Solidarity and Human Insecurity: Interpreting and Extending the HDRO’s 2022 Special Report on Human Security

ABSTRACT The 2022 UNDP Special Report on human security marks an overdue return to this focus in Human Development Reports work. It adds solidarity to the established headline strategies for human security, namely protection and empowerment. While it does not theorise solidarity far, nor connect much to relevant literatures, nor explore implications in detail, it provides an opening of doors. We comment first on the Report’s general significance. It presents itself as a rethinking of human security; it reflects also a rethinking of human development in the Anthropocene and a re-articulation of the core rationale of the United Nations system. Second, we consider how the report presents solidarity: as a required commitment to others, globally; as implication of interconnectedness; and as a required response to uncertainty. Third, we note that the report is only a beginning; it is not yet connected to generations of solidarity thinking and practice nor to present-day streams. Fourthly, we review policy implications proposed in the Report and suggest areas for next-stage attention.


Introductionthe Scope of the Special Report
The 2022 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Special Report on Human Security (UNDP 2022), by the Human Development Report Office (HDRO), includes diagnoses of problems and of limitations in existing analyses, and proposals for enriched analysis and policy response. The report notes high and increasing levels of insecurity, both "objective" insecurity (e.g. in terms of environmental threats, health threats, violence, displacement) and felt insecurity, not least in countries whose "objective" measures of development (e.g. incomes, education, longevity) have improved and/or were already high. It notes the impacts of global interconnections, intersections and feedbacks across many sectors and populations, that can generate unforeseen effects, exclusions, reactions and crises. It highlights too the correlation of felt insecurity with low levels of trust. The Special Report (SR) proposes a revival and intensification of research on human (in)security, including through use of an Index of Perceived Human Security for study of levels of felt insecurity and their implications for politics, conflict and (lack of) solidarity.
Its policy agenda centres on, first, promotion of "agency", people's ability to reflect on their situation and formulate, negotiate and act upon objectives. This "agency" agenda is familiar fare within human development circles and faces the objection that far from all forms of agency are constructive and desirable. Agency needs to be partnered by a human-wide solidarity. The 2022 SR's most striking contribution is thus, secondly, its call for greater solidarity. It adds solidarity to the headline strategies for advancing human security goals protection and empowerment (the latter of which can be seen as promotion of agency) (CHS 2003). An emphasis on solidarity has profound consequences in thinking about human security ideas and their operationalisation, including in regard to agency. The report does not explore these in detail. Our commentary offers initial reflections to situate and supplement UNDP's proposal.

Significance of the Report -Rethinking Human Security and Human Development
The report represents an enrichment of human development thinking, through treating human security ideas more centrally and seriously than has been done in HDRO since the 1994 Human Development Report (HDR) led by Mahbub ul Haq. That study sought to reorient the language of "security" to include people's security. But: Just as human development for [Haq] was more than a humanizing addition of health and education concerns to economic growth, so "human security" meant securing what is humanly central, not only humanising an existing state security discourse by a concern for the physical security of persons. (Gasper 2005, 223) Subsequently though, in the economic growth-dominated 1990s and 2000s, UN human security analyses served mainly to support concerns for stability in lives and livelihoods, in response for example to the 1997-1998 Asian economic crisis and regional conflicts that preceded the work of the Commission on Human Security (CHS) in 2001-2003. This orientation continued in response to the global financial and economic crisis from 2008 and led up to the 2012 General Assembly resolution on human security.
The new report presents itself as updating the concept of human security, by which it means the CHS formulation (UNDP 2022, 27). 1 Besides the stress on felt insecurities, it articulates the need for a respecification for the Anthropocene era; its predecessor, the 2020 Human Development Report, already employed, for example, the term "humanity security". Strangely, the SR does not mention the extensive work on environment and human security from the 1990s onwards, as in the Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) programme of 1999-2010 and the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security since 2003. But indeed the 2003 CHS formulation remained the framework in UN headquarters. The Special Report argues emphatically that: "Recognizing that our development patterns drive human insecurity forces us to revisit the human security concept and understand what it implies for the Anthropocene" (2). We do not merely exist in an environment but are inextricably part of it; failure to see our total interconnectedness contributes to insecurity. Implicitly this requires a review of human development too; thus, "Part I of the Report shows how the human security concept helps identify blind spots when development is assessed simply by measuring achievements in wellbeing … " (3).
