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Week One: January 7th
*Both readings from this week are dated, being from 2010*
Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko; Poverty and Violent Conflict: Re-thinking Development
The freedom to live without fear and freedom from want for all people, and the freedom to live in
dignity, are the three pillars of the Secretary-General’s 2005 Agenda In larger Freedom
Today’s wars are increasingly concentrated in the poorest countries of the world. More than half
of the countries that have been affected by conflict since 1990 are low-income countries, up from
just over a 1/3 in 1980.
In the 1990s, 9/10 of the countries ranked lowest in the Human Development Index (HDI) were
affected by violent conflict, as were 7/10 with lowest GDP, 5/10 with lowest life expectancy, 9/10
with highest infant mortality, and 9/18 countries whose HDI was on the decline.
A third of all violent conflicts in from 1990 to 2003 occurred in Africa, the world’s poorest region.
“The battle of peace has to be fought on two fronts. The first front is the security front, where
victory spells freedom from fear. The second is the economic and social front, where victory means
freedom from want. Only victory on both fronts can assure the world of an enduring peace”
The Bretton Woods Institutions were created to assist with the reconstruction of war-torn countries
and the socioeconomic development of newly emerging nations. The Cold War drastically shifted
international priorities and the early commitment to addressing poverty became subordinate to the
dynamics of political and military rivalry between two superpowers and their respective blocs.
Now, there is a renewed recognition that peace and development are interrelated and should be
pursued together; that global security threats are inextricably intertwined with the challenge of
global poverty; and that the two objectives of security and development are not only important
ends in themselves but that each can be used as a means to achieve the other.
*If the problems of poverty and violent conflict are interrelated, they need to be addressed through
a coherent agenda with mutually reinforcing priorities, instruments, and approaches.
*This chapter focuses primarily on development aid, examining debates about its priorities and
ongoing efforts to coordinate its approaches.
-The overall thrust of international development are still not tailored to addressing conflict.
Development-Conflict Links
It became clear that understanding the linkage- identifying both the mechanisms by which war’s
destructive impact undermined development in both the short and long term and the roles of
economic and social factors in conflict- was imperative for policymaking.
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 This entails a new direction in the fields of both development and conflict research,
bringing an economic perspective to the understanding of the origins, evolution, and impact
of conflict. Consider economic motives and dynamics that were key among the root causes
of violent conflict.
Studies have found strong evidence that economic and political-economy factors can be underlying
causes or exacerbators of conflict.
-Dispels theory that ancient hatreds explain majority of post-Cold War conflicts
(That theory was from the argument advanced by Samuel P. Huntington)
Hence, the international community must examine causal linkages. These links fall into two areas:
1. The consequences of conflict for development
2. Economic and structural factors as causes of conflict
Consequences of Conflict for Development
With Today’s civil wars, civilians, not soldiers, are the main victims. That is because income falls
as job opportunities shrink, nutrition deteriorates with disruptions to the food supplies, and diseases
spreads as populations move. Those consequences are seen through indicators like infant and child
mortality rates. They show that children and women tend to be especially vulnerable in most
situations.
Civil wars have many indirect consequences that compromise long-term development in diverse
and complex ways. Undermine the economy, and as GDP shrinks, government revenues decline,
and their resources are diverted to the war effort. Wars also weaken government administration,
social institutions, social networks, and trust among people.
While these destructive consequences of war may be inevitable, economists argue that government
policies and the actions of the international community can either exacerbate or mitigate the impact
of conflict on the economy and on human well-being.
-In short, when the national government does not abandon its developmental role, the nation as a
whole is less negatively impacted by war. An important implication is that it is better to not
withdraw support to the economy or resort exclusively to humanitarian relief efforts. Indeed,
actions such as economic sanctions and withdrawal of aid or trade often have adverse
consequences.
Structural Factors as Underlying Causes of Conflict
The factors that increase a country’s risk of violent internal conflict:
1. Low incomes and stagnant growth
2. Horizontal inequalities and the exclusion of cultural-identity groups
3. Environmental pressure
4. Demographic structures and the youth bulge
5. Dependence on mineral resources
6. Failure to manage spillovers from conflicts in neighboring states.
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*It is not any single factor but rather the mutual influence of various factors that increases a
country’s vulnerability to conflict. Hence, view various factors as not competing but
complementary theories, which operate and intersect.
->often creates low opportunity cost for waging war
Correlations to consider from studies:
1. There is a strong statistical correlation between low levels of GDP per capita and the risk
of conflict.
2. A country’s rate of growth is also inversely correlated with the risk of conflict.
3. High risk of conflict reoccurring after a society has experienced internal war.
*Those correlations show that once a country experiences conflict, it can get trapped in a vicious
cycle whereby poverty undermines prospects for peace and conflict undermines prospects for
development.
Three takeaways for implications for the International Development Agenda:
1. Conflict is a source of poverty and undermines long-term development.
2. Structural factors are among the underlying causes of conflict and need to be addressed to
reduce the vulnerability to conflict.
3. To mitigate the poverty impact of conflict and because economic and social policies during
the conflict affect both humans’ well-being and longer-term development, attempts must
be made to continue development policies, sustain the economy, maintain macroeconomic
stability, provide social services, and ensure that people do not lose their basic entitlements
to food, health care, and income-earning activity must be made to help mitigate the poverty
impact of conflict.
Aligning International Development Priorities: More Aid for Peace
Neoliberal policies that promote international trade and investment as the engine of growth are not
geared to addressing the persistent development problems of low-income countries that are also at
high risk of insecurity. It is increasingly clear that “Development actors can no longer afford to
work in or around conflict; they also need to work on conflict”
-Need to tailor development aid to address the structural factors at the root of a given conflict.
The primary focus of development aid has so far been on responding to conflict and post-conflict
contexts rather than on incorporating conflict prevention objectives more generally into
development agenda.
The international aid community has increasingly come to focus on questions of aid effectiveness
and gave priority to countries that were considered good performers based on the quality of their
policies and institutions. Is the result of a desire within the donor community to show results and
demonstrate effectiveness in aid spending in the context of a decline in political support for aid in
donor countries.
*Problem with effectiveness aid model is that it marginalizes the neediest countries and those most
at risk- even though there is a growing understanding of the special needs of those countries.
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Hence, low-income problems facing serious entrenched problems are often not given development
aid.
That problem has begun to change post 9/11 as there is increasing attention being paid to fragile
states. The most common definition of a fragile state involves the two bottom quintiles of the
World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA). This incorporates
measurements policies for economic management, structural policies, social inclusion and poverty
reduction, and the management and institutions of the public sector.
Aligning International Cooperation Instruments: Aid for Peace
Although the policy objectives of international aid has been conceptualized as economic growth,
development aid inevitably has a significant impact on the internal political dynamics of a country
by virtue of the fact that it brings sizable resources and international endorsement to one or another
political actor.
*One realization that came from studying preconditions of Rwanda genocide is that aid can be
neutral, as it impacts political dynamics in recipient country. This can either contribute to the
dynamic of violence or the dynamic of peace.
Development aid and conflict are intertwined in multiple ways:
1. Aid can unintentionally perpetuate conflict
2. Aid can be a powerful tool for peacebuilding.
3. Aid can provide incentives for conflict prevention.
4. Aid can promote development even during war
5. Aid can have a devastating impact on development once it is withdrawn and sanctions are
implemented.
Aid given before, during, or after a violent conflict can reinforce tensions and repressive behaviour.
During a conflict, aid can worsen tensions among group and even strengthen the leadership of
warring factions.
Aid can also be used intentionally for peace, as in situations of rising tension, aid can be applied
deliberately to shift the dynamics in favour of reducing tensions. It can act as an incentive to
influence the behaviour of repressive regimes, help strengthen pro-peace actors’ capacities, change
relations between conflicting actors, and/or influence the socioeconomic environment in which
conflict and peace dynamics take place.
-Can promote the socioeconomic and political inclusion of marginalized groups and help reduce
the horizontal inequalities that feed grievance. It can also help build state capacity in delivering
basic social services, which bolsters the legitimacy of the state.
*It is not known how effective it is to disincentives violence by threatening to cut off recipient
states’ funds, as donors often lack coordination and there is a large opportunity cost to
development.
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Economic sanctions are highly problematic for three reasons:
1. Sanctions have devastating consequences for ordinary citizens and destroy institutions that
are necessary for long-term development.
2. Sanctions have a spillover effects on neighbouring countries that depend on trade routes
through the countries in question.
3. Sanctions are a weak instrument for changing the behaviour of a regime. The strengthen
the ruling elite. Provide elite with an excuse to blame the international community for
deteriorating conditions in their country.
*Hence, comprehensive and trade sanctions effectively penalize the population of the country
rather than the targeted political elite. Now, there is an effort to implement targeted sanctions that
are aimed at specific actors, but these are hard to design and implement. Targeted sanctions require
an analysis of the vulnerabilities of the ruling elite; the monitoring of implementation by tracking
flows of goods, capital, and travel; and measures to penalize sanction busting.
**Still, sanctions remain the main non-military tool the international community can use against
regimes that patently breach human rights and international law.
