INTR2015 New Security Agenda

Wars are one type of threat that nations face. However, globalization and democracies' increasing emphasis on people's security as opposed to the security of states have made us aware of a wide range of non-military threats to states and to the lives and well being of individuals and communities. This has shifted the focus and content of traditional state and military-centred security studies and practice. Traditional security studies were concerned with states waging war against each other, where as new security concepts are grounded more in state capacity to protect their people, the realization of individual and collective rights and the satisfaction of human basic needs. This topic examines the so called "New Security Agenda", featuring themes such as transnational organize crimes and illicit trades (arms, drugs, people), migration, climate change, poverty, food security, health, energy and others. For each issue, the topic will identify the root and proximate causes of the "problem", how people and the environment are affected, potential intersections with domestic and international conflict and types of responses by national and international governance bodies.

This topic aims to:

• Introduce students to concepts on non traditional security issues
• Review cases of non traditional threats to the security of individuals
• Identify the way in which non traditional threats to human security relate to violent threats and wars

1. Trace the multiple connections between global security problems, discern how they are "securitized", and identify the advantages or disadvantages of such securitization
2. Reflect on the conceptual coherence of international policy responses
3. Analytically understand causality chains and distinguish between dependent and independent variables in the Social Sciences
4. Further development of writing skills (essays) and oral skills (presentations)