Human Security: An Analysis of the Dissemination of an Idea in World Politics

The study considers the dissemination of the idea of human security including the means – trajectories and spaces – by which it has been spread and reproduced in international politics. My aim is to illuminate the agents behind this dissemination, the ways that the concept has been shared and the intellectual and institutional frameworks that have enabled its existence. I conclude that the idea of human security arose from the UN system, particularly the United Nations Development Programme’s offices. It was disseminated with the assistance of “human security friends,” i.e. Japan, Canada and Norway and several prominent scholars, high-ranking policy-makers and UN officers. Nevertheless, despite these efforts, human security has not found a following worldwide. It was embedded in part of the UN system where it has remained powerful and been reproduced. Outside the UN system, however, even its most active and devoted promoters have abandoned the concept. The number of these supporters has dwindled, the idea has lost its power and the spaces where it is reproduced are limited.