The microfoundations of security and implications for governance

Broader notions of "human," or individual, security have been criticized for their conceptual ambiguity and lack of clear actionable implications. These shortcomings are significant because human security is advocated as a central concept in international governance and development. I propose studying the microfoundations of security (i.e., individual-level attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors related to security considerations) as a means of providing a theoretical and empirical basis for the idea of human security. The microfoundations approach and its focus on methodological individualism provide a methodology that corresponds closely to the theoretical underpinnings of human security. A departure point for the theoretical framework for security microfoundations is a productive literature on individual and social risk perception that has failed to penetrate the mainstream study of politics and governance. Major components of the security microfoundations framework developed here include: individual vulnerabilities and uncertainty, approaches and orientations toward insecurity, informational characteristics of the individual, and environmental patterns and processes. Empirical tests of the theoretical framework are carried out in three distinct subject areas: attitudes toward globalization, evaluation of political corruption as a threat, and the perceived threat from terrorism. The testing results demonstrate the usefulness of the security microfoundations framework as well as the importance of topical and sociopolitical context in individual security evaluations. Implications for governance are explicitly discussed.