Relative to the 2003 CHS report, the 2022 SR adds to conceptualisation by including fuller attention to felt insecurity. It extends the analytical framework, by attention to growing inequality, to trust and to possible causes of declining trust. 2 It partly indicates but does not fully address how ever-increasing levels of economic production and consumption, individual freedom and agency, might often undermine felt security. 3 Its call for increased solidarity functions at the level of human security thinking as a policy philosophy (Gómez and Gasper 2022), not yet at the level of concrete policy approaches or proposals, as we will see.
The Special Report marks, still, a welcome recognition and reaffirmation of core themes behind the creation, rationale and aspirations of the United Nations. It notes how the human security concept has since the 1940s, first using other labels, and then since the 1990s using this label, "capture[d] the core of the intersection of human rights, peace and development, building on the UN foundational documents" (UNDP 2022, 25). It articulates a renewed emphasis on core UN principles, including solidarityrecognition of shared fate, mutual concern and mutual obligationsas seen too in the 2015 Paris Declaration.
Solidarity is not a newcomer in human security thinking. It was highlighted for example in the 1994 HDR, especially in proposals for "global compacts". However, subsequent HDRs have treated human security only relatively marginally, and human development thinking itself has sometimes remained relatively marginal in UNDP and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Much work there continued to prioritise unending economic growth. One hopes that this Special Report, in partnership with the related 2020 and 2021/2022 HDRs, can stimulate better integrated and more probing analyses, and help to advance reconsideration within the UN system and beyond.
While the SR has not theorised solidarity far, nor connected much to relevant literatures, it provides a welcome pushing open of these doors and an invitation to subsequent work.

Solidarity in the Special Report
-Solidarity as commitment to others The idea of solidarity plays three roles in the report. The first is in regard to the directions for agency. Solidarity is about the commitment and collaboration of different actors, to and with each other, locally and around the planet. It complements and reframes the idea of the responsibility to protect. UNDP makes clear that solidarity is not (only) about charity, "[n]or something that subsumes the individual to the interests of a collective but [concerns] a call to pursue human security through 'the eyes of humankind'" (2022, 141; also 7). Solidarity emerges from our shared humanity and our obligations that go beyond those in our national communities. It includes, besides commitment to assist others, also "commitment to work together [, specifically] to navigate the challenges of the Anthropocene" (2022, 29).
The report recognises that agency includes holding values and making commitments "regardless of whether they advance one's wellbeing" (6). This opens the door to talk about sacrifices required in the provision of security. 4 Examples could include the problematising of production and consumption patterns, and the parts played by essential workers during a pandemic. These themes are not explored in the report but can inspire future research.
-Solidarity as child of interconnectedness The second use of the idea of solidarity in the Report is in emphasising interconnectedness. Solidarity "is only misleadingly analogous to altruism. An individual sentiment, altruism is generally confined to narrow circles of the likeminded. Solidarity, in those few instances where it has been realised, has been the outcome of a generalized and reciprocal self-interest", argued Baldwin (1990, cited by Liedman 2002. Baldwin contrasted "philanthropy which is based on the dependence of one party on the otherand solidaritywhich is based on interdependence" (Liedman 2002, 12). The SR's appeal for action is based on the multiple complex causes and effects of global threats in our era, epitomised by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The theme of solidarity assists us to recognise the bonds that connect us with the future of others and the planet. Again, interconnectedness across people has been part of the human security canon from the beginning. The Anthropocene framing of this report stresses also interactions between people and planet, but solidarity is arguably usually based on a shared identity (Forst 2021) and this generally does not extend beyond humans. 5 Existing examples of considering non-human animals and non-animate environments generally fail to cover the whole planet and instead often approach the problem from a justice perspective, which will in part be different from a security one.
