Human Security in Disease and Disaster

Natasha Lindstaedt

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367653019
• eBook ISBN: 9781000437478
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Geopolitics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This timely new textbook lays bare the ways in which disease and disaster can turn politicians into global leaders or national liabilities. It explains the impact of crises on development and human security and explores how states and societies can respond more effectively.

Written primarily for the student of politics, but also drawing from public health, public policy, and environmental studies, the book investigates the threats posed by disease and disasters, and demonstrates how states can shape the ways in which these crises unfold. Case studies include:

• Diseases such as Covid-19 and Ebola

• Natural disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan and the 2010 Haiti earthquake

• Manmade disasters such as the Yemen and Congo civil wars or famine

The book delves deep into how state response to these challenges can impact political and economic stability and ends by exploring the role played by international institutions and international cooperation in addressing common challenges.

This introductory textbook is perfect for undergraduate and masters courses exploring the expanding politics and human security issues surrounding disease and disasters. It will also be of interest to think tanks and policy communities looking for fresh insights to bring into professional practice.

Part I
Key challenges

1 Human security, health, and disaster

DOI: 10.4324/9781003128809-3

Introduction

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report released on January 15, 2020, ranked a pandemic in 10th place in terms of its potential impact, while also noting that any infectious disease outbreak was highly unlikely (World Economic Forum, 2006, 2020). The same report also failed to see how a pandemic could be connected to other security risks. Less than two months later, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. Though Covid-19 is only 80–120 nm in diameter, it has proven to be much more disruptive and deadly than an intercontinental ballistic missile (Sekhawat et al., 2020). The human costs have been tremendous in loss of life (over a million plus deaths due to neglect of other illnesses), increases in people living with a disability, increases in poverty, and malnutrition. The costs to the global economy have also been substantial. By October of 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that Covid-19 would cost over $39 trillion in lost output (Elliot, 2020).

And though many in the field of health security had sounded the alarm about the potential dangers of a pandemic and the importance of being prepared, most countries have been completely ill equipped to manage it. Instead, governments have continued to prioritize traditional security needs over health security. Case in point: the costs of implementing badly needed upgrades to public health systems in low- and middle-income countries for pandemic preparedness amounts to about $4.5 billion a year, while global military spending still exceeds $1 trillion annually (Lancet, 2020; Sands et al., 2016). World leadership is still fixated on traditional threats to security, namely national security. While the threats to national security from other states and violent non-state actors remain ever present, these threats actually pale in comparison to a host of other risks and threats to human security.

Part of the issue is that security is still conceived of in a state-centric fashion. Even with globalization and the growing interconnected nature of our world, the level of analysis continues to be the state. This chapter lays out how security is conceived of by looking at an alternative to the state-centric approach – a human security approach. The chapter explains why human security has become increasingly important, how the approach emerged, and how it is measured. The chapter then brings in human development approaches and explores the ways human security is complimentary and in what ways they differ. The chapter then turns to define health security (and disaster security) and the controversies surrounding the securitization of health. While the securitization of health may be welcomed by some who want to put health issues to the forefront, critics charge that it is being used as a pretext to pursue a power politics agenda. We close the chapter by examining environmental security and how this conflicts and compliments development approaches. Outlining the human security approach provides a foundation for understanding all of the issues related to disease and disaster.

Key concepts

What is human security?

Human security emerged as a concept that has the potential to link seemingly divergent fields and to capture and address some the world’s most pressing issues. The Commission on Human Security, which was first tasked with defining the concept, proposed that the objective of human security was to safeguard human lives while promoting long-term human flourishing and fulfilment (Alkire, 2002). The concept also supported enhancing human freedoms and protecting people from a variety of different threats to their well-being. This was a clear move away from threat-defence dynamics toward solidarity and universality. As stipulated by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) 1994 Human Development Report, human security is loosely defined, as people’s freedom from fear and want. In that report, it was argued that human security had four important components: it is universal; it is best ensured through prevention; it is people-centred; and its components are interdependent. In what follows we explain each of these four components. The book will address each of these issues in each chapter where appropriate.

One of the key components of human security is the importance of how interconnected the world is. A threat to individuals in another country could pose a threat to security at home (MacFarlane and Khong, 2006). Threats are borderless, closely connected, and potentially crippling in their effects on societies worldwide. When humans face a threat, so does the international security (Burgess and Gräns, 2012). At the same time, human security may be understood differently in different countries and contexts.

Human security also focuses on prevention. The preventive actions that human security advocates include fair trade, universal access to healthcare, and universal access to education. Provision of this serves as a preventive tool against hunger, disease, repression, and poverty. Because the human security approach is people-centred, it takes the view that preventive activities should be bottom up and community driven. Incorporating local needs and actors into the account, understanding the warning signs, and understanding how insecurity can be prevented is integral to the human security approach.

Human security is a concept that challenges traditional notions of national security. It moves away from state conceptions of security that focused on the safety of states from military aggression to one that focuses on the safety of the individual. The 1994 UNDP Report focused on the security of people (though grouped by country) and not the security of countries. The heart of the human security agenda is protecting lives, focusing on the health and well-being of people, and prioritizing their fundamental freedoms.