Reconceptualizing Aid: New Priorities, New Approaches
If conflict prevention is an end in itself as well as a means to development, aid can be as much an
investment in conflict preventions as in development and economic growth. Its effectiveness
should be judged against both an economic benchmark and also against its contribution to building
democratic governance.
*Particularly important that socioeconomic policies prioritize and target specific vulnerabilities
that can exacerbate insecurity and conflict.
“The restoration of security, peace, and stability; the establishment of functioning institutions and
basic administrative capacity; the rebuilding of the trust and confidence of society in the state; and
the protection and participation of women are preconditions for development and aid
effectiveness”
Whole-government approaches (WGAs) represent a greater push for policy coherence and
corresponding institutional and operational reforms. Goals are defined as the 3-Ds (Development,
diplomacy, and defense) or 4-Ds that include democracy.
WGA can point to gaps, contradictions, and dilemmas across policy sectors- to help avoid conflict
and counterproductive strategies.
*But WGAs are intertwined with national interests and may involve competing priorities.
Millennium Security Goals (MSGs):
1. Reduce the number, length, and intensity of conflicts between and within states
2. Reduce the number and severity of terrorist attacks.
3. Reduce the number of refugees and displaced persons.
4. Regulate the arms trade.
5. Reduce the extent and severity of core human rights violations.
6. Protect civilians and reduce women and children’s participation and victimization in war.
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7. Reverse weapons proliferation and achieve progress toward nuclear, radiological,
chemical, and biological disarmament.
8. Combat transnational crime and illegal trafficking.
World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report pages 49-93
*Interstate and civil wars have declined since peaking in the early 1990s
Repeated Violence Threatens Development
There has been progress in developing global and regional standards to check the violent or
coercive exercise of power. New norms and associated sanctions to protect human rights have also
made it possible to prosecute leaders for using extreme violence and coercion against their citizens.
Modern violence comes in various forms and repeated cycles:
The tendency to see violence as interstate warfare and major civil war obscures the variety and
prevalence of organized violence and underestimates its impact on people. This violence is often
recurrent, with many countries now experiencing repeated cycles of civil conflict and criminal
violence.
-The different types of violence often have direct links to each other. In other cases, violence may
be linked through underlying institutional weaknesses, as national institutions cannot address
violence.
*Terrorism is defined in this report as the use of force by nonstate actors against civilians. Concern
about the elements of movements that pose particular threats to governance and development,
along with their ability to recruit and to operate across national boundaries and the diverse
motivations of those who join.
*Drugs connect some of the wealthiest and poorest areas of the world in mutual violence, showing
that many solutions to violence require a global perspective. The money that drugs provide enables
organized criminals to corrupt and manipulate even the most powerful societies- to the ultimate
detriment of the urban poor.
-The illicit activities of organized crime require the absence of rule of law and hence, often thrive
in countries affected by other forms of violence.
-Countries affected by political violence that have weak institutions are particularly susceptible to
trafficking.
*Today’s violence occurs in repeated cycles*
-Recurring civil wars have become a dominant form of armed conflict. Every civil war that began
since 2003 was a resumption of a previous civil war. Moreover, successful peace agreements are
often followed by high levels of criminal violence.
*The developmental consequences of violence are severe*
While some of these losses can be directly measured and quantified in economic terms, others are
not easily measured.
-Trauma, loss of social capital and trust, prevention cost, and forgone investment in trade.
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-The most vulnerable groups in society are frequently most affected by violence. Extends beyond
physical harm, including poor child nutrition, lack of school infrastructure, lack of household
assets, and a fear of accessing basic social services or public spaces.
*There is a disruptive effect of violence on development, which has contributed to the widening
gap between countries affected by violence and those not affected. Also spillover effect.
In some cases, sexual and gender-based violence occurs due to a breakdown of social and moral
order and to increased impunity, but the threat and perpetration of sexual and physical violence
against women and children can also be used as a systematic weapon of war- to dominate, to
terrorize, to humiliate.
*A major consequence of violence is the displacement of people from their homes. And developing
countries are also hosts to the vast majority of refugees, putting additional strains on their local
and national capacities. Most forced displacements now are caused by internal armed conflicts,
rather than international conflicts. Populations movements to urban centers have increased the
potential for crime, social tension, communal violence, and political instability. There are also no
longer large-scale repatriation movements like in the past.
*People in fragile and conflict-affected states are more likely to be impoverished, to miss out on
schooling, and to lack access to basic health services. Violence has a lasting effect on human rights.
*One reason for the persistence of low growth in conflict-affected countries may be the difficulty
of reassuring investors, both domestic and foreign. Although there is often a post-violence surge
of economic activity, it is unlikely to be investment-based activity that reflects renewed investor
confidence.
Vulnerability to Violence p.101
Economic, political, and security factors can all exacerbate the risk of violence. Some of these
factors are domestic, such as low incomes, high unemployment, and inequality of different sorts.
Some factors may originate outside of state, such as external economic shocks or drug cartels/
foreign fighters. These triggers of violence are “security, economic, and justice stresses.”
-literature often debates whether causes of conflict are “greed versus grievance.”
*Justice and jobs can work together to promote confidence and help to deliver citizen security.
*Low income reduces the opportunity cost of engaging in violence.
In interstate war, a pre-emptive move based on perceptions of the other state’s intentions is called
a “security dilemma.” If one state believes another is preparing to attack, it may decide to strike
first to give itself a decisive advantage. There is a security dilemma amongst ethnic and religious
groups in civil wars.
Outside resources and armed intervention may tip the scales in favor of one actor, allowing it to
renege on agreements with other actors.
*Slow-developing, low-income economies that are largely dependent on natural resources are 10
times more likely than others to experience civil war. Low per capita income is also highly
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correlated with low institutional capabilities. Countries have political and institutional
characteristics that determine both their capability to address violence and the level of governance
necessary for economic growth.
*Unemployment and violence may be related through respect, social justice, and social identity
dynamics rather than pure cost-benefit motives. Hence, employment, identity, and perceptions of
social justice are intertwined. For example, the insecure and demeaning nature of legal work
opportunities compared with gang membership.
-> often provides support, trust, and cohesion aka social capital
Demographic shifts create stresses on societies- rapid urbanization is associated with weakened
social cohesion and increased risks of violence.
*Injustices and exclusion can serve as stressors for conflict. The political exclusion of particular
groups is based on race, ethnicity, religion, or geographical location and origin.
-Economic and social inequality and perceived injustice matter. Security and economic stresses
may be amplified by the way people perceive their identity- and their treatment of others is based
on that identity.
-The combination of political and socioeconomic exclusion, especially when perceived to be from
government policy, can be used to support narratives of social injustice.
Stresses related to security, economics, and politics can increase the risk of violence and combine
to precipitate actual violence. But actual combinations of stresses and the pathways to violent
conflict are highly specific to country circumstances.
Week 2: January 14th -20th
Mapping the Security-Development Nexus: Conflict, Complexity, Cacophony,
Convergence? (Stern & Ojendal, 2010)
*Suggests a possible framework for mapping the multiple understandings that underlie specific
articulations of the ‘security-development nexus’ in order to reveal the ways in which meaning
may shift in different (yet seemingly similar) contexts.
-The notion of a ‘nexus’ seems to provide a possible framework for acutely needed progressive
policies designed to address the complex policy problems and challenges of today.
Current academic debates reveals how notions of both ‘security’ and ‘development’ emerge from
disparate ontologies, refer to many different empirical realities and processes, and evoke much
contestation over meaning.
On one hand, ‘security’ and ‘development’ can be seen as tools of scholars and policy
analysists to describe and analyse macro processes in international affairs and to generate
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knowledge; on the other, ‘security’ and ‘development’ are also used by actors applying these
concepts to prescribe processes and determine outcomes. P.7
Critical scholars have convincingly argued that ‘security’ and ‘development’ can also be
seen as discursive constructions that produce the reality they seem to reflect, and thus serve certain
purposes and interests. P.7
Indeed, beyond a recognition of the meshing of processes and domains commonly
understood as ‘security’ and ‘development,’ there is no consensus around what exactly is meant
by ‘the nexus.’ These domains remain frustratingly separated in the institutional bodies and
organizational structures designed to ‘provide’ development and ‘ensure’ security, as well as in
the enactment of security and development in particular and localized sites. P.7
 This relates to the point from last lecture about the different actors operating in institutional
silos that prevents coherent actions
“Rather than clarity, the security-development nexus sets up a framework where any external
regulatory or interventionist initiative can be talked up by the proposing government or institution
as being of vital importance.” P.8
There is widespread discourse emerging as though there were broad agreement on both the content
of these concepts and the consequences of creating policy that reflects a (certain) understanding of
‘the nexus.’ And the national/global policy proceeds as though we collectively understood the
context and consequences of the workings of a ‘security-development nexus’ or as though ‘it’ (as
a desirable policy goal) were recognizable and simple to achieve. P.8
**Find the dual dilemma that provides the impetus for this article: first, there is a curious
absence of attempts to probe evocations of ‘the nexus’ in order to discern the possible meanings
attributed to it; second, the familiar uneasy relationship between intellectual inquiry and policy
formulation becomes particularly fraught in such evocations.
