many parts of the world it was safer to be a man or woman in military service than in civilian life. 2 The third criticism is that that the state has sometimes shown itself not to be the loyal guardian of the population under its jurisdiction, but rather its worst enemy. Take the fate of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia where organs of the central power were responsible for initiating war with the Yugoslav republics of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia in 1991-92, and against the province of Kosovo in 1999 -actions that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
The fourth criticism stems from the fact that there are a number of issues of primary importance to the security of individuals and their communities that have either not been on the agenda of the state, or have been given an insignificant place there. For example, several governments have failed to address -and in some instances have even failed to acknowledge -the security ramifications of such issues as climate change or HIV/AIDS, with their enormous implications for the quality of life and the longer-term survival prospects of entire communities and peoples.
For human security proponents, the crux of the problem is that states tend to seek security for governments and elites, as opposed to the people that they are supposed to serveand far too easily their interests can diverge. Hence, their advocacy of a concept that privileges the security interests of | L a w , H u m a n S e c u r i t y a n d S e c u r i t y S e c t o r R e f o r m 16 | S + F ( 2 3 . J g . ) 1 / 2 0 0 5

Graph No. 1: Assumptions of state security roles by actors at other levels of aggregation post-Cold War
the individual and distinguishes them from those of the state, even if they are not necessarily understood to be independent of them.
What conclusions have human security practititoners drawn from this analysis? There are essentially four. The first is that the security concerns of individuals must be given priority over those of the state. Secondly, security must redefined to encompass the gamut of individuals' security concerns. In other words, security has to include safety at home and in the streets as well as the security that comes with the enjoyment of reasonable living conditions and the realisation of individual protential. Thirdly, these concerns need to be pursued in concert with a broad array of actors, including an informed and energized public, NGOs, international organisations like the UN and other actors such as enlightened corporate entities. Fourthly, the methodology of security needs to change, with a greater emphasis being put on prevention, participation and public ownership.
The concept of security sector reform has also emerged in response to concerns that traditional security approaches have been ineffective, and that this is in great part due to the way the state has tended to perceive security. Thinking about SSR has developed in response to a number of different situations. During the Cold War, the main protagonists were rather disinterested in such issues as »…accountability, rule of law, transparency, and participation in [their] Cold War era security assistance programs….
[which] almost always took the form of training and supply of equipment to enhance the operational capacity of security bodies with no concern for democratic governance or rule of law.« 3 This approach was clearly unacceptable in the new world that took shape in the 1990s. In particular, it was undermined by the reality on the ground as donor countries moved to address the dysfunctional state of the security sector, first in developing countries, and then in transition states, after the end of the Cold War. Here it became clear that jurisdictions with a capacity to use force -at first, primarily the military, but later also the police, customs, intelligence services and the penal system -had to be made both effective and accountable if donor efforts to stabilize, develop and democratise were to have a chance of being successful. Another influence in the evolution of SSR is more recent.
The events of 9/11 and 3/11 have underscored that security sector reform is not just a programme that donor countries deliver to developing and transition countries, but a framework for reform on which the prospects for the welfare and survival of developed western countries also depend.
Thus, security sector reform broadly shares the preoccupations of human security as formulated above. A central concern of security sector reform is the tendency for many states to be dysfunctional security providers and for some states to pose the greatest security threat facing their populations. Security sector reform recognizes that the security of individuals and that of the state are not necessarily identical, and that not all security problems will have a statecentric solution. Nevertheless, the most important commonality is the awareness of the need for good governance of the security sector and civil society involvement in the security decision-making process. As such, human security and security sector reform are part of the global trend towards democratization that was given a major new impetus with the end of the Cold War.