-Solidarity in the face of uncertainty The third role of solidarity in the Report concerns the challenges of confronting uncertainty. Pervasive interconnectedness entails that we have only a limited and biased understanding of the problems we are facing. Solutions that cater to narrowly conceived constituencies fail to reflect the complexity of the threats, the impacts of their effects and of our responses on our interactions with others around the globe, and the alternative approaches that others can offer. The need to escape parochialism has been central in Sen's work, following Adam Smith, and in his emphasis on constantly reviewing and improving our assessments. Solidarity is then both a motivation to help and a call for caution. Slaughter (2005, 627) explains this latter: solidarity requires that states deciding on action be required to envision the consequences of that action through others' eyes; that they hear the issues at stake debated from multiple perspectives; that they be required to confront evidence contrary to their own.

On Solidarity -What is not in the Report
The SR's appeal for solidarity appears somewhat circumstantial and aspirational. Circumstantial in that it echoes the UN Secretary-General's 2021 report Our Common Agenda, which presented the need for solidarity as a critical lesson from the disarray in international cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2021. The motto "no one is safe until everyone is safe" summarises the lesson (UN Secretary-General 2021, 14). Second, the appeal appears aspirational for it is not yet extensively theorised and elaborated. It does not follow the definition of solidarity in the Secretary-General's report, which came from a 2003 General Assembly resolution. 6 Instead, it uses a definition reported in a background paper on vulnerability and creativity: "broadly, a sympathetic and imaginative enactment of collaborative measures to enhance our given or acquired relatedness so that together we fare well enough" (UNDP 2022, 29). This is the only definition of solidarity that we found in 105 usages in the Special Report. The report also mentions the relevance of the theme of common securitythat one cannot be sustainably secure if those with whom one interacts are insecure, not least if they come to feel insecure through one's own security measures. 7 Otherwise, it has little theorisation of solidarity and does not draw on the extensive academic literatures. Only one of the around 800 items in the listed References includes "solidarity" in its title.
Solidarity is a theme with at least two centuries of extensive written reflection: from around the French Revolution's declaration of liberté, égalité et fraternité and the 1804 Napoleonic Code's inclusion of solidarité; 8 through nineteenth-century explorations by Pierre Leroux, Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim; its adoption as a pillar of Catholic social teaching and by twentieth-century authors like Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty; and more, until the present day (Wilde 2013). 9 Durkheim's 1893 The Division of Labour in Society contrasted the "mechanical solidarity" in relatively homogeneous societies that have limited division of labour, with the "organic solidarity" in more differentiated societies that have extensive division of labour. He not only described forms of solidarity, but he also advocated it as the foundation for a good society (Liedman 2002). Solidarity was the declared theme of the 1900 Paris Exhibition Universelle. Later, "the concept and language of solidarity [were] institutionalised in their programmes" by both social democratic and Christian democratic parties, in different ways (Stjerno 2011, 20). In the past generation, the "solidarity economy" movement has studied and promoted forms of action that are not predominantly guided by monetary profit. The International Labor Organization (ILO) and others have followed this up under the banner of "social and solidarity economy". 