Paper short abstract:

What are the ways to make human security idea more palatable for practitioners? This paper explores the case of nuclearised North Korea focusing on the issues of political relevance and analytical scoping.

Paper long abstract:

Despite its many virtues and novelty, critics say human security idea is practically naïve and conceptually vague, if not also subservient to primarily Western interests. To date human security analyses on North Korea made significant contributions in bringing critical attention to political atrocities and underdevelopment - and the nexus thereof - suffered by North Korean population to rationalise external intervention in such forms as international assistance or R2P. However, the language of human security has not been taken seriously among mainstream security analysts and practitioners of the Korean Peninsula. This paper argues human security risks involving a de facto nuclearised state present a qualitatively different case from other poor, insecure countries and populations. In analysing North Korea's human insecurity, for instance, it is necessary to expand the scope of the human security lens to consider how contagious nuclear security risks adversely affect human security entitlements (e.g. freedom from fear) of populations in neighbouring countries. For politicians and policy analysts in Seoul, South Korea is not only an aid provider to North Korea but also living under heightened security threat posed by the nuclearised North. Domestic politics counts. Governments may choose to prioritise nuclear non-proliferation because it affects human security of their own populations, and such a strategic decision does not necessarily make them hard-nosed realists. Unless fully addressing perennial human insecurity effects of Pyongyang's nuclear weaponry over populations in the region, human security discourse on North Korea would not be able to sustain itself against criticisms of policy irrelevance.