Applying a human security approach looks at various aspects of people’s livelihoods including economic, food environment, and health. Understanding socio-economic development sheds light on the insecurities that impoverished people face in the developing world – income insecurity, threats of physical violence, health insecurity, fragile health services, absence of social safety nets, which can lead to a cycle of poverty. It is recognition that these concepts are interrelated building blocks to human security. For example, a step towards reducing disease is a step towards reducing poverty, which could help prevent war and violence. On the flip side, endemic disease impoverishes communities and disrupts the provision of education. Environmental degradation has led to population movements into other, more fragile ecological settings and threatens livelihoods. In the complex global networks that we live in, the breakdown of one element in the system leads to breakdowns throughout the system, which leads to vicious cycles – or human insecurity traps. Due to the interdependence of threats, no threat should be in a hierarchy over another. Various threats can spread across a given country and spill into other countries and regions.

Types of threats

Human security approaches assume that there are two types of threats that people face – those that are direct or indirect. Direct threats to human security usually come from violence. Direct threats may be deliberate or intentional caused by one group to another, such as by states, terrorist groups, rebel factions, or paramilitary groups. Organs of the state may also threaten human security by violating human rights or using violence against their own citizens. Deliberate policies of social exclusion also constitute direct threats.

Indirect threats come from economic crises, deprivation, disease, disasters, underdevelopment, population displacement, environmental degradation, poverty, and inequality. Indirect threats are actions by groups or institutions where the by-product impacts human security. For example, mining and forestry policies may have negative environmental consequences which are destabilizing for a community’s subsistence. Indirect threats may also be the result of omission or the failure to act, to protect, and to prevent. Indirect threats require distinct strategic responses. In this book we focus on both indirect and direct threats to security.

Some human security threats are objective, tangible and measurable such as poverty, unemployment, lack of access to healthcare, and education. These can be grouped in to threats that impact ‘freedom from want.’ These types of threats can be measured by looking at absolute poverty lines, by reference to falling below a minimum consumption basket or looking at inequality rates. Other threats to human security are subjective and much more difficult to measure, such as the sense that you cannot control your own destiny, low feelings of self-worth, feelings of exclusion and capability deprivation, and fear of crime and other threats. These types of threats are often categorized as ‘freedom from fear.’

Some human security threats have a longer time horizon and are chronic threats, such as hunger, endemic infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, and poverty. Other threats are sudden can case massive disruption in daily life, like natural hazards, sudden economic crisis, or an epidemic disease outbreak. These types of threats also require more immediate action as they are more imminent, acute, and move at greater speed. Threats also differ in their severity. Some threats cause threats to human life, while other cause chronic morbidities (Lovendal and Knowles, 2006).

Types of risks

There are also many different types of risks that humans face. Risks vary by how exposed and sensitive individuals/communities are and how resilient they are. Individuals/communities are more exposed and sensitive if they live in an area where threats can cause harm. The widespread devastation caused by natural hazards demonstrate the vulnerability of increasingly concentrated poor populations in ecologically fragile environments. For example, individuals/communities situated close to an area that is prone to landslides or flooding will be more affected by threats than those who don’t. Individuals/communities that are resilient have the capacity to cope with a threat better. In countries with wholly inadequate support systems, short-term devastations can rapidly translate into long-term regional economic and political instability. To illustrate, a massive earthquake had a much different impact on San Francisco, United States (US), than it did in Port-a-Prince, Haiti. In the case of Haiti, the 7.0 earthquake all but decimated the educational and health systems and led to a massive cholera outbreak and huge loss of life. Over 300,000 people died and approximately $8 billion in damages were caused (Reuters, 2011). In contrast, the 6.9 earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1989 did cause $5 billion in damages, but only 67 people died (History, 2018).

Though poverty and inequality don’t necessarily always cause insecurity, both amplify vulnerabilities to physical and psychological harms (Adger and Winkels, 2014). People who are more impoverished face higher exposure and lower levels of resilience which intensifies the impact of any threat (for more on this see Chapter 5). The poor have fewer options available to them and less ability to influence resource allocation and distribution. For example, living outside of the formal economy makes people more vulnerable. The lack of access to healthcare and nutrition makes the poor more likely to face diseases and less resilient in overcoming them. Poverty-related diseases, malnutrition, lack of basic sanitation, and environmental pollution and degradation kill more people annually than armed conflict (Ball, 2001; Our World in Data, 2017).

Measuring human security

Measuring human security is a difficult endeavour because it encompasses so many overlapping issues. However, there are generally two positions on how human security should be measured: those who want a broad/expansive definition and those who want a narrow conception. The narrow conception focuses on conflict and human rights abuses. The broad conception addresses numerous challenges to human safety, well-being, and dignity. These differences have translated into a distinction between viewing human security as freedom from want and/or as freedom from fear. The narrow approach was advocated by a group of countries led by Canada and Norway that sought to emphasize free from fear. This approach helped to inform the 2001 Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty and the Human Security Report that was first published in 2005. These reports focused on protecting individuals from civil war, genocide, and population displacement or direct dangers to human life (Kerr, 2006). Those in favour of an expansive conceptualization argue that this is essential to understand contemporary crises. The expansive approach, which incorporated both fear and want, is evident in the way in which the 1994 UNDP Repor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Key challenges
• Part II Drivers of disease and disaster
• Part III Disease and disaster vulnerability
• Part IV Impact of disease and disaster
• Part V Response
• Glossary
• Index