ABSTRACT
Human security has for a long time been caught between a rock and a hard place. In the academic world, the attempts that human security proponents have made to reorient security have been heavily criticised by both traditional and critical security theorists. This chapter suggests that engaging with these questions, with the politics of security, is important for those interested in the possibility of human security genuinely informing or framing Australian security policy and practice. It examines the extent to which a progressive notion of human security sensitive to the dangers of securitisation might come to enjoy social and political support in the Australian context. Any discussion of a ‘project’ would seem to belie extensive disagreement about the scope and definition of human security, and whether it should be employed as a broad mobilising strategy or in the direct service of reforming state practice.
