Authors David Anderson-Rodgers and Kerry Crawford released Human Security: Theory and Action on March 15 to explore security approaches where the individual, not the state, is the reference point for security policy.
“What we’re trying to do with this book is really try to elevate the conversation about security in ways that make people think critically about the consequences of the choice to use violence,” he said. “My goal as a teacher is that anyone who comes in with a preconceived notion about what’s the correct policy approach will think about what are the full range of implications for those policy approaches.”
As an associate professor of political science at California State University, Sacramento, Andersen-Rodgers said he and Crawford wanted to write an accessible book for undergraduate students or policymakers to get them thinking about human security approaches among security policy practices. They contrast three security approaches in the book.
“One is a global security approach, which we now briefly define as the security of the international sovereign system of states … keeping that system afloat in some way,” he said “The second security approach being national or state security, which is sort of the traditional way that security studies is taught, particularly in the United States, which is the protection of the state. … And then contrasting that with human security with which the reference is the human being.”
Andersen-Rodgers noted the many security threats humans face, which range from violence in individual communities to human rights, economic collapse, and even climate change.
“We’re trying to understand how security policy is related to the protection of human beings, how that gets manifest in the current system of states that we have right now,” he said. “Our hope is that a student who’s in a political science classroom and is thinking about doing policy in the future will read this and maybe bring sort of a broader perspective into the policy thinking world.”
Released March 15, the book is available at Amazon.com in electronic and hardcover editions.
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