-This article suggests a critical (fledgling) framework for mapping multiple understandings that
arguably underlie articulations of ‘the nexus.’ Draws upon familiar accounts of different
understandings of ‘development’ and ‘security,’ which derive both from the policy world and the
realm of academic debate, and their inevitable intermingling. P.8
Offer brief accounts of ‘development’ and ‘security’ as narratives. Each of these narratives
‘answer’ the questions of: what ‘its’ referents are; who acts; what ‘its’ prescriptions for action is;
and ‘its’ desired end result. They often blend description, prescription, strategy, and critique.
-Making explicit what reading our parallel accounts may imply for filling the ‘nexus’ with meaning
points to the multitude of meanings possible in the many different ways in which the ‘nexus’ is
used (and critiqued). P.9
*The six storylines (or approaches):
1. Development/ security as a modern (teleological) narrative
2. Broadening, deepening, and humanizing development/security
3. Development/security as impasse/impossible
4. Post-development/security
5. Development/security as a technique of governmentality
6. Development/security as globalized
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Reading these accounts together offers a useful guideline for better discerning how and when shifts
in meaning occur in different (yet seemingly similar) discourses about ‘the nexus’
*It is clear, though not empirically proven, that our map contains more than just these six accounts
of the ‘nexus’: the seemingly incompatible stories of various ontologically and epistemologically
different accounts of development/security in this ‘nexus’ are ridiculously plentiful, even infinite.
Attention to ‘security’ was a pinnacle of much ‘development’ strategy during the colonial era;
similarly, the Marshall Plan offers an example of ‘development’ concerns as central to Western
security policies. P.10
*A nexus can be understood as a network of connections between disparate ideas, processes or
objects; alluding to a nexus implies an infinite number of possible linkages and relations. P.10
Stories about Development
1.Development as Modern (Teleological) Narrative
The state was the sovereign key actor and ‘guarantor’ for development (measured in economic
terms). Importantly, through ‘development so understood, nation-states were to be invented,
established, secured, and evolved along a linear trajectory of ‘progress,’ following the path forged
by Europe. The political and economic elites were the necessary drives of this process, and ‘trickedown’ was the hope for the rest. P.11
2.Broadening, Deepening, and Humanizing Development
There are at least two counter-narratives to challenge the mainstream story^
First, it was countered by a Marxist/structuralist fundamental critique, focusing on international
power structures in combination with the prevailing capitalist mode of production. Emphasized
the structurally exploitative nature of the capitalist world system and its negative impact on Third
World development.
Second, a ‘participatory revolution’ that emphasized the significance of ‘reconnecting’ to the true
‘subjects’ of development, namely, the poor, the local, the grass roots and the voiceless. This shift
in focus from state-centric development to ‘human’ development is perhaps most profound and
durable impact that can be traced to these critiques of the dominant development narrative. P.12
3.Development as Impasse
According to this storyline, (mainstream and alternative) development had been tried and did not
work; furthermore, ‘it’ was ineffective and possibly harmful. This idea of ‘impasse’ was triply fed
by the actual failure of ‘development’ to alleviate poverty in the Third World; broad postcolonial
critique of development as an instrument of colonial power and the portrayal of the ‘Third World’
as homogenous; and, finally, by the obvious over belief in the state as the agent and referent in the
development process, in the wake of emerging globalization. P. 12
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4.Post-Development
This school claims that the idea of ‘development’ de facto made substantial, from-within progress
impossible, disempowered people, and disrupted existing local power structures, thus creating
instability and conflict. Accordingly, ‘development’ was counterproductive (as in the above
account), ethically corrupt, and served to uphold differences and hierarchies. ‘Development’ was
seen as the reason for, and guardian of, inequalities between people and societies, not the solution
to them.
5.Development as Technique of Governmentality
Practices of development are ostensibly designed to ‘uplift’ first states, and later societies and
peoples, are techniques of government (broadly understood) that separates lives worth living from
those that are expendable, dangerous, or insufficient and unacceptable because of their
incompleteness. This approach asks questions about the ways in which human lives are regulated
(by whom and for what purposes), and marginalization that such regulation entails.
6.Globalized Development
The global (good) government discourse holds that (neoliberal) globalization works through
processes such as trade, migration, aid flows, and foreign direct investments, but, importantly, fails
because of feeble attempts at regulating these on global scale. As the idea of ‘global governance’
gains momentum, global ‘regimes’ (human rights, sustainable development, etc) are vigorously
pursued and issues previously thought of as geographically appearing (only) in the developing
world are seen as global (hence common) concerns.
*Globalization has challenged the ‘traditional’ idea of development, both in terms of ‘global
governance’ narratives and those more critical narratives that embrace a just and environmentally
sustainable global domain as the desirable goal of development. P.13
Stories About Security’
1.Security as Modern (Teleological) Narrative
Global politics is predominantly about (state) security- its procurement, its maintenance, its
promise. The state can be seen as a modern- even teleological- narrative of progress: insecurity (in
the past) necessitates the promise of security (now) and the ultimate achievement of security and
all that security implies (in the future). So, ‘security’ traditionally revolves are the idea of modern
state sovereignty.
-Although this conceptualization has weathered much critique and undergone numerous revisions
(e.g the addition to this story of other means to achieving state security- that is, economic power,
diplomacy, etc), the basic logic of this story still dominates the agenda in the worlds of security
policy and academia. ‘Security’ remains a necessary and fundamentally ‘good’ thing. P.14
2.Broadening, Deepening, and Humanizing Security
There is an increasingly accepted truism in both policy and academic circles that the nation-state
system lacks the tools with which to contend with today’s threats- which include terrorists’
networks, gender-based violence, violent ‘ethnic’ discrimination, global pandemics, and climate
change. The multiplicity of security providers and the increasing privatization and
commodification of ‘security’ services dislocate ‘security’ as a (national) public good further from
the modern sovereign state.
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*Shift in focus to ‘human security,’ viewed as a sorely needed venue for highlighting the particular
vulnerabilities of people who suffer violence from representatives of the state, as well as other
forms of violence and injustices. Advocates a language for addressing different experiences of
insecurity. Feminist analysis of security as deeply gendered runs as a strand throughout all of these
moves to deepen, widen and humanize security, raising vital questions of voice, identity, power,
and location. P.15
3.Security as Impossible
A line of critique emerged that explicitly focused on how security measures employed by the state
(but also by groups of people and individuals) often creates ripples of violence and fear and
produce more insecurity- both for those whom security measures aim to protect and for others.
Variations of this critique coincide in the argument that security measures designed to secure
states, humans, and/or societies instead (or also) cause harm to people, cultures, and the natural
environment.
4.Post-Security
With this critique, scholars criticized the notion of security as a thing, condition, or state of being
that could be attained. The notion of ‘Security’ has fallen victim to a discursive turn. The political
power of security derives from the (im)possibility of its promise, along with the attendant perpetual
production of danger and fear. P.16
5.Security as Technique of Governmentality
Critics have addressed security as a technique of governing danger and contingency. Security is
seen as a technique of sovereign power that produces certain sorts of subjects and involves
oppression, regulation, violence, control, policing, and surveillance of life itself. Securing practices
serve as counterinsurgency tactics against challenges to the accepted neoliberal order.
6.Globalized Security
Growing ontology of globalization as a way of making sense- and ultimately waylaying- global
dangers attendant on the modern human condition, through, among other vectors, the notion of
risk management. Global environmental sustainability, including the mitigation of the causes and
effects of global warming and natural disasters, has become perhaps the most pressing globalized
security concern. Human security as global offers a platform from which an idea of transnational
humanitarian responsibility for human welfare could be translated into policy such as the ‘right to
protection.’
Mapping ‘the Nexus’
Mesh together ‘parallel’ stories, creating some common narratives with surely overlapping
tangents. This helps us see the very many ways in which security-development is imbued with
meaning (and therefore, to show that we need to be caustious in swallowing facile references to
‘the nexus’ without proper rumination.) p.17
1.The Security-Development Nexus as Modern (Teleological) Narrative
When spatially located within the same place (state), ‘the nexus’ emerges as the juncture through
which the conditions of and for security mutually reinforce those for development and progress:
Internal confluence. For instance, economic growth, democratization and social welfare
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(conditions of development) require a state to have considerable domestic control, a strong
defence, and high levels of political legitimacy (conditions of security), and again the reverse logic
holds. ‘The nexus’ so understood creates ideally a double-bind where security and development
mutually reinforce each other. In contexts where security or development are not attainable, ‘the
nexus’ is rendered dysfunctional. P.18
*The nexus also refers to a relation of implication across borders- a link from there to here, then
to now. In this sense, ‘the nexus’ bridges the spatial and temporal (e.g developing countries as
‘lagging behind’ those more ‘developed’) divergences that is implied when the (in)security and
continued development of one state (e.g the USA) is implicated in the security and – much ‘failed’
– development of another (e.g the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Emphasis is placed on the
bridge occurring between (our future) security (as paramount and located in one place -the North)
and development (over/down/back there/ then). Both of these – the ‘nexus’ as Internal Confluence
and the ‘nexus’ as Spatio-Temporal Bridge- are compatible. P.18
2.Security-Development Nexus: Deepened, Broadened, Humanized
This reading of ‘the nexus’ reflects a conjoining of challenging views of what the foundation for
good, safe, and just society might be. This nexus might rely upon a more cyclical temporality, as
it gazes backwards in time in order to find the genuine, the good, and the (truly) desirable state of
living, of security and safety achieved- for humans, women, cultures, or the natural environment.