Notwithstanding these similarities, human security and security sector reform have differing perspectives on the state. The default position of human security is to promote the role of security actors other than the state as a way of overcoming its shortcomings. Security sector reform, on the other hand, stresses the vital role of the state as a security provider and the need to ensure that the state can play its role effectively. The assumption underlying security sector reform is that however important have become actors other than the state in the post-Cold War security environment, and however compelling the need for new approaches, the state must be able to perform effectively -for if it fails to do so, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for any other agent to fill this role or to compensate for the state's failings. 4 It is possible to see the post-Cold War role of the state in security affairs as a function of it surrendering influence and functions in four different ways: to international and regional non-governmental security activity, to international and regional intergovernmental security activity, to other public actors at lower levels of aggregation and to non-state actors acting at the sub-state level. These trends are displayed in the graph below. Human security is essentially part of the trends characterizing the right-hand side of the graph, where the state's centrality has been weakened and some of its responsibilities transferred to the private sector on both the sub-state and supra-state levels. Security sector reform, on the other hand, is a corrective response to this development. It seeks to ensure that the state can deliver security as any other public good. But as we shall see, the differences between human security and security sector reform are not as distinct as this starkly drawn contrast might suggest.

The Broad and the Narrow
Human security and security sector reform are both subject to varying interpretations. While this article will make no attempt to present a comprehensive review of the various approaches that have been taken towards the two concepts, it will discuss two sets of mainstream definitions, which have been very loosely characterized as broad and narrow.
Definitions of human security usually refer to »freedom from fear«, associated with direct threats of violence, and »freedom from want«, associated with indirect threats or chronic limitations on personal well-being. Popularized in the 1994 UNDP Report on Human Development, 5 these phrases are sometimes enlarged upon to include the »freedom to take action on one's own behalf«. 6 . The Commission on Human Security, an initiative of the Japanese Government launched at the Millennium Summit of the UN in 2000, defines human security to mean »…protecting the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment…«. 7 Differences in human security approaches tend to revolve around the extent to which they acknowledge or stress the following elements: the legitimacy of the role of the state as a contributor of security and as a consumer of security in its own right; the degree to which they focus on indirect and direct violence as opposed to only direct violence; the importance of human development as opposed to political development; and the legitimacy of resorting to the use of force or sanctions, if circumstances warrant them. 8 The broad approach to human security, usually identified with the thinking of the UNDP and the Commission on Human Security, tends to downplay the role of the state and the legitimate use of force, and play up the importance of indirect threats and human development. The narrow version of human security, usually identified with the policies of the government of Canada and most other countries involved in the Human Security Network 9 tends to reverse the emphasis on these points. 10 The problem with the broad approach to human security is that it tends to define security so widely that it can become difficult to use the concept as a guide for orienting action or developing programmes. In this guise, human security tends to overlap with many of the concerns of human development. The narrow approach, on the other hand, has championed such projects as the treaties banning the antipersonnel landmines and establishing the International Criminal Court, as well as programmes countering human trafficking, child soldiers, and the like. Here the emphasis is on practical programmes in specific areas of foreign, security and development policy. The drawback of narrow human security is that it risks losing sight of the big picture that prompted the emergence of the human security approach in the first place.
| L a w , H u m a n S e c u r i t y a n d S e c u r i t y S e c t o r R e f o r m 18 | S + F ( 2 3 . J g . ) 1 / 2 0 0 5 Definitions of security sector reform have been subject to similar variance. The security sector has been defined narrowly as »…those militarized formations authorized by the state to utilize force to protect the state and its citizens…« or broadly as encompassing all »…organizations and activities concerned with the provision of security, and including organizations and institutions ranging from private security guards to the judiciary.« 11 Reform of the security sector so that security can be provided »…within the state in an effective and efficient manner, and in the framework of democratic civilian control…« 12 would be considered by many to be a generally acceptable definition. Others, however, would object to the qualification that restricts the concept to security that is provided within the state as unhelpful in a security environment characterized by an intense and increasing degree of transnationality. Then too, for most practitionersand despite the changes in the strategic environment engendered by the events of 9/11 and 3/11 -security sector reform remains something that developed democracies promote and sponsor in developing and transition countries, not in their own backyards. For others, of course, this perspective has become increasingly untenable with the emergence of strategic terrorism and the fundamental vulnerabilities that it has pointed to in the defence and security structures of developed countries. 13 The multiplicity of approaches within both disciplines is a factor that complicates communication between the human security and security sector reform communities, but should not stand in the way of their interaction. Notwithstanding the divergence between the broad and narrow schools within both conceptual families, it is the core features of the two that should determine their interrelationship. We will return to this question in the concluding section.

