The Quest for Security

The essays in this collection boldly confront the quest for security arising from the social, economic, environmental, and political crises and transformations of our century. Some have suggested that the current turmoil in the Eurozone "proves" the deficiencies in the welfare state. This book argues that the superior performance of Scandinavian countries arises from their superior systems of social protection, which allow their citizens to undertake greater risk and more actively participate in globalization. Some suggest that we can address terrorism or transnational crimes through the strengthening of borders or the waging of long-distance wars. This book contends that these approaches have the opposite effect and that only through spreading the human security experienced in well-ordered societies can these dangers be managed. Contributors to this volume also explore the potential for cities to ensure personal security, promote political participation, and protect the environment in the face of increasing urbanization; the challenge posed by environmental insecurity resulting from climate change; and the reforms in global governance that might enable our global system to function more effectively and to address better the insecurities of our times.

The essays in this collection boldly confront the quest for security arising from the social, economic, environmental, and political crises and transformations of our century. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Mary Kaldor begin with an expansive, balanced analysis of the global landscape and the factors contributing to the growth of insecurity. Whereas earlier studies have touched on how globalization has increased economic insecurity and how geopolitical changes may have contributed to military insecurity, this volume looks for some common threads: in a globalized world without a global government, with a system of global governance not up to the task, how do we achieve security without looking inward and stepping back from globalization?

In each of their areas of expertise, contributors seek answers to questions about how we achieve protection of those people who are most insecure without resorting to economic, military, or mafia protectionism. Some have suggested that the turmoil in the Eurozone "proves" the deficiencies in the welfare state. This book argues that the superior performance of Scandinavian countries arises from their superior systems of social protection, which allow their citizens to undertake greater risk and more actively participate in globalization. Some suggest that we can address terrorism or transnational crimes through the strengthening of borders or long-distance wars. This book develops the proposition that such approaches have the opposite effect and that only through spreading the human security experienced in well-ordered societies can these dangers be managed.

This book also examines how these global changes play out, not only in the relations among countries and the management of globalization, but at every level of our society, especially in our cities. It explores the potential for cities to ensure personal security, promote political participation, and protect the environment in the face of increasing urbanization.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, former chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank, and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton. His books include Making Globalization Work; Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy; The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future; Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development (with Andrew Charlton); and Creating a Learning Society: A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress (with Bruce C. Greenwald). In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

Mary Kaldor is professor of global governance and director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at the London School of Economics. She is the author of The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace (with Shannon D. Beebe); New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era; and Global Civil Society: An Answer to War. Kaldor was a founding member of European Nuclear Disarmament and of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly. She is also convener of the Human Security Study Group, which reported to Javier Solana.

This is a near-perfect text for contemporary graduate courses outside any disciplinary 'box.'

George Papandreou, former prime minister of Greece and president of Socialist International:
The Quest for Security is one of the most comprehensive assessments of globalization's challenges published to date. From mounting income inequality to the destructive power of climate change to the threat of terrorist attacks, this timely compilation of expert insight deftly exposes where global governance has failed and offers pragmatic solutions for building a secure, sustainable, and just post-crisis world.

Javier Solana, former secretary-general of NATO:
This important book offers new thinking for exceptional times. It draws fascinating parallels between what is happening in the fields of economics, security, and the environment and demonstrates why and how global solutions are the answer to the current interlinked crises.

Ernesto Zedillo, director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former president of Mexico:
At a time when most initiatives to reinvigorate the multilateral system and its provision of global public goods are failing, it is encouraging to read the analyses and proposals contained in this volume. The key message of this excellent collection is reassuring: that the governance predicaments posed by globalization are solvable after all; the intellectual battle is not lost and it is still possible, with workable propositions, to win the political one in order to build a better international system. With strong conviction, I buy the argument.

Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist and Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University:
Our interdependent but uncoordinated world, in which we are often at loggerheads with each other, generates many different problems. In an insightful collection of contributions led by Mary Kaldor and Joseph E. Stiglitz, this wonderful book offers constructive ways of avoiding disaster with the help of global cooperation. A great book for our time.

Andrew Gamble, Cambridge University:
This book takes the many and varied challenges facing the world, from the financial crisis to global warming, and explores how new forms of governance and cooperation can be developed to solve some of them or at least mitigate their effects. This book is original and pathbreaking, and its contributors are at the forefront of thinking about these questions.

Tim Buthe, Duke University:
The Quest for Security makes for a fascinating read, made all the more timely by the current outcry—across the country and beyond—over the unequal distribution of the pains and gains from the economic changes of recent years. The book examines globalization as the multidimensional phenomenon that it is, without complexifying it to the point where the key issues become obscured. It is an important book that offers both an introduction to key issues in global governance to a general audience and advances the debate among expert scholars and policymakers with serious, constructive proposals for making economic globalization politically sustainable by improving average citizens' economic, physical, and environmental security.