C/P/21. To what extent does the concept of human security redress the imbalance found in state centric conceptualisation of security?

State-centric approach to security, based predominantly on the realist assumptions about international relations, emphasizes above all national security of states, defined in terms of pursuit of power, primarily through military means. Inasmuch as realists focus on the states as the main units of the international system, human security is marginalized in this discourse, made forever subservient to raison d'etat. Yet the challenges brought about by globalisation - ethnic and religions intolerance, tolerance, global spread of diseases, cross-border natural calamities and pollution - have brought security of human beings into the equation: can states really redress these needs or have they become outdated, awkward social constructs? The paper argues that the state has not been undermined by the new challenges, and that, indeed, the problems of human insecurity are not new problems, but until recently they were not known to the wider public, and so they did not really have much impact on the IR debate. It is only with breakthroughs in communications technologies that human security became a best seller, simply because we can witness as never before human insecurity on our TV screens and computer monitors. While debate about human security is not likely to undermine the relevance of the state-centric approach to security, it is a useful forum for testing and fine-tuning realist ideas about international relations.