Phenomenological Antipodes
A third point of contrast between human security and security sector reform relates to their phenomenological identities. Human security is a lens for looking at security; it tends to address such issues as »who should security be for…?« and »…what should be the benchmarks for the kind of security that we want to achieve…?« Security sector reform is operational; its proponents tend to ask »… how should we approach the various facets of security -the actors, their functioning and their interaction -if we want to ensure that the end-product serves the population…?« and »…what do we have to do to achieve this result…?« To generalize, human security posits values that should shape decisions about security, whereas security sector reform offers a policy framework.
The different natures of human security and security sector reform can also be brought to light by comparing their dis- courses. For example, in their approach to Iraq, human security advocates would focus on the impact of the decision to invade the country on the security of its individuals and their communities, on the repercussions for the security of people in the broader region and indeed beyond, over the shorter and longer-term. 14 In principle, human security advocates would also want to compare and evaluate the security situation of the Iraqi population and its different communities before and after the invasion. The assessment, in view of the current state of the conflict would, of course, have to be an ongoing one.
Security sector reform practitioners, on the other hand, would stress that the absence of a legitimately constituted and democratically overseen security sector in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's multi-year rule was a key factor encouraging Iraq's oppressive policies at home and aggressive actions abroad, and impeding the country's growth and development. Post-invasion, they would also emphasize that as long as Iraq does not have an efficient security sector, accountable to its population, it will remain a troubled, dysfunctional and dangerous state. 15 As this these examples illustrate, the discourse of human security and security sector reform are different but not mutually exclusive. We will return to this question in the last section of this article.

The Concepts and Their Critics
Human security and security sector reform have both been subject to a number of criticisms involving their overall credibility and practical implementation, again a factor that has impeded their interaction as well as their broader utilization.
We discussed earlier the view that human security is insufficiently concrete and too far-reaching to be wielded as an effective policy tool. There has also been criticism to the effect that it is anti-state, anti-defence and opportunistic.
Human security, in particular in its early days, was often identified as being opposed to the state. This is in part understandable if one thinks that the states that human security activists were preoccupied with tended to be so dangerous to their own populations that it was felt that other actors -NGOs, the regional and international community, and civil society had to be mobilized as a counterweight to the state, in certain situations acting as its adversaries and, in others, supplanting certain of its functions. The situation is similar as regards the question of how human security relates to defence. For human security proponents,

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T H E M E N S C H W E R P U N K T S+ F ( 2 3 . J g . ) 1 / 2 0 0 5 | 1 9 strengthening the army or other security forces of a country could be seen as a totally unhelpful act if its leadership could not be counted upon to use its power judiciously. This was a problem that originated with the Cold War practice mentioned above, whereby East and West armed allied and friendly states for battle against the other side, with little thought as how security resources could end up being used against the people of these state -as they often were.
In quite different statal environments, human security has sometimes left the impression of acting as a substitute for a state's reluctance to meet its security responsibilities. As a case in point, one of the early champions of human security was Canada, whose enthusiasm for the concept seemed to soar in reverse proportion to its preparedness to devote resources to its armed forces. 16 That being said, human security proved to be a very useful mobilizing framework for a number of »soft« security initiatives that Canada sponsored that decade -from the campaign against anti-personnel landmines to the struggle to establish an international criminal court and the creation of the Human Security Network. 17 As for security sector reform, it has encountered its own criticisms. One line of reasoning is that security sector reform is unworkable where the state is collapsing or has failed.. 18 If we look at the track record of security sector reform, there may be some truth to this claim. Yet very little work has been done on the question of whether there are windows of opportunity for sub-state security sector reform in dysfunctional states, and it may be premature to draw robust conclusions about the experience of central governments and the international community in this regard.
