THREE-LEVEL SECURITY: INDIVIDUALS, STATES AND INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS
It is important to begin by stating that before Buzan, there was a gap in the literature concerning the concept of security. For an issue that seems to currently be on everyone’s mind, the approach to security and the intricacies of the issue had been largely left blank. Perhaps this can account for some of the unpreparedness when facing national or international security issues? As previously mentioned Buzan set out to fill this gap and devoted himself to the study of security, or rather, to use security as an approach for International Studies, as it “is such a fundamental concept, the process of mapping it inevitably takes one on a grand tour of the field”.
As aforementioned, Buzan’s analysis can be considered to be a loose melding of neorealism and constructivism, favoring constructivism. He accepts the neorealist’s postulate that “the international political system is an anarchy, which is to say that its principal defining characteristic is the absence of overarching government”. This being said, that is where the departure from neorealism occurs, for he feels that the realist approach to security as being a “pure struggle for power” is obsolete, resulting in a myopic point of view, and something that can only hinder the policy maker or International Relationist in coming to a comprehensive understanding of the issue.
In his work, People, States and Fear, Buzan veers towards a broader understanding of security based levels and sectors. The three levels that are referenced and addressed in detail in his work are individuals, states and international systems. The sectors, which he also addresses in the article “New Patterns of Global Security in the Twenty-First Century”, are Political, Military, Economic, Societal, and Environmental. These concepts cannot adequately address the issue of security separately, each one is intricately and complexly linked with the next forming a web of information that a Security Analyst or International Relationist must detangle to understand each concept individually in order to be able to see how they affect each other on the whole. This micro/macro methodology is something that, while infinitely complex, is also of the utmost importance in order to be able to get a better idea how to deal with what Buzan calls the “‘National’ Security Problem”.
Related to this, is the way in which Buzan uses an epistemological methodology throughout his work. From the first level of analysis, Buzan acknowledges that in order to complete this complex study of security where the state is assumed as the main referent, one has to first ask oneself; what is the nature of a state? When thinking along the lines of individual security, we can understand that security can be considered as a factor of “life, health, status, wealth, freedom” amongst a few examples. These elements “are complicated and many of them cannot be replaced if lost”. The concept of threat can, therefore, be relatively easily understood for an individual. However, as pointed out above, the concept of security does not follow a cookie-cutter model, and we cannot copy-paste individual security and expect the same concept to work for national security. Buzan, therefore, considers the nature of the state in order to be able to understand the security of “larger and more complicated entities” that are “more amorphous in character”. Buzan takes this consideration of the essence of the state all the way to a figure provided in his work, which represents the idea of the state, the physical base of the state and the institutional expression of the state on the three points of a triangle. This is to show that the components of the state can be discussed as security issues alone, but that they are interlinked and the “examination of the linkages between them is a fruitful source of insight into the national security problematic ”.
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