Approaches to Security and Reality of the North Caucasus

or How Theories of Securitycan explain Caucasian conflicts?

Main approaches …

• The realist perspective• The liberalist perspective• Peace studies• Critical security studies• Human security• Securitization

• ???

The Realist approach(analysts from Ancient times to Hobbes, Machiavelli, Rousseau)

• States preoccupied with physical safety.• State preoccupation with autonomy.• National development mainly as a means,

helping sustain and strengthen state autonomy and safety.

• Rule is primary important instrumentally (foreign challenges meet to the state’s autonomy and safety).

The liberalist perspective(since Enlightenment)

• States are not unitary actors.• Cooperation and interdependence between

states and societies.• The behaviour oа sates in international politics

is shaped by the character of states, their political system, and their society.

• More optimistic about security than the realists

Peace studies(after the Second World War)

• Provide a non-state centric and more global view of major issues of conflict.

• Idea of underlying causes of conflict.• Interest in conflict prevention, conflict

resolution and peacekeeping.• Multi-level analysis from the individual to the

international.

Critical security studies(since the end of 20th century)

• Idea of referent object of security (human beings are both secured and rendered insecure in different ways).

• Five sectors of Security: military, environmental, economic, societal, and political (Barry Buzan, 1980s)

• Security is more than military security (how security to be archived , both for the state and for any other referent objects).

• Constructivist approach (society and security as social constructs)

Human security

• Human-centric tradition that emphasize on wide variety of threats to people’s security.

• Ignores external military threats (argues that 95% deaths are caused by internal conflicts).

• Human insecurity as political violence and as underdevelopment (poor governance, poor state capacity, corruption, social cleavages).

Securitization(Copenhagen School)

• ‘Is the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics’ (Buzan).

• ‘SPEECH ACT’ - Usage of a language of security (from language to meaning)

Model Object of analysis Question / Method

Realist approach State How states guarantee a security?

Liberal approach Society Which ways society can influence on security issues?

Peace studies Conflict and its resolution

How to find out peaceful ways to settle disputes and non-violent transformation of violent situation?

Critical security studies

Social construction of security

How idea of security is constricting by social actors?

Human security approach

Person What kind threats of human security exist and how deal with it?

Securitization Discourse What is mechanism of moving from politicized issue to securitized one?

Thanks fordiscussion