The Reconceptualization of Security: The Contemporary Debate

This essay presents and analyzes the debate occurring in the academic world about the concept of security, as well as the proposals found in this respect in a variety of documents of international bodies. It is divided into two large sections; the first examines the concept of security, its origins and transformations, as well as the academic debates that have grown up around it. According to Martha Bárcena, the debate today is divided among the traditionalists, who say that security is a military-type term; the expansionists, who are in favor of involving not only military and political, but also social, econornic and environmental aspects, and the critics, who emphasize that security must be considered a social construction. The author also presents sorne of the theoretical proposals directing toward the adoption of concrete policies, including notably, the theory of cooperative security, the concept of world security, security studies and the theory of security cornplexes. The second section analyzes the transformation of the concept of security based on debates that occur inside international bodies such as the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as the Organization of American States. In the conclusions, according to Bárcena Coqui, the majority of proposals related to the concept of security are of the expansionist tendency, as reflected by the inclusion of new problems in the area of security, in participation by new actors, and in the growing interpenetration of foreign and internal security.