Individual security in academic discourse

• Main Authors: Popović-Mančević Marija, Ružić Maja
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Criminal Investigation and Police Studies, Belgrade 2017-01-01
• Series: NBP: Nauka, bezbednost, policija
• Subjects: contemporary security studies; level of analysis; individual security; personal security; human security
• Online Access: https://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0354-8872/2017/0354-88721701127P.pdf

Contemporary security studies have opened the field for a multitude of new terms and concepts. Professional language enrichment of contemporary security studies has been a logical consequence of the expansion of their research fields, which occurs in response to emerging security threats and challenges, as well as to new subjects and objects of security studies and practices. The newly established post-Cold War era in security studies has been featured by calling in question the dominant state-centric understanding of the concept of security, which brings about the deepening of the concept to the individual level of analysis. In addition to the well-established terms as state security and national security, in contemporary security studies discourse there has been emerging terms that refer to the security dynamics that takes place on an individual level such as individual security, personal security and human security. However, in the academics’ writings these terms and concepts are often vaguely defined, and used in academics’ and public discourse in different ways, sometimes as synonyms, while in some cases the same terms are used with different meanings, which inevitably leads to a certain terminological imprecision. Variations in definition of terms and guidelines such as human security, individual security and personal security in domestic and foreign scholars’ papers point to the lack of universality and their fluid nature. These variations are partly considered to be the consequence of the complexity of these new concepts, but they also may be caused by too much latitude in interpretation of their meaning. This deprives these concepts of the stable and common meaning and poses an obstacle for their use in common academic discourse. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to find some standards in the use of these concepts and to link them with the dominant and prevailing meanings that are attached to them in academic use. In order to give an answer to the question of whether are they different concepts or the multiplication of the same concept, the meanings of the term individual security will firstly be presented when considered as a level of analysis in security studies, and then when it is considered as part of a broader political concept of human security.