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Flip to reveal answersWhat is the five-question frame for a security stimulus?
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All 11 Flashcards — Security: case studies & synthesis
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Question
What is the five-question frame for a security stimulus?
Answer
(1) Security for whom — state or people? (2) Threat from what — traditional or non-traditional? (3) Is it securitized, rightly? (4) Does the response calm or deepen the dilemma? (5) Who should provide protection?
Question
Why treat security as 'one connected challenge'?
Answer
Because concepts of security, changing threats, the dilemma and human-security responses interlock — a case usually involves several at once, and Paper 3 rewards synthesising them.
Question
In the case studies, what did the best response usually involve?
Answer
Combining the right tools for the threat with cooperation among several actors (states, IGOs, NGOs) — not military force alone.
Question
What is the state-centred view on what security should mean?
Answer
The state is the precondition for all other security — without it no one protects people or deters aggression — and military threats persist, so security should keep the state at its centre.
Question
What is the human-centred view?
Answer
The state is a means whose purpose is protecting people; most real insecurity is now human and non-traditional, so the individual should be the referent object.
Question
What is the judged conclusion on state vs people?
Answer
The individual is the ultimate referent object (human ends) while the state is the indispensable means — protect people, largely through capable, cooperating states, kept focused.
Question
What evidence shows security is now human as much as state-centred?
Answer
Non-traditional threats — poverty, disease, internal violence — harm most people far more than inter-state war, so where insecurity really is has shifted to the person.
Question
How should you handle a case in Paper 3?
Answer
Apply the frame to the stimulus (don't recite memorised facts): name the referent object and threat, check securitization and the dilemma, decide providers, then recommend and synthesise.
Question
Why must a security recommendation usually be a mix?
Answer
Because most threats are multi-dimensional and transnational, so no single tool or actor suffices — deterrence, cooperation, protection and development must be combined.
Question
How do you synthesise a security case?
Answer
Connect it to the wider challenge — the state-vs-human debate, changing threats, the dilemma, human-security responses — and to conflict, poverty and rights, weighing trade-offs.
Question
What is the top-band judgement Paper 3 rewards on security?
Answer
Human ends, state means: the individual is what security is ultimately for, delivered largely through capable, cooperating states, with the concept kept focused enough to act on.
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