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Argues that excessive concern with environmental security at the national level obfuscates necessary attention to the plurality of environmental security concerns at the micro‐level at which Hobbesian competition is actually conducted. An environmental policy framework that reduces plurality will merely serve to destroy the network of trust and cooperation that needs to operate at the micro‐level, and upon which macro‐level security architectures are ultimately based. To avoid this, it is necessary to devise an anti‐reductionist approach based on two objectives: first, to dismantle the ‘realist’ model of international relations (and of security generally) that focuses on states as unitary actors in sole occupation of the policy stage; second, to introduce a more comprehensive concept of security as a spectrum of interlocking entities, from the macro‐ to the micro‐level, each requiring the development and consolidation of trust relationships. Taken together, these objectives imply that environmental security be considered as a mainstream component of a stable international order and not as a mere sideshow. The chapter concludes with an analysis of four behavioural styles, which form a key cultural aspect of the micro‐level dimension of anti‐reductionism–hierarchist, individualist, egalitarian, and fatalist. Each of these implies a different approach to self‐organization, a different sort of social solidarity, and a different set of expectations from environmental security.

In Ch. 5, it was stated that security analysis is consistent with market efficiency because it interprets the news that reaches the market from firms and other sources. This chapter discusses in more detail how this interpretation is accomplished, drawing mostly on three sources: the economics of industrial organization, data on industry growth, and accounting; most of the examples are from the USA. It begins by examining the implications of market efficiency for the possible returns to be gained from security analysis, and explaining how to analyze the intrinsic value of a corporate equity by taking into account the responsiveness of the company's performance to economic growth, the structure of its industry, and its sources of competitive advantage. It also explains the insights to be gained by proper analysis of a company's financial statements. Finally, it assesses the uses and pitfalls of various shortcuts to security valuation, including the uses of price earnings ratios and Tobin's q ratio.

This chapter tackles the challenges of security in violent research contexts. It offers in-depth insights into how Judith Verwejien assessed security risks when she researched micro-dynamics of conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It also details practical forms of preparation for potential harm and how to avoid it, such as analyzing patterns of kidnappings or imaging an ambush and practising how to behave in such a situation. The chapter shows that the combination of good security analysis and realistic preparations can help minimize risks even in a highly violent context such as eastern DRC. It also analyzes what counts as knowledge on security dynamics and how does this knowledge translate into guidelines for action.

A major problem in homeland security analysis is the tendency to take a selective approach to risk assessment, focusing almost exclusively on imagining hazard scenarios (often rather extreme ones) and then analyzing the prospective consequences. Several of the steps that are crucial for risk assessment to have any real credibility are often neglected. There is also a tendency to neglect costs and to engage in conceptual clutter. This chapter sets out a basic approach to risk analysis, one that seeks to apply processes and procedures that have been standard for decades. In the process, it assesses the phenomena of probability neglect and cost neglect, of obsessive worst-case thinking, and of extreme risk aversion so often found in public and official discussions of the terrorism issue.

This chapter deals with the financial analysts’ assumption that companies have a so-called intrinsic value that can be identified and is partly reflected in the stock price. It highlights the role the search for new information plays in the endeavor to define such intrinsic value. In explaining how analysts frame, select, and weight information, it shows that, rather than being a straightforward activity, financial analysis is heavily influenced by what analysts perceive to be valuable information.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was founded in 1945 with a mandate to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living, to improve agricultural productivity, and to improve the condition of rural populations in the world. Today, FAO is the largest specialized agency in the United Nations system and is the lead agency for agriculture and rural development. FAO is composed of eight departments: Agriculture, Economic and Social, Fisheries, Forestry, Sustainable Development, Technical Cooperation, General Affairs, and Information and Administration and Finance. As an intergovernmental organization, FAO has 183 member countries plus one member organization, the European Union. Since its inception, FAO has worked to alleviate poverty and hunger by promoting agricultural development, improved nutrition, and the pursuit of food security—defined as the access of all people at all times to the food they need for an active and healthy life. Food production in the world has increased at an unprecedented rate since FAO was founded, outpacing the doubling of the world’s population over the same period. Since the early 1960s, the proportion of hungry people in the developing world has been reduced from more than 50% to less than 20%. Despite these progressive developments, more than 790 million people in the developing world— more than the total population of North America and Western Europe combined—still go hungry (FAO, 2004). FAO strives to reduce food insecurity in the world, especially in developing countries. In 1996, the World Food Summit convened by FAO in Rome adopted a plan of action aimed to reduce the number of the world’s hungry people in half by 2015. While the proper foundation of this goal lies, among others, in the increase of food production and ensuring access to food, there is also a need to monitor the current food supply and demand situation, so that timely interventions can be planned whenever the possibility of drought, famine, starvation, or malnutrition exists. With an imminent food crisis, actions need to be taken as early as possible because it takes time to mobilize resources, and logistic operations are often hampered by adverse natural or societal conditions, including war and civil strife.