10 Many authors dissect and assess interpretations of solidarity. Stjerno, for example, posits four different aspects of the concept: [1] The boundaries of solidarityor its degree of inclusiveness. Who is included and who is excluded? … [2] The foundation or sources of solidarity. Is solidarity built upon self-interest or upon the interests of a community? Is solidarity founded in homogeneity and equality? … Is the source of solidarity found in ethics, in altruism, in reason, or in the empathy we have with those who are suffering or are oppressed? [3] The goal of solidarity. … Does solidarity contribute to social change, reform or revolution? Should solidarity unite different classes? … [4] The degree in which collective interests pre-empt individual interests" (Stjerno 2011, 2) Different interpretations of the first two aspects (boundaries, foundations) represent fundamental choices. First, is solidarity because of self-interest given interdependence, or because of commitment to others? The SR stresses both. Second, solidarity only with an identity group, mobilised in reaction to other identity groups, or universal solidarity? The SR stresses the latter. How though to advance especially such wider solidarity? The Report advocates "appeals to protect [innocent] others from threats", rather than more abstract calls for those with more to help those with less (UNDP 2022, 29). Later it endorses "broad realization of human rights" (108), which implies an agenda for cooperation with human rights scholars and practitioners. 11 The highlighting of solidarity in human security thinking does more than emphasise "commitment" (agency for the well-being and freedoms of others), interconnectedness and uncertainty. The implications of solidarity help elaborate the policy philosophy underlying human security propositions (Gómez and Gasper 2022). They are particularly relevant in clarifying human security ideas' place between human rights and humanitarianism. Solidarity has been presented as characteristic of a community of equals, the conception underlying human rights, in contrast to social mobilisation through compassion and pity, the conception characteristic of response in humanitarian crises (Flynn 2020). A solidarity perspective helps problematise excessive paternalism in our responses to crises (Barnett 2017) and suggests some expected qualities for security provision: more consensual (mutually agreed, reciprocal), based on a deep understanding of threats and measures, and with respect for human dignity.
Solidaristic human security practice could reconfigure the hierarchies of international actors. For threats are not restricted to "developing" countries, and both vulnerabilities and capabilities can be found everywhere. Solidarity should question a Western-centric model of international cooperation and assumptions that solutions will flow from North to South. This is not discussed in the SR, which still concentrates on the traditional developmental divide.
As Forst (2021) points out, solidarity like agency can be used for both good and bad purposes. The 2022 Report is aware of this, and of how personal agency needs to be combined with solidarity with others, all others, as well as vice versa, that solidarity needs to be combined with agency, for otherwise it is impotent. Solidarity can offer motivation and tools to confront emerging and re-emerging threats but is not sufficient. We need to fill its content, doing our best to avoid parochialism and to refrain from unintended harm; we can still fail. Failures can menace shared identity and potentially derail the original vision of common humanity. Yet solidarity among only like-minded actors will not be enough against the challenges ahead.

Some Possible Policy Implications and Areas for Follow-on Work
We remarked earlier that the SR's call for increased solidarity functions at the level of human security thinking as a policy philosophy (Gómez and Gasper 2022), and less as yet at the level of concrete policy approaches or proposals. We look here, lastly, at possible action implications, and add suggestions for subsequent work, including underlining some points we made earlier. One has to beware though of premature and overgeneralised policy implications. We are commenting, within a short paper, on a report of vast scope; its theme of solidarity is immense and contains major uncertainties, tensions and dilemmas.
Solidarity, both local and global solidarity, is an essential partner to human development thinking's perennial stress on promotion of agency. Part One of the SR indicates how ever-increasing levels of economic production and consumption, individual freedom and agency, may often undermine felt security.
It does not fully address how to respond or how to operationalise its call for solidarity as third pillar of a human security approach. Part Two , consisting of four more sectoral chapterson digital technology, violent conflict, inequality and healthcareoffers some policy suggestions, certain of which can be relevant in the discussion of solidarity. We point to them here. For each chapter one could further ask how they relate to awareness of interconnectedness, shared fate and shared uncertainty.
