Rethinking human security Gary King and Christopher Murray, Political Science Quarterly In this article, we propose a simple,

rigorous, and measurable definition of human security: the number of years of future life spent outside a state of generalized poverty: being falling under the threshold of any key domain of human well being. From National Security to Human Security Two parallel debates have lead to the current paradigm shift, first the development of development economics, with the evolution of development thinking from strict growth econometric models of the 1960s to human development, and the changing nature of security, shifting from strict military and state security to enlarged security focused on communities and the individual, leading to the idea of human security, as an intersection between development and security, the unifying event being the 1994 Human Development Report by the UNDP, New Dimensions of Human Security. Defining and Measuring Human Security The idea of security contains two key elements: an orientation to future risks and a focus on risks of falling bellow some critical threshold of deprivation [] My security today is not only a function of my well-being today, but also the prospects of avoiding states of great deprivation in the future. The definition of human security put forward here is based on the concept of well-being, itself defined as elements within life deemed sufficiently important that human beings have already fought or put themselves at risk over them. However since human security is also a forward-looking concept, risks of future deprivations (beyond income issues and encompassing loss of any basic capabilities) are also encompassed within the suggested definition used to measure levels of human security. The measurement tool suggested is the concept of Years of Human Security(YIHS). An example of measurement would thus be: if a 40 year old woman has a life expectancy of 35 additional years but only a 50% chance in each future year of being above the generalized poverty threshold, her individual human security would be 17.5 years. The unit of measurement is thus a lifeyear and in optimum conditions YIHS equals full life expectancy, while risks reduce YIHS bellow full life expectancy. This measurement can also be expanded to an entire population, using average life expectancy statistics. To identify the threshold bellow which risks exist and YIHS is reduced, pre-existing instruments and tools can be mobilized, such as the World Banks absolute poverty threshold of $365/year, indicators such as mortality rates or the EuroQuol Health Related Quality of Life Indicator, or literacy indicators and averages years of schooling. Concluding Remarks Extract on the relation between security & development. Any priority for human security over human development should not be considered absolute, and we would not argue against public policy that enhances human development simply because human security had not been maximized first. But we believe that the international development and security communities are primarily focused on enhancing what we call human security. One way of thinking about these normative preferences is to derive them from the deeper goal of maximizing global human utility. From this perspective, the issue is how we make interpersonal utility comparisons. According to our interpretation of the emerging consensus of the international community, a small increase in well-being across the generalized poverty threshold produces a considerably larger change in utility than all but the most extreme changes in human well-being at other levels. If this is true, then the priority of human security over human development is an automatic consequence.