Or look at the localized experiences (fears, desires, needs, etc) of vulnerable peoples. In this logic,
‘the nexus’ can perhaps be best illustrated as the merging of human development and human
security- as intricate and complex ambitions in idealist and normative combinations. P.18-19
3.Security-Development Nexus as Impasse/Impossible
For a plethora of reasons within each of these fields, (real?) development and security remain
perpetually out of reach. Efforts at achieving development breed underdevelopment, more poverty,
disenfranchisement. Security carries with it insecurity, violence and threat. At worst, the securitydevelopment nexus creates problems that it had been expected to solve. According to the
‘impasse/impossible’ account, the ‘nexus’ is empty, impossible, harmful; the policies enacted in
its name achieve little, and instead cause harm and waste time/money. P.19
4.Post-Security-Development
This account places emphasis on ‘the nexus’ as linked discursive practices that produce certain
realities and are thus the tools of power. Security and development are mutually constitutive and
are written out of a modern neoliberal (post-colonial) logic in which sovereignty (of the individual
and of the state) privileges certain subjectivities. Practices and discourses of security-development
so understood reproduce spatio-temporally defined relations of inequality, injustice, harmful
mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, violence, insecurity, and danger. According to this
account, security and development are both (im)possible and inherently oxymoronic in themselves,
as well as in combination (i.e ‘the nexus’). They become self-perpetuating and impossible
promises, as well as vectors for those with vested interests to protect. *This nexus should be
refused, critiqued, and avoided.
14
5.Security-Development as Technique of Governmentality
Security and development are seen as mutually reinforcing idioms and techniques of biopower
through which subjectivity, imagination, and ultimately life are governed. A biopolitical reading
of ‘the nexus’ might enquire into the politics of aid, humanitarian assistance, and the ‘good
governance’ agenda, as well as the localized and globalized technologies and practices that enact
the global ‘War on Terror.’ Look at techniques of ‘security/development’ counter the insurgency
against sovereign biopower. The discursive use and concrete enactment of ‘the nexus’ seemingly
evacuate the political question of the ethics of ‘governing the other ‘and depoliticize/technologize
the (bio) politics of security-development. P.20
6.Globalized Security-Development
The pervasive modern representation of the world as being made up of distinct social, political,
cultural spaces bounded by territory has had to fundamentally change to better reflect the empirical
reality of a globalized world in which such distinctions blur. ‘Globalization’ therefore demands
rephrasing of perennial questions about the organization and experience of political, cultural,
social, and individual life, as well as the structural world. Uncertainty and contingency, along with
subjectivity, belonging, accountability, and responsibility, are globalized. Understood through this
prism, ‘the nexus’ acts as a vector for representing the interrelated and mutually constitutive human
global survival issues, such as global climate change, global food security, natural disasters, global
energy and water crisis, and gender-based violence, as well as threats and risks associated with
violent conflict and acts of terrorism.
*this is the ultimate arena
Development and security are inextricably linked. A more secure world is only possible if poor
countries are given a real chance to develop. Extreme poverty and infectious diseases threaten
many people directly, but they also provide a fertile breeding ground for other threats, including
civil conflicts. Even people in rich countries will be more secure if their Governments help poor
countries to defeat poverty and disease by meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
(UN 2004)
-This citation can be seen as drawing on different narratives of ‘the nexus’ throughout. Page 2223 provides in-depth example. Value is it shows that critically reading accounts of ‘the nexus’
shows how the author’s perspectives and the narratives that they invoke.
The above (critical) cursory reading does not leave us much wiser as to what ‘the nexus’ is, should
be or does. Hopefully – and importantly – however, it may open venues of critique for assessing
what is being done in the name of ‘the nexus’ by exploring how different narratives imbue it with
meaning, even in the same policy text. With this in mind, this article has tried to achieve three
things: First, it has drawn attention to the claims that there is an empirically real and growing
‘nexus’, which is reflected in the increased usage of the term ‘development–security nexus’.
Although timely, we aver that this borders on the banal: ‘the nexus’, however conceived, reflects
a reality that resonates in the experiences and imaginations of many; it is being used to ‘describe’
a growing realm. Second, and perhaps more intriguingly, the ‘content’ or form of ‘the nexus’ is
not clear. It is therefore open for all kinds of (illicit) use under the guise of progressive and ethically
palatable politics. We believe that we have, in the above, illustrated that different discourses imbue
‘the nexus’ with different meanings. Third, as ‘the nexus’ is being and can be used as a
15
‘recognizable’ and seemingly comprehensible narrative, various processes can be pursued in the
name of (more or less) in/compatible combinations of security–development, as delineated above.
We have only touched upon this last point in this article. The subsequent articles in this thematic
issue, however, will show a multitude of ways of how ‘security’ and ‘development’ can be
understood and combined and ultimately enacted, for purposes of understanding our emerging
world or for purposes of shaping it. There should be no doubt, however, that in the foreseeable
future how we perceive, pursue and produce ‘the nexus’ will be crucial in this regard.
Development and Security (Stewart, 2004)
This paper considers some of the connections between development and security, both nationally
and globally. Three types of connection will be distinguished:
1. The immediate impact of security/insecurity on well-being and consequently on
development achievements—or the ways in which security forms part of the definition of
development, i.e. the role of security as an objective.
2. The way that insecurity affects non‐security elements of development and economic
growth, i.e. the role of security as an instrument.
3. The way that development affects security—or the development instrumental role.
To the extent that such three‐way connections exist, policies towards security may become part
of development policy, because insofar as they enhance security they will contribute to
development. Conversely, policies towards development may become part of security policy,
because enhanced development increases security. Hence, the connections suggest a quite radical
revision of both security and development policies
Security as an Aspect of Development
Development signifies progress in human well-being, and it used to be incorrectly equated with
economic growth.
The UNDP developed the concept of ‘human security’ to encompass not just the achievement of
minimal levels of material needs, but also the absence of severe threats to them of an economic or
political kind: ‘Job security, income security, health security, environmental security, security
from crime- these are the emerging concerns of security all over the world.
“Human security in its broadest sense embraces far more than the absence of violent conflict. It
encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health care and ensuring
that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfill their own potential… freedom from
want, freedom from fear, and the freedom of the future generation to inherit a healthy natural
environment- these are the interrelated building blocks of human, and therefore national,
security.” (Commission on Human Security, 2003, p. 4)
16
 This definition may be too in depth, because it also includes human development and
economic sources of insecurity as well as those arising from violence.
*Stewart interprets security more narrowly, as occurring where there are low levels of insecurity,
where insecurity consists in interpersonal violence or the risk of it. Interpersonal violence may
have criminal or political objectives, or both. Stewart defines such insecurity as arising at the
individual or community level, so it differs from national insecurity, because it is experienced at
the level of the individual, community, or group, rather than the nation.
*Still, national insecurity can have implications for individual or community insecurity
The Development Costs of Insecurity
The extent of the effects and their distribution depend on the nature of the conflict. There are
complex interactions between events associated directly with war, which mostly diminish
individual entitlements both economic and social. P.263
*But there are serious methodological problems in identifying precise effects. The difficult
question of the counterfactual or what would have happened in the absence of war, is particularly
relevant because many countries at war have previously been doing badly both economically and
with respect to social indicators, and their continued weak performance is not necessarily
attributable to the conflict. Moreover, the 2008
General findings about economic behaviour during wars:
-
Economic growth was almost always negatively affected. Aggregate output was least
affected where the conflict was confined to one geographical region. Agriculture was
usually hit particularly hard, especially if people were forced to more in the course of the
conflict. Economies in conflict on average grow 1-2% more slowly than peacetime
economies.
-
Exports invariably suffered. This resulted from the general fall in production, a shift
towards domestic markets, and disruptions in international markets. None the less, import
capacity often held up, financed by aid and private credit, with the result that foreign debt
spiralled. Foreign exchange tended to be diverted towards military expenditure and
essential consumption goods, leading to a shortage of foreign exchange for economic
inputs. In Nicaragua, this was one of the main causes of a collapse in production.
-
Sectoral shifts took place, with a switch to subsistence and informal activities, including
simple production, production of previously outlawed commodities (notably drugs), and
trading (particularly smuggling).
-
Consumption per head inevitably fell with per capita GDP, though generally not
proportionately.
-
Government revenue as a share of GDP mostly fell among countries in conflict, but
contrary to expectations, not always. In Nicaragua and Mozambique, it rose quite sharply,
yet in other cases government revenue raising was totally undermined, as in Uganda. This
difference was critical in determining whether governments could sustain public services.
17
Government expenditure invariably rose more than revenue and budget deficits widened,
financed by a combination of foreign and domestic borrowing and increased money supply.
