Event Title

Towards More Complicated Human Security: Solving the Measurement Paradox

Presenter Information

Sage Vousé, Oberlin CollegeFollow

Location

King Building 239

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-27-2019 2:00 PM

End Date

4-27-2019 3:20 PM

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Cold War and in preparation for the 1995 World Summit on Social Development, Pakistani theorist Mahbub ul Haq argued that global security should include economic, food, health, environmental, personal, and community security. This idea of an expanded and human-focused threat model, referred to as human security, readily ballooned into multiyear discussion of the failings of national security, the benefits of rejecting nationally-based security models, and the nature of safety itself. Since the 1995 definition of human security, approximately seven different measurement methodologies have emerged. None of these methodologies encompass every part of the 1995 definition. A decade into human security discourse it was concluded that the potential to measure human security was bottlenecked by a paradox: the more a definition attempted to encompass of Mahbub ul Haq’s definition, the less tractable and feasible it became. This project demonstrates that an interdisciplinary, quantitative approach can potentially solve this paradox, directing the literature towards issues of data science and ethics which increasingly govern our age. To do so, it outlines a tractable means of quantifying, combining, and analyzing each subsection of the 1995 definition and, as a case study, shows how survey data collected in the Current Population Survey by the United States Census Bureau can be utilized to form a predictive model for food security.

Keywords:

Computer Science, Decision Tree, Data Science

Notes

Session IV, Panel 9 - Political | Economy
Moderator: Charmaine Chua, Assistant Professor of Politics

Major

Computer Science

Advisor(s)

Roberto Hoyle, Computer Science

Project Mentor(s)

Adam Eck, Computer Science

April 2019

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COinS
 
Apr 27th, 2:00 PM Apr 27th, 3:20 PM

Towards More Complicated Human Security: Solving the Measurement Paradox

King Building 239

In the aftermath of the Cold War and in preparation for the 1995 World Summit on Social Development, Pakistani theorist Mahbub ul Haq argued that global security should include economic, food, health, environmental, personal, and community security. This idea of an expanded and human-focused threat model, referred to as human security, readily ballooned into multiyear discussion of the failings of national security, the benefits of rejecting nationally-based security models, and the nature of safety itself. Since the 1995 definition of human security, approximately seven different measurement methodologies have emerged. None of these methodologies encompass every part of the 1995 definition. A decade into human security discourse it was concluded that the potential to measure human security was bottlenecked by a paradox: the more a definition attempted to encompass of Mahbub ul Haq’s definition, the less tractable and feasible it became. This project demonstrates that an interdisciplinary, quantitative approach can potentially solve this paradox, directing the literature towards issues of data science and ethics which increasingly govern our age. To do so, it outlines a tractable means of quantifying, combining, and analyzing each subsection of the 1995 definition and, as a case study, shows how survey data collected in the Current Population Survey by the United States Census Bureau can be utilized to form a predictive model for food security.