What is security?
A critical challenge facing those who want to include a security-related goal within the new development framework is defining what they mean by security. This is difficult because security is so context specific – what renders people insecure in Europe is importantly distinct from experiences of insecurity in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East or the Asia Pacific (Abass 2010: 10). Thus, developing a global target is challenging. Should the target be about crime rates, battle deaths, instances of coups d’etat or perceptions of security, for instance? While there are cases to be made for each of these interpretations of security, the challenge remains in ensuring that the selected understanding is meaningful across a variety of different contexts. If crime rates were chosen as the relevant gauge, this might tell us quite a lot about Latin America, but potentially little about countries where crime is either less of a problem, or where reporting is weak. As Simon Maxwell explains:
We know why targets are useful. They clarify objectives. They rally support. And they provide an instrument with which to reform public services. These are valuable benefits. But we also know why targets post risks: they can encourage a reductionist approach to complex problems… (2004: 30).
Targets tend to simplify complex problems by focusing on what is measurable, rather than necessarily on what’s most important (White and Black 2004: 16). One of the most straightforward interpretations of security, for instance, is battle deaths plus homicide. This definition is often less difficult to measure than many other security indicators (as set out below) but it is dubious how much such an indicator can tell us. For example, in many fragile states, homicide is not a common crime – whereas sexual violence and enforcement of property rights can be especially challenging. As a result, measuring how many people are killed in combat or through homicide might provide a skewed understanding of levels of insecurity within a country. The armed violence proposal by the Geneva Declaration (diagram 2) overcomes this challenge to some extent by including a number of indicators in an attempt to capture some of the common aspects of insecurity in many parts of the world. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that regardless of the choices made about defining security, they will represent a particular understanding that might mask different kinds of insecurity across different contexts. Whatever understanding of security chosen will immediately import ‘all the methodological and conceptual problems associated with this particular measure’ (Saith 2006: 1172-1173).