However, despite the rising budget deficit, inflation was mostly quite moderate, and
hyperinflation was rare.
-
The share of government expenditure going to the military invariably rose, and the share
of social expenditure mostly fell. Public provision of social services fell in most cases, and
dramatically in those cases where government revenue collapsed, as in Uganda and
Afghanistan, for example. Yet both Nicaragua and Mozambique gave increased priority to
social expenditure compared with the pre-war situation.
One way of analysing the effects of conflicts on human well-being is in terms of entitlement
failures, which represents people’s command over resources. Extreme human suffering results
when a household’s (or individuals) entitlement fall below what is needed for subsistence.
Conflicts had the following impacts on different types of entitlements, p.266:
• Market entitlements (arising in the market) generally fell with the decline of formal sector
production. Rising inflation, associated with the increasing budget deficits, further undermined
real wages.
• Direct entitlements (from subsistence production) rose in some areas (for example in Uganda in
the 1970s), but not where the war was such as to make production difficult or impossible (for
example in the war area of the Lowero triangle in Uganda in the mid-1980s).
• Entitlements flowing from the state were mostly adversely affected, especially in those countries
whose tax capacity collapsed. However, in a few cases, a determined government managed to
preserve and even increase these entitlements. In Mozambique, Sudan, and Nicaragua, social
expenditure per head rose markedly during conflict, but in almost every other country it fell
sharply.
• Civic entitlements (resulting from NGO or community activity) compensated for losses in other
types of entitlement in some cases. Communities, NGOs, and rebel governmental structures were
important in Sri Lanka, for example, and in Afghanistan in the 1990s, NGOs provided most of the
(highly deficient) services available, but where wars were fiercest, the ability of communities and
NGOs to respond was reduced.
• Extra-legal entitlements (arising for example from theft) invariably rose, but while there were
gainers there were also losers, who often suffered physical harm as well as loss of commodities.
In some cases, new legal and illegal sources of trade and gain emerged (as with the informal sector
in Mozambique and poppy production in Afghanistan), providing net additions to entitlements.
*It is obvious that highly unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of conflict. Overall, there
were heavy human costs in most countries, with falling nutrition, health, and educational standards
and worsening infant mortality compared with regional trends.
18
The generally negative impact on economic growth, capital assets, and social services and
outcomes supports the view that serious conflict negatively affects development. However, the
variation in performance of both economic and social indicators suggests that such negative
impacts may be potentially avoided or at least mitigated. Thus, policies adopted during conflict
can reduce the ongoing human and development costs. This is rarely recognized by the
development community, which tends to confine its efforts during conflict to humanitarian relief.
How Development Affects Security p. 269
It is certainly true that many conflicts have a cultural dimension; many groups that fight perceive
themselves as belonging to a common culture (ethnicity or religion) and are partly fighting for
cultural autonomy. Moreover, ethnicity is often used during conflict to mobilise support. Yet it is
evident that culture and ethnicity do not adequately explain conflict, since many multicultural
societies live quite peacefully, and others live peacefully for decades but then conflict erupts.
Given that cultural differences are not innate but are developed and accentuated by social and
political events, by 270 Frances Stewart leaders and the media, a cultural explanation is clearly
insufficient.
*Cultural explanations alone are insufficient to explain why cultural differences become salient at
sometimes and appear as the prime cause of bitter conflicts yet relatively insignificant at other
times. A variety of economic explanations has been suggested to explain the incidence of conflict.
These relate to the level of development (as measured for example by per capita incomes and
poverty levels) and to the nature of development. Such explanations then tie the cause of conflict
to the nature of development.
Three economic hypotheses explaining contemporary intra-state wars:
1. Group motivation associated with group inequalities
2. Private motivation and incentives
3. A failure of the social contract, stemming from economic failure and poor government
services.
*Considers how greed, grievance, and opportunity fit into the three-fold classification
1.Group Motivation and Horizontal Inequalities
Most internal conflicts consist in fighting between groups- some who wish to gain independence
or take over the state and some who resist this, wishing to preserve this control and/or the integrity
of the nation. In many cases, the members of the groups who fight share cultural identity, arising
for example, from tribal affiliation, ‘race,’ or religion. When such groups are also differentiated
by geographic location, the conflicts tend to become separatist. When cultural differences coincide
with economic and political differences between groups, this can cause deep resentments that may
lead to violent struggles.
**When men do fight across ethnic lines it is nearly always the case that they fight over some
fundamental issues concerning the distribution and exercise of power, whether economic, political,
or both (p.271)
19
-Leaders can use resentment caused by the deprivations experienced by many members of the
group to mobilize support. Hence, group differences, termed Horizontal Inequalities may thus
form a fundamental cause of war. Dimensions of H.I may be social, economic, or political.
2.Private Motivation
War confers benefits as well as costs on individuals. The private motivation hypothesis has its
basis in rational choice economics, and argue that the net economic advantages of war to some
individuals motivate them to fight.
-Where alternative opportunities are few, because of low incomes and poor employment, and the
possibilities of enrichment by war are considerable (for example, where valuable resources such
as diamonds can readily be mined or stolen and traded), wars are likely to be more numerous and
longer. It has been argued that conflicts often persist because some powerful actors benefit through
the manipulation of scarcity, smuggling, and so forth and have no interest in resolving the conflict.
*Purely individualistic explanations are inadequate though, because there must be a common
agenda. Still, increasingly, civil wars that appear to have begun with political aims have mutated
into conflicts in which short-term benefits are paramount. P.273
3.Failures of the Social Contract
This refers to the failure of the state to play its part in the social contract by delivering economic
benefits or social services. This derives from the view that social stability is implicitly premised
on a social contract, where people accept state authority as long as the state delivers services and
provides reasonable employment and incomes.
-With economic stagnation or decline, and worsening state services, the social contract breaks
down and violence results. The concept of ‘grievance’ broadly refers to the same set of causes as
those that are here classified as constituting a breakdown of the social contract.
Political Explanations
Political factors, generally in combination with economic and cultural factors, may contribute to
the outbreak of violence. The strength of the state can suppress potential conflict if there is a
repressive state. Or, democratic institutions can allow change to be achieved peacefully.
-Horizontal inequalities in political participation may be an important cause of violence.
*A political explanation often advanced is the existence of a failed state, which is unable to keep
law and order or provide essential services. A general indicator of a failed state is low level of
revenue. P.274
Evidence on the Causes of Conflict
Group Inequality
According to the case study evidence, horizontal inequalities seem most likely to lead to conflict
where they are significant, consistent across dimensions, and widening over time.
-Abundant evidence from case studies show sharp horizontal inequalities between groups in
conflict.
Private Motivation
20
A number of case studies support the view that private motivation plays an important role in
prolonging, if not causing, conflict in some countries. Authors argue that ‘greed’ outperforms
grievance in explaining conflict.
Very few contemporary conflicts can be adequately captured as pure instances of ‘resource wars’
or conflicts caused by ‘loot seeking’ on the part of either insurgents or state actors. Economic
incentives have not been the only or even the primary causes of these conflicts. (Ballentine and
Sherman, 2003, p. 259–260.) p.276
Failure of the Social Contract
Studies show that conflict incidence is higher among countries with lower per capita incomes,
lower life expectancy, and lower economic growth.
**While each of the explanations thus finds some support, none accounts for all of the variance.
What each hypothesis identifies is factors that are likely to predispose to conflict, rather than
simple cause and effect. P.276
Factors Associated with Conflict
Evidence of Association with Conflict
Hypotheses
Horizontal inequality
Cross-country and case study support
Vertical inequality
Conflicting evidence
Group motives for conflict
(horizontal inequalities)
Failure of social contract
High poverty
Same evidence as per capita incomes
Economic
Failure of social contract; private
motives
Reduced government revenue and Case study evidence.
Failure of social contract; weak
social expenditure
government ability to suppress
conflict- failed state
High level of natural resources
Support for mineral resources only Private motives (and financing)
Limited statistical investigation. No
evidence for association with IMF
programmes.
Decline/stagnation in per capita Cross-country and case study support
Failure of social contract;
income
environmental degradation; low
opportunity cost of war-private
motive.
Political
Strong statistical evidence and case Persistence
of
economic
History of Conflict
study evidence.
conditions giving rise to conflict;
memory of conflict acting as
mobilising agent.
State expenditure low proportion Casual evidence
Weak states
of national income
21
Unequal access to political power Case study and statistical evidence
among groups
Intermediate political regime
Statistical and case study evidence
Horizontal inequalities
Inability to negotiate change or
suppress violence.
There is strong case study evidence to support the view that horizontal inequalities in political
control are very common element in conflicts.
•The last 6 pages of this article consider global implications. I did not review those parts.
Week Three: January 21st-27th
Failed States After 9/11: What Did We Know and What have we learned?
Dorff, R. H. (2005). Failed States After 9/11: What Did We Know and What Have We
Learned? International Studies Perspectives, 6(1), 20-34.
This paper addresses the relationship between accumulated knowledge and U.S policy dealing
with failed states and terrorism. The central thesis is threefold:
1. That more was known about possible linkages between failing states and terrorism than
appears in pre-9/11 U.S policies.