1. HDRO perhaps came relatively late to the notion of solidarity during work for the SR and could not research it far; so one action implication is for a substantial synthesising review or reviews of work on solidarity. This could be executed within the UN system, perhaps as the focus of a future Human Development Report and/or through cross-agency partnership, and/or by associated networks. 2. Ch.3 on digital technologies says nothing on solidarity, even though social media seem often to undermine it. This is an obvious area for literature review and research, within and beyond the synthesising review suggested in point 1. (The 2022 HDR has made a start.) 3. Ch.4 on violent conflict, primarily intranational, notes that conflict harms trust and solidarity but has little more to say there. In contrast,  give attention to mental illness, often as an effect of conflict but also more broadly (Box 6.1). This is a welcome advance in HDRO work and deserves further attention, perhaps in partnership with the World Health Organization and others. (A first step has been taken in the 2022 HDR.) 4. Ch.5 considers growing inequality and possible causes of declining trust, relevant to solidarity's practical requirements. We saw that it makes little or no reference to the streams of research and practice on social capital and "social and solidarity-based economy". Next-stage work must include these, perhaps in partnership with the ILO and other relevant organisations. 5. Ch.5 argues that reducing horizontal intranational inequalities is part of solidarity (109). Its suggestions on how to do so appear rather general and optimistic. First, more agency supposedly helps solidarity; "Agency can be the basis for solidarity" (107; also p.93). Second, people's multiplicity of affiliations may provide potential for solidarity, for intersectional analysis can show how different people have various things in common (93, 108); and strengthened agency increases capacity to do this social knitting (107). Third, it alludes to the mutual-interest principle of common security: solidarity towards others by respect for their rights increases the chances that one's own rights will be respected. All these suggestions have both some plausibility and limits; next-stage work should articulate those in more depth, from available literatures. 6. Ch.6, on health, is the most substantive in drawing policy implications. This is not surprising: the logic of public health (including risk-sharing and "no one is safe until everyone is safe") has been at the heart of human security thinking. This logic has been highlighted in the pandemic, which "showed the need for, presence in many cases internally, and absence internationally of, solidarity" (133). The chapter plausibly advances health as a leading sector for efforts to build solidarity (119-120), and advocates "Universal healthcare … as a strategy that advances human security through protection, empowerment and solidarity and links to a broader international consensus expressed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aspiration to leave no one behind" (129). 7. In further work, systematically distinguishing local, national, regional and global solidarity will require deeper attention. The most difficult and most lacking is global solidarity. We can analyse it in terms of sense of awareness of interconnectedness, shared fate and shared uncertainty. The French development ethicist L.-J. Lebret argued that "only the community of destiny can bring solidarity to men who share spiritually or materially the same existence, when they are subject to the same risks" (Astier and Laé 1991, 91); and that solidarity requires also intercultural respect, building from the values in each civilisation (e.g. Lebret 1963). 8. Regarding means of persuasion, we saw that the Report plausibly advocates, first, appeals to protect innocent others from threats, rather than more abstract calls for those who have more to help those with less; and, second, the language of human rights, which implies an agenda for cooperation with human rights scholars and practitioners. 9. Thinking of a community of equals, the conception underlying human rights, implies solidaristic practice and reducing the hierarchies amongst international actors. 10. We need to talk about sacrifices required to ensure security, including through changing of production and consumption patterns. The HDRs of 1998 and 2011 on consumption and sustainability sidestepped this issue; the Reports of 2020 and 2021/22, together with this Special Report, are slightly braver; and future work must address it.
Notes 1. The Report is outdated on human security literatures more broadly (see, e.g. 37's reliance on a 2007 publication for its list of criticisms). 2. Strangely, it makes virtually no reference to the literatures on social capital. But the Report does open the door to the huge problem of mental illness (Box 6.1); and the subsequent 2021/22 Human Development Report has started to address this challenge. 3. The Special Report is admirably clear on the general point: "the patterns of development that we have been pursuing inflict many of the drivers of insecurity we are confronting" (UNDP 2022, 14). displacement, conflict, pandemics, climate change). He was a Research Fellow at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute for five years and has helped drafting several papers for UNDP Human Development Reports (2014,2016,2020,2022). Recent publications include edited books on Human Security Norms in East Asia (Palgrave), Crisis Management Beyond the Humanitarian-Development Nexus (Routledge), and papers such as "Localization or deglobalization? East Asia and the dismantling of liberal humanitarianism" in Third World Quarterly, and "Japan and the international humanitarian system: In the periphery by design, principle or strategy?" in Asian Journal of Comparative Politics.