ICU Rotary Peace Center is organizing a Peace Seminar inviting Professor Edward Newman, Leeds University, UK. We look forward to your participation.
– Presenter: Professor Edward Newman (Leeds University, UK)
– Title: Human Security: Reconciling Critical Aspirations with Political “Realities”
– Date: Thursday Dec 21, 2017
– Time: 16:30-18:00
– Place: H-170, the 1st floor of University Hall (http://www.icu.ac.jp/en/about/campus/index.html *#1 on this map)
– Language: English
<Abstract (TBC)>
This article explores the concept of ‘human security’: the idea that the referent object and beneficiary of security should be individuals. It demonstrates that the concept has had some success as a normative reference point for human-centred policy movements internationally, and it reflects a broader shift towards human agency and human-centred conceptions of security. As a theoretical concept, therefore, the idea contributes to a multi-disciplinary reconceptualization of security that draws upon theoretical debates in political science and criminology. However, attempts to operationalize it have exposed fundamental problems in the new security discourse more broadly, generating critiques in political science and criminology which share common foundations but which are rarely engaged in an integrated manner. This article explores whether critical or radical security ideas like human security can be reconciled with political ‘realities’ or whether this undermines their intellectual integrity. In addressing this debate from an international relations perspective, the article also engages with criminological scholarship on security in order to identify and strengthen links across the disciplines．
<Biosketch>
Edward Newman is Professor of International Security in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. He is also an External Associate at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick. Within the security studies field, his interests lie in a number of areas: theoretical security studies, including critical approaches and ‘human security’; intrastate armed conflict, civil war, intervention and political violence; international organizations and multilateralism; and peacebuilding and reconstruction in conflict-prone and post-conflict societies. He previously worked in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham and, before that, he spent over a decade in Japan, mainly working at the United Nations University where he was Director of Studies on Conflict and Security in the Peace and Governance Programme. He is a member of the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Grant Assessment Panel (2014-18), a former editor of the journal Civil Wars (2011-2016), a founding executive editor of the journal International Relations of the Asia Pacific, and a member of the editorial board of Contemporary Politics. His latest book is Understanding Civil Wars: Continuity and Change in Intra-State Conflict, and he has published in many international academic journals. His homepage can be found at: www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/people/staff/newman
The lecture will be held as part of a graduate course “Religion, Conflict and Human Security (QPPS602)” but is open to anybody.
International Christian University Rotary Peace Center 
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