2. That since 9/11 some important realignment of knowledge and practice has occurred, but
it remains partial and incomplete; and
3. That new knowledge, especially about the policies to sustain and promote legitimate
governance, needs to be generated in order to support an effective grand strategy for
addressing the threats and challenges of the 21 st century.
The paper recommends such a grand strategy and in addition to the required new knowledge, a
significant reorganization of the U.S national security policy-making apparatus. International
studies curricula appear well suited for contributing to that new knowledge and the practitioners
we require.
First, We really knew quite a bit more than many assume prior to 9/11 about the linkages between
state failure and transnational threats. For many reasons, the knowledge was not completely or
effectively integrated into official policy or practice prior to 9/11.
Second, issue of whether in aftermath of 9/11, government policies and responses reflect a better
understanding of what the accumulated knowledge suggests about the nature of the problem and
the challenges and threats it poses. The assessment is a mixed one. In some respects, the
realignment of knowledge and practice has been very apparent and positive, while in others the
adjustment has been very slow, incomplete, or nearly nonexistent.
Thirdly, the argument will address the question of what additional knowledge may be needed. It
is clear that such knowledge is necessary in order to provide the kinds of scholarly insights that
22
can drive the further realignment between that knowledge and policy/practice. Only with such
insights can we devise sound policy guideline for strategy we need for effectively addressing the
security problem that this paper presents as the strategic imperative of 21st century.
*Acknowledges that the greatest impediment to strategic success is the limitations of our own
perceptions, and our unwillingness to think broadly and deeply enough about the policy options
and the tools already on hand for addressing the strategic challenge. P.21
State Failure
State failure and nation-building were seen as beyond the scope of what U.S foreign policy could
and should do. 9/11 and the subsequent linkage of al-Qaeda and with the failed state of Afghanistan
altered that view.
-Prior to 9/11, literature had already linked state failure with civil and humanitarian strife,
widespread humanitarian suffering, and regional instability, as well as possible links with
international organized crimes, weapons proliferation, and terrorism.
*the pre-9/11 argument was rarely that specific failing states directly affected U.S interests, but
that some consequences of state failure could potentially pose increasing threats to those interests.
-Tendency of early research to focus on too excessively upon extreme cases or too broadly on all
cases involving political instability or ethnic conflict.
The so-called “rogue states” of the 1990s, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea all fell under the violation
of state power being wielded tyrannically against its own citizens or against another states and
their citizens.
*Post-cold war, the driving force behind the new strategic environment was that instead of a global
competition between competing ideologies, to a more localized but increasingly dangerous
competition between legitimate and illegitimate governance.
In different conceptions of state failure, the critical element of failure therefore becomes the
erosion, loss, or absence of legitimacy. The capacity of the state to perform those functions, either
because of its inherent weakness or because it has been captured by evil or selfish rulers, thus
erodes, and may eventually cease completely. The first conception of state failure draws on the
Weberian emphasis on the rational state, performing functions based on the rule of law and
bureaucracy. If the institutions are too weak and the perceived legitimacy is inadequate to sustain
them, a cycle emerges in which legitimacy is on a downward path. The second conception of state
failure is perhaps more a product of the modern era, in which the principles of democracy and
respect for human rights have come into play. Legitimacy is lost because the state fails to respond
to its citizens’ needs and desires, and because state power is used unjustly to tyrannize those same
citizens. The focus had shifted to the weakness or absence of legitimate governance as the broad
underpinning of the process of state failure.
The early and mid-1990s did see some policy movement toward democratization—the notion that
promoting democracies was a solid strategic underpinning for our foreign and national security
23
policy. But this emphasis on democratization was largely limited in at least a couple of important
ways. First, the understanding of what constituted a democracy seemed quite restricted. For many
in the U.S. policy-making community especially, the understanding was very institutional and very
much based on a misconception of American democracy. The idea, stated simply, was that
elections and divided government made democracy. Largely ignoring individual attitudes and
behavioral norms, this view was overly optimistic about how democracy could be created through
the manipulation of relatively simple structures and rules. It led directly to the policy failures that
were ironically referred to by some as stopping the fighting, holding elections, declaring victory,
and coming home. It also led to heightened frustration when solutions on paper, such as the Dayton
Accords, were not translated into overnight success on the ground.
The second key limitation was the understanding that promoting democracy was a good thing
because it represented a positive statement about values and human rights, not because it was
directly linked to protecting our own interests and security. In other words, we could pursue the
promotion of democracy as a secondary security objective—the primary objective of protecting
our people and our homeland would still be addressed through the “realist” lenses of state-on-state
power politics. The problem with this view, also identified several years ago, is that pressing too
quickly and too incompletely for democracy can actually increase the weakening of the state, and
in fact lead not to the promotion of democracy but to the inadvertent promotion of illegitimate
governance. And by not recognizing sufficiently the direct links between illegitimate governance
and security threats to the U.S., this view and its policies can increase the likelihood that the alQaeda’s of the world will find safe havens from which to operate against us. By separating the
promotion of democracy from the protection of our interests, our policies failed to take into account
the full extent of what accumulated knowledge was telling us about the nature of the threats and
the ways for addressing those threats.
The Fragility Dilemma and Divergent Security Complexes in the Sahel
Kari M. Osland & Henriette U. Erstad (2020) The Fragility Dilemma and Divergent Security
Complexes in the Sahel, The International Spectator, 55:4, 18-36.
Despite an exponential increase in international resources devoted to the Sahel, the situation on
the ground continues to deteriorate. This is largely due to the so-called “fragility dilemma”, faced
by fragile states that are in critical need of external assistance, but have limited absorption capacity
and are governed by sitting regimes that dictate the terms and upon which external actors must
rely. This dilemma has contributed to an increasing divergence between a state-centric regional
and a people-centric transnational security complex. In particular, a heavy-handed approach to
violent extremism and external policies aimed at curbing irregular migration have had a number
of unintended consequences, disrupting livelihoods and further exacerbating instability in the
Sahelian states.
Morten Bøås (2019a) argues that the root causes of donors’ shortcomings in fragile states are
related to the “fragility dilemma”, which manifests itself in two interconnected ways. First, fragile
states are in desperate need of international assistance, while simultaneously being the most
difficult to assist. They are unpredictable, highly volatile and vulnerable to changing conditions
24
and, as their institutional and administrative capacity is low, the level of traditional donor aid that
they can effectively absorb is limited. Until recent years, therefore, the international development
community avoided engagement with such settings because tangible results seemed hard to
achieve. As a consequence, traditional donors have limited experience and know-how when it
comes to those fragile states that have recently become a priority on the international agenda, as is
the case of Sahelian countries. Bøås (2017; 2019a) argues that the new security-development
agenda has put fragile states on international life support. While this may prevent state collapse in
the short term, it may also lead to the reproduction of state weakness rather than contribute to
broader processes of stabilisation, development and state-building (Boone 1994; Chabal and Daloz
1999). The second element of the fragility dilemma is that power hierarchies and dynamics are not
always what they seem. In most cases, the regime in power is well aware that the country has
become a top priority on the international security agenda and that external actors are highly
dependent on the regime as far as their (often regional) security objectives are concerned
A regional security complex (RSC) is defined by Barry Buzan (1983, 105-15) as “a group of
states whose primary security concerns link together sufficiently closely that their national
security cannot realistically be considered apart from one another”.
State-centric regional security complex vs a people-centric transnational security complex
From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization and Counterterrorism
Karlsrud,
J.
(2019).
From
Liberal
Peacebuilding
to
Stabilization
Counterterrorism. International Peacekeeping (London, England), 26(1), 1-21.
and
Since the end of the Cold War, international interventions have increasingly been deployed to deal
with internal conflict. Liberal peacebuilding has been a guiding concept for many of these
interventions, in particular those deployed by the UN. This article argues that liberal peacebuilding
is waning in importance, both as a guiding concept and in practice. After long engagements in
Afghanistan and the enduring effects of the financial crisis, Western states are shifting their
strategy from liberal peacebuilding to stabilization and counterterrorism. In Africa, regional ad hoc
coalitions set up to fight terrorists and other armed groups are on the rise, and progressively
included in UN peacekeeping operations. To examine these shifts more closely, the article focuses
on the crisis in Mali since 2012 and the growing Western security presence in neighbouring Niger.
The article concludes that the turn from liberal peacebuilding to stabilization and counterterrorism
is likely to be counterproductive, as it will lead to more oppressive governments and more
disillusioned people joining the ranks of opposition and terrorist groups, as well as undermine the
UN in general and UN peace operations in particular.
The growing emphasis on stabilization and counterterrorism, rather than liberal peacebuilding,
reflects two key trends. First, liberal peacebuilding has been more difficult than anticipated,
fraught with challenges and confronted with a continuing difficulty of understanding local politics
and dynamics. Second, host states have more frequently resisted liberal interventions and have
pressed for mandates that more closely align with the self-interest of authoritarian governments.
