ABSTRACT
This introduction provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book grews out of a research project funded by the Australian Research Council through the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. The purpose of this project is to interrogate the concept of human security and the potential to apply the concept to key aspects of Australia’s foreign policy and external relations, both in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. The book gives a coherent account of ‘human security’ as a way of thinking about the real threats that exist in an increasingly interconnected world. One of the strange features of contemporary Australian politics is that at a time of rapidly shifting global political and economic power our political leaders seem less interested in the larger world than at any time in the past forty years. Politicians tend to fight current battles through perceptions formed in their youth, a tendency which becomes very problematic when the world changes rapidly.
