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The purpose of this paper is to look into how people in risky environments define human security by using the framework of the draft human security index of the Third World Studies Center, University of the Philippines to study five municipalities. The concept of human security used here is the comprehensive definition that covers “freedom from fear” and “freedom from want” dimensions but using a more local/bottom-up perspective in getting people’s sense of security and threats/risks. As a pilot research, the paper also reveals the shortcomings of the draft index as it does not highlight yet other factors like gender, ethnicity and other sectoral identities.

The pilot municipalities all have a history of violent conflicts or insurgency and they also face other security threats/risks, e.g., natural disasters and effects of climate change, limited sources of livelihood, lack of food, water shortage, etc. Through surveys, focus group discussions and interviews, people were asked about their sense of security and experiences, perceived threats to individuals and the community, understanding of human security and their capacity, as individuals and as a community, to cope with and/or do something about these threats. The focus of the manuscript, however, is the more qualitative responses of informants.

In these conflict areas, poverty and the limited livelihood opportunities are major threats, followed by threats to food, environmental, personal and community security (particularly peace and order). The perceived intensity of certain threats also varies depending on the type of community or group one belongs to. It appears that respondents have a comprehensive view of human security; what they lack are resources and skills to mitigate such threats. Community empowerment and improved local governance are crucial with support from external actors.

It is important to look at the experiences of other areas without histories of armed conflicts to understand possibly different security issues and threats/risks and include perspectives of people based on gender, ethnicity and other identities.

The research shows the value of using local/bottom-up perceptions of people apart from available development and security statistics (which are usually top-down, very general and universalistic) to assess, monitor actual and plan future interventions to address human security threats and vulnerabilities at different levels. The qualitative and quantitative data from the ground are also useful in refining human security-related concepts, hypotheses and theories.

International security is a constant threat to the pursuit of economic optimum. In the traditional economic analysis history, states are seen as agents in constant search for power, which leads to the emergence of conflicts of interests. The modern concept of security can be defined as the economic study of all the risks of short, medium and long term on the functioning of economic and social life. It can be divided into four sublevels: individual security, national security, international security and global security. The adoption of an enlarged approach to international security by integrating economic and environmental conditions highlights the expression of new collective priorities. Today, theories of security take into account the economic, human and social relationships, societal priorities and the balance of power in the international system. Human security implies a multi-disciplinary analysis, including human rights, state organisation, international relations and strategic studies. Security and sustainable development are deeply interconnected, which involves bearable production conditions for the environment in the long term, the end of extreme poverty, the creation of social stability and the rejection of discrimination.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible benefits arising from the application of the human security concept to analysing the disaster impacts.

A three-piece human security analytical tool is synthesized by combining the discoveries in human security studies over the last two decades with the perspective of disaster studies focusing on the resilience and securitabilities of the affected societies. To illustrate the merit of the proposed analytical framework a specifically tailored social survey is used to measure the resilience of Ogre’s (Latvia) society after it faces major floods in 2013. It foresees that community’s resilience is inversely proportional to the decreases along seven human security dimensions while directly proportional to the trust to different security providers.

The illustrative case study proves a larger deterioration of security and a wider scope of “socially affected” victims than could be identified with the field observations or document analysis. It also proves that the people in crisis situations clearly trust to themselves, friends and family, while much less to the conventional security providers or the local municipality or government. While the security is to be perceived more multi-faceted than homogenous, the results prove that the environmental and food security concerns due to the hazard climbed the fear rankings replacing the usually feared health security.

The paper provides several counterarguments to the critics of Human Security concept by proving its comprehensive application to any society despite its level of development, while also offering a new analytical approach to measure the security and resilience of people facing a sudden dangerous external impact, such as a natural hazard.

This paper aims to examine the interrelationships between subnational conflicts in Myanmar and other variables of interests from the following four major domains: economic, human security and vulnerability of people, aggressiveness or militancy of the armed forces and global and regional climates.

Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach has been applied on annual data from 1960-2017, to deal with the problems of autocorrelation and non-stationarity of key variables.

First, an increase in crop yield, cereal productivity, food productivity and per capita availability of arable land unequivocally and significantly lower the severity of conflict in Myanmar in the long run. Second, the authors uncover strong evidence that the intensity of conflicts bears a positive relationship with the vulnerability of the people of Myanmar. Third, the authors detect that both regional and global climate variables have limited and rather inconsistent impacts on subnational conflicts in Myanmar. Finally, the authors find that the aggressiveness (militancy index) of the armed forces has significant impacts upon subnational conflicts and economic variables of Myanmar in the long run.

This paper is completely data-driven and explains the long-term dynamics of the intensity of the civil war in Myanmar. ARDL bounds testing approach has been used to examine the interrelationships between subnational conflicts in Myanmar and other variables of interests. It is a novel approach, which overcomes the problems of autocorrelation and nonstationarity and offers reliable results.

This chapter seeks to assess if there is any evidence that overseas development assistance (ODA), through its influence upon the climate-resilient grants and development grants, has impacted Fiji's developmental goals and climate resilience as a Small Island Development State (SIDS). To broaden the framework, it develops and applies two indicators of development and climate resilience for Fiji and seeks to establish – from the time series analysis – if these indicators bear a long-term and equilibrium relationship with the ODA for Fiji. By exploiting a suitable data set, it brings three important insights into the literature on climate shocks from global warming for SIDS. There are three critical elements found from the study: first, ODA did not play any role in reducing underdevelopment (DVIT) in Fiji. Secondly, ODA played an important role in increasing sustainability, or resilience, in Fiji: an increase in ODA by 1% increased sustainability, or resilience measured by the sustainability index SUS, by 0.24% at 1% level of significance. Finally, it is noted that oil price hikes compromised Fiji's resilience or sustainability. In the short-run, both ODA and OILP compromised the sustainability of Fiji.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.