There has been a surge of regional ad hoc coalitions set up to fight terrorists and other armed
groups, and they are frequently included in UN peacekeeping operations, undermining the latter’s
25
impartiality and legitimacy. Western militaries are moving their strategic emphasis from
peacebuilding and counter-insurgency interventions to stabilization and counterterrorism, and this
is also reflected in their policies vis-àvis UN peacekeeping operations. A better understanding of
the changes in international interventions, and in particular UN peacekeeping operations, can
provide a prism for understanding larger shifts in global politics. The year 2016 saw the Brexit
vote in Europe and Donald Trump ascending to power in the US. However, rather than marking
the start of the end of liberal values, as touted by many commentators,5 these events inscribe
themselves into a longer trajectory that started years earlier. This article argues that examining
memberstate policies and mandates guiding UN peacekeeping operations since the beginning of
the millennium, and how they have been changing, can provide a lens through which to understand
how global security politics are changing. (P.2-3)
The first section describes a reorientation of the international security agenda towards stabilization
and counterterrorism, and how regional ad hoc coalitions, often included in UN peacekeeping
operations, is an increasingly popular tool to fight armed opposition and terrorist groups. To
examine these shifts more closely, the second section focuses on international interventions in the
crisis in Mali since 2012 and the growing Western presence in neighbouring Niger. In conclusion,
the article argues that the shift towards stabilization and counterterrorism will lead to more
oppressive governments fomenting political unrest and encouraging recruitment to terrorist
groups.
In 2005, the Bush administration sought a new and less divisive path, and changed its rhetoric
from fighting a Global War on Terror to a ‘Struggle against Violent Extremism’ (SAVE).8 This
approach has proved more effective, and the preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE)
agenda has gained considerable strength. In December 2015, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
issued his Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism. 9 In the plan, the terms ‘extremism’,
‘violent extremism’ and ‘terrorism’ were used interchangeably.10 The move from terrorism to
violent extremism also implies a broader set of tools to deal with these threats. Together this has
coalesced into a broad agenda for counterterrorism (CT) and PCVE, undergirded by the legitimacy
that the UN, as the only global multilateral body, confers. (p.4)
Reflecting this shift, the US military has moved its strategic emphasis from population-centric to
enemy-centric warfare. This represents a lowering of ambitions from addressing the root causes of
violent conflict, such as lack of legitimacy, participation and inclusion, to focusing instead on the
use of force to kill or capture enemy targets.18 While the counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy,
drawing lessons from the first stage of engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq, of course also included
the latter objectives, operations were conducted under the credo of ‘clear, hold and build’, and
there was more emphasis given to addressing root causes. (pp.5-6)
Under the Clinton and Bush Jr. presidencies, there was a hubristic belief in the US ability to effect
democratic and institutional change in countries emerging from conflict. However, when
examining Western interventions over the last decade, there is a discernible lowering of ambitions.
During the Obama presidency the US reverted from ‘overreach’ in Iraq – trying to build a liberal
state by tearing it down first – to more limited ambitions, shoring up authoritarian leaders and
conducting targeted strikes on suspected terrorists. (p.10)
26
owards counterterrorism.53 The turn towards more illiberal forms of support, in the shape of
counterinsurgency and counterterrorism support, to the detriment of development 51Curran and
Holtom, “Resonating, Rejecting, Reinterpreting.” peacebuilding programmes, is often portrayed
as more effective and relevant to the current needs of the states concerned. However, by primarily
providing military support to suppress what is defined as security threats, states like the US and
France are not addressing root causes like weak and corrupt governance, marginalization and lack
of social cohesion
In the post-Cold War period, the international community has progressively deployed international
peace operations to manage internal conflict. Peace operations have been deployed by the UN, EU
and NATO with expanding mandates to build liberal peace with the ambition to create stable,
inclusive and representative governments. However, the actual implementation of these
peacebuilding agendas has repeatedly fallen short of their ambitions, and while current reviews
continue to deepen the scope and ambition of UN and other peacekeeping operations, member
states are pushing for more instrumental policies. Swelling migration flows and the threats of
terrorism and violent extremism have sharpened the attention of European policy makers to the
potential role of UN peacekeeping operations and regional ad hoc coalitions as potential proxies
that can help shore up European security. Also, in a climate of financial austerity, these states are
pursuing ‘good enough’ solutions rather than realizing what may seem as lofty liberal ideals. This
means strengthened support to illegitimate governments and considering using the UN to fight
terrorism in the Sahel and elsewhere. The article has examined the confluence of several strategic
shifts, together forming a ‘perfect storm’ against liberal peacebuilding. Liberal interventionism
reached a peak during the eras of Presidents Clinton and Bush Jr. However, the pendulum has now
swung back, and ‘stabilization’ and ‘counterterrorism’ have replaced ‘peacebuilding’ as key
operative terms in policy discussions. There is increased funding for counterterrorism tasks and
activities, moving peacebuilding actors to reorient and relabel their programmes and activities.
Geopolitically, there is a growing alignment between Western and African countries and other
powers like China around the goal of stability, rather than liberal peacebuilding. However,
evidence suggests that the turn toward stabilization and counterterrorism may be
counterproductive, leading to greater division, recruitment to terrorist and other armed groups, and
feeding a cycle of violence. Morten Bøås has convincingly argued for a more nuanced
understanding of the complex and shifting relationships between criminal, religious, terrorist and
other formal and informal networks. If not, states and other actors risk developing misguided
policies based on a simplistic understanding of these fluid relationships and the reasons for people
taking up arms against international interveners.80 The current trend is that interventions are being
undertaken under a veneer of liberal values, such as the UN mission in Mali. However, underneath
this veneer, there is a return to the Cold War proxy and strong man policies, and less pressure for
reforms that could increase the legitimacy and inclusiveness of conflict-affected states. The
increasingly militaristic approaches by national as well as international actors, with a turn from
liberal peacebuilding to stabilization and counterterrorism as the main narratives, are likely to lead
to more oppressive governments, and more disillusioned people joining the ranks of opposition
and terrorist groups. For the UN, the turn towards stabilization and counterterrorism is
undermining the legitimacy of the organization and its work in mediation and humanitarian
domains, and in particular UN peace operations, and the role of UN peace operations as a central
tool in the international peace and security toolbox. (pp.15-16)
27
Out of Reach: How Insecurity Prevents Humanitarian Aid from Accessing the
Neediest
Stoddard, Abby, Jillani, Shoaib, Caccavale, John, Cooke, Peyton, Guillemois, David, &
Klimentov, Vassily. (2017). Out of Reach: How Insecurity Prevents Humanitarian Aid
from Accessing the Neediest. Stability (Norfolk, VA ), 6(1), 1.
In a small number of crisis-affected countries, humanitarian organizations work amid active
conflict and under direct threat of violence. This insecurity, reflected in rising aid worker casualty
rates, significantly constrains humanitarian operations and hinders the ability of people in
emergencies to access vital aid. Extensive field- based research in Afghanistan, southern Somalia,
South Sudan and Syria measured humanitarian coverage (aid presence relative to the level of need)
in each con- text to determine how this coverage is affected by insecurity. Results show that
humanitarian operations are highly determined by security conditions, more than any other factor.
As a result, coverage is uneven relative to need and appears politically skewed in favor of areas
under control of Western-supported conflict parties. Additionally, humanitarian coverage in these
war zones is even lower than it outwardly appears, as aid organizations tend to remain in the
country (even after suffering attacks) but reduce and contract their field presence, adopting new,
often suboptimal, means of programming.
International humanitarian law specifically proscribes violence against humanitarian
organizations and accords protected status to their facilities and activities during armed conflict.
Despite these rules of war, aid personnel and operations frequently come under attack in conflict
settings, used as proxy targets, revenue sources, and convenient tools for terror or propaganda
purposes.
These results suggest that humanitarian response in these high-insecurity contexts is both more
durable and more limited in scope and reach than it might appear to policy makers and the general
public. Certain humanitarian organizations (far fewer than needs demand) have been able to
remain operational in countries undergoing active conflict, despite the high risk of targeted
violence. But they have done so at the cost of the core humanitarian principle of impartiality, i.e.
prioritizing those most in need. Without diminishing the achievements of humanitarians who work
in dangerous places at great personal risk, it is important to recognize that aid organizations have
incentives to appear more present than they actually are, which can obscure the reality that
widespread needs are going unmet.
The constraining effects of insecurity on humanitarian operational presence and coverage of needs
are considerable. While it should come as no surprise that insecurity makes accessing affected
populations and meeting their needs more difficult, these findings illuminate the paucity of
humanitarian coverage where it is often obscured, albeit by well-meaning humanitarian actors.
Another uncomfortable but inescapable conclusion of the research is that humanitarian coverage
is not only uneven within and across contexts, but it is also proportionally lower in areas under
28
control of militants in opposition to the government and to the Western powers that provide most
of the humanitarian funding (e.g. areas con- trolled by IS in Syria and by Al Shabaab in South
Central Somalia). The implications of this for the core humanitarian principles of impartiality,
neutrality and humanity are fairly stark.