The criticism that security sector reform is not necessarily carried out with regard to the security of the population also deserves to be taken seriously. To take an example, one observer has argued that efforts to bolster systems of border protection in the Balkans have inadvertently diminished the ability of people fleeing from oppressive regimes further afield to move to safer havens, thereby undercutting human security. 19 To this criticism, the response of the security sector community is that reform, if it is to be effective, has to be guided by two fundamental principles, namely, that the security sector has to be not only efficient but also responsive, first and foremost, to human needs. To put it another way, the view is that a security sector that is not wellgoverned cannot, by definition, be efficient -because it will not be able to ensure people's security.

Towards a Synergistic Approach
As we have seen, human security and security sector reform have several common elements. They are fundamentally agreed on the basic features of post-Cold War security. They take a comprehensive approach to security challenges. They see the inadequacies, and the limitations, of the state as a provider of security, and they acknowledge the importance of security actors other than the state. Both concepts present the notion that security is primarily about protecting individuals and their communities. They also stress that security is essential for development and democratization.
We have also seen that there are important differences between human security and security sector reform, particularly in the way the two concepts approach the state. Nevertheless, there is significant potential for complementarity. The greatest weakness of human security is its ambivalent attitude towards the security role of the state and its lack of a structured framework for policy formulation. Security sector reform leaves no doubts as to the need for an effectiveefficient and well governed -state security role. It also provides an operational framework. This suggests that a security sector reform focus could help human security overcome the difficulties it has sometimes encountered in translating its concerns into concrete policy initiatives and in structuring its programming.
The greatest vulnerability of security sector reform derives from doubts about its commitment to good governance and people-centred security, which are on the other hand central to human security. This vulnerability can be particularly important in the post-9/11 world. In many countries, security concerns have tended to marginalize democracy, accountability and human rights. Moreover, in some postconflict situations there has been a tendency to argue that security has to come before democracy, even in its most rudimentary forms. 20 As an example of the former, we need only cite the preparedness of the United States and other Western countries to ignore the civil and human rights records of Pakistan and a number of Central Asian states while undertaking measures to reinforce these countries' ability to support their objectives in the war against the Jihadists.
A related problem is highlighted by the debate about the situation in Iraq. Some analysts have argued that the country's security sector has to be up and running before serious thought can be given to issues of accountability and oversight. 21 The key issue in Iraq, however, concerns the legitimacy of the provisional government and its ability to command the trust of the population and the country's constituent communities. If Iraq's security sector is rebuilt without a concomitant effort to win the confidence of a broad majority, the effort to return the country to normalcy will fail. Hence, the need to ensure that the objective of se-curity sector reform, in Iraq and elsewhere, is the security of the population and, only as a means to that end, the security of the state.
How then to best take advantage of the complementarity between the two concepts?
Three considerations can be put forward here. The first is that for the academic and policy communities that are involved in human security and security sector reform, there are good reasons for accepting the proposition that while different in a number of respects, the two concepts enjoy important conceptual links. Secondly, it should be acknowledged that their complementarity can also be useful in practical terms. Human security can help guide practitioners of security sector reform, while security sector reform can help operationalize the practice of human security. Thirdly, those who design and implement programmes around human security themes or who support the reform of security sectors should be encouraged to bring together elements from the two concepts and their experience in the field into their own work. Moreover, in view of the many issues that are addressed by both human security and security sector reform, joint human security-security sector reform programs should certainly be feasible. The Human Security Network could be a particularly promising framework for developing programmes that take advantage of this complementarity and seek out synergies.
The bottom line in all this is that without a functional security sector, the state will not be able to provide the secure environment that is required to realize human security goals. Similarly, unless guided by a human security perspective, security sector reform risks generating a security sector that is not accountable to those it is supposed to serve and that can act oppressively towards them. These are terribly real problems in today's world, where there are far too frequent instances of states failing to meet their security responsibilities -whether this is because of resource shortages, inefficiency, neglect or ill will towards the people in their care.