The conclusions also suggest a few potential areas for action:
1. Aid actors must increase operational transparency for a more accurate picture of coverage.
Reputational and financial concerns clearly create the tendency among some organizations to
overstate their presence and territorialize service areas even when they are meeting just a fraction
of the need. Apart from misrepresentation, agencies’ general reluctance to fully disclose
operational information (which this research study experienced first-hand) has resulted in a much
weaker situational understanding of aid operations in arguably the most critical contexts. To avoid
these tendencies and to present a clear picture of the scope and scale of the humanitarian response
– and its gaps – the humanitarian community requires common measures of presence and coverage. Ideally, coverage would be measured not by the calculation of humanitarian presence over
people in need, as used for the purposes of this quantitative analysis, but rather by the percentage
of people in need being reached and served by the humanitarian response.
For this to happen, more work needs to be done on developing a common methodology for
calculating the number of people in need from among the affected population.
Likewise, more robust information-management systems need to be developed for mapping
operational activity, as well as methodologies for tracking and reporting on the specific modality
of rapid response deliveries and the populations they reach.
Greater transparency as to which actors are operating in these most difficult settings could provide
the opportunity to deliver aid in a more effective and coordinated manner, gaining efficiencies.
This is more of a normative challenge than a methodological one. It requires the organizational
relationships that enable information to flow freely yet securely, in a way that benefits all parties
in the process. Designing the system would not be difficult but, to work, it will require a critical
mass of stakeholders to participate fully and consistently.
A related measure that would enhance both transparency and accountability would be
humanitarian actors jointly investing in systematic, independently conducted remote surveys of
affected populations. This would enhance knowledge of underserved areas, priority needs and
issues of importance to local populations.
2. After identifying coverage gaps, the humanitarian system must prioritize finding means to fill
them.
Collectively, humanitarian actors have met access constraints, if not with complacency then with
a decided lack of urgency in finding means to reach the people in need that remain unassisted by
the overall humanitarian response. This is not born of neglect or incompetence, but rather of the
fundamentally fragmented nature of humanitarian response. Each organization being too small to
cover more than a fraction of the people in need, each focuses on operating neutrally and
impartially within the area where it has decided to be present. Facing at times formidable obstacles
and threats, each organization does what it can, where it can, to the best of its ability. However, on
the macro scale this amounts to partial and inequitable coverage for the country as a whole, as
many like-minded agencies tend to cluster in the same places.
The reality of sparse humanitarian cover- age warrants a more strategic overview and stronger
leadership. In addition to advocating for disaster-affected governments and non- state armed actors
to protect and aid civilians in areas they control, the various parts of the humanitarian system have
29
responsibilities to find proactive and innovative means for reaching people in areas too risky for
humanitarian organizations to operate. This should start with identifying the humanitarian actors
who are already present and assessing what more they can absorb and implement to serve greater
numbers of people. Second, when the limits of that potential capacity are reached, aid actors could
make aggressive and concerted efforts to identify or help organize additional local/ national entities
or mechanisms (e.g. community-based, commercial, religious, other) that could potentially deliver
materials and services, even if they are not ideal humanitarian part- ners for political or other
reasons.
3. Donor governments must accept responsibility for correcting aid coverage imbalances.
Core humanitarian principles are threatened – and there are attendant security risks – when donor
funding strategies discourage program- ming in opposition-held territories. Although the problem
is not universal, aid presence in many countries appears partial and politicized.
Donors should encourage agencies to extend their presence and to devise solutions for pres- ence
gaps, and should remove the obstacles and disincentives to their doing so. Blanket humanitarian
waivers and financial/legal exemptions for aid providers should be the norm when there are high
levels of need. For their part, individual aid organizations must be frank about their own presence,
limitations and capacities, and speak out forcefully when they know that needs are not being met.
Week 5: February 3rd-10th
Ide, Tobias. (2021). COVID-19 and armed conflict. World Development, 140, 105355.
Highlights:
•COVID-19 has affected armed conflict dynamics by changing the strategic environment for
armed groups.
•Armed conflict escalation is more likely than de-escalation in the face of the pandemic.
•Armed conflict de-escalation occurred in the face of COVID-19 in some countries.
•Grievances and health diplomacy have so far only played a minor role.
This article studies the impact of COVID-19 on armed conflict. The pandemic has significant
health, economic and political effects. These can change the grievances and opportunity structures
relevant for armed conflicts to either increase or decrease conflict risks. I analyse empirical
evidence from Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and
Yemen from the first six months of 2020. Results suggest that COVID-19 provides little
opportunities for health diplomacy and cooperation, but it also has not yet driven grievances to a
level where they became relevant for armed conflicts. Four countries have encountered temporary
declines in armed conflicts, mostly due to strategic decisions by governments or rebels to account
for impeded logistics and to increase their popular support. Armed conflict levels have increased
in five countries, with conflict parties exploiting either state weakness or a lack of (international)
attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a worrisome trend given the tremendous impacts
of armed conflict on human security and on the capabilities of countries to deal with health
emergencies.
30
Currently, scholars and policy makers assign high priority to limiting the spread of the virus,
improving treatment, developing a vaccine, and mitigating adverse economic effects.
Besides its immediate health and economic effects, COVID-19 can also impact armed conflict
risks, with these conflicts themselves being an important obstacle in dealing with the pandemic.
This article provided an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on armed conflict based on data
from the first six months of 2020. Theoretically, the pandemic could affect conflict risks through
increased grievances, possibilities to demonstrate solidarity, or modified opportunity structures for
armed groups.
Results show that in four of the nine countries under study, the number of armed conflict events
declined after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. These declines are mostly related to strategic
decisions and less favourable opportunity structures for armed groups, such as logistical
difficulties and attempts to increase popular support. They offer few prospects for health
diplomacy and sustainable peacebuilding. In places like Afghanistan, where the Taliban restrained
their military activities to gain local support, the initial decline might even set the stage for a later
escalation of the armed conflict. Similar concerns exist regarding recruitment in Colombia and
India.
In five of the nine countries analysed, armed conflict prevalence increased in the face of the
pandemic. This is further evidence that health diplomacy approaches demonstrating goodwill and
reducing grievances have little impact during the pandemic. COVID-19 did not change the root
causes or principal dynamics of the armed conflicts in any of these five countries, but it accelerated
existing trends and provided strategic opportunities for armed groups to exploit. Two factors are
particularly relevant here: The weakening of state institutions (providing incentives for rebels to
intensify military pressure) and a lack of (international) public attention (allowing to extend
military operations without backlashes).
While short-term rises in armed conflict risks related to the pandemic are mostly driven by changed
opportunity structures, grievances could play a more prominent role when longer time horizons
are considered. The economic repercussions associated with the current global spike in infections
could exceed the coping capacities of households that did relatively well during the first COVID19 wave. In coincidence with ethnic or religious cleavages, this could raise discontent to a level at
which armed conflicts erupt. However, grievances usually take time to translate into organised
armed activities. Declining levels of democracy as states claim emergency powers to combat
COVID-19 are also a risk factor. Countries with a medium level of democracy and highly
repressive regimes are empirically much more likely to experience civil wars than consolidated
democracies.
31
Barakat, Sultan, & Milton, Sansom. (2020). Localisation Across the HumanitarianDevelopment-Peace Nexus. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 15(2), 147-163.
Whilst the relation between local and global levels has been a long-standing concern of
humanitarian, development, and peace efforts, in recent years the term “localisation” has become
a major issue in the humanitarian sector whilst peacebuilding scholarship has taken a “local turn.”
This article analyses the concept of localisation across the three parts of the triple nexus—
humanitarian, development, and peace. It traces the long-standing concern with the local in each
of these domains, considering similarities and differences in their engagement with the local and
counter-veiling trends towards universalisation, before proceeding to frame four challenges
common to localisation across all forms of conflict response: defining the local, valuing local
capacity, maintaining political will, and multi-scalar conflict response
Article: Burrows, Kate, & Kinney, Patrick L. (2016). Exploring the Climate Change,
Migration and Conflict Nexus. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public
Health, 13(4), 443.
The potential link between climate change, migration, and conflict has been widely discussed and
is increasingly viewed by policy makers as a security issue. However, considerable uncertainty
remains regarding the role that climate variability and change play among the many drivers of
migration and conflict. The overall objective of this paper is to explore the potential pathways
linking climate change, migration and increased risk of conflict. We review the existing literature
surrounding this issue and break the problem into two components: the links between climate
change and migration, and those between migration and conflict. We found a large range of views
regarding the importance of climate change as a driver for increasing rates of migration and
subsequently of conflict. We argue that future research should focus not only on the climatemigration-conflict pathway but also work to understand the other pathways by which climate
variability and change might exacerbate conflict. We conclude by proposing five questions to help
guide future research on the link between climate change, migration, and conflict.
This paper will discuss both short and long term migration and some of the ways in which climate
extremes impact rates of both types of movement. We use the word conflict broadly to encompass
violence at the interpersonal, intergroup, and international levels
great deal of the academic literature that addresses climate-migration is based on traditional
migration theory, which puts forward that drivers of migration can be broken into five broad
categories. These include factors that promote out-migration (including the environment, political
instability, conflict, lack of economic opportunity, etc.); factors that draw in-migrants (including
economic opportunity, demand for resources, political stability, etc.); “network” factors, which
facilitate or hinder the move between the two places (including family ties, ease of transport,
32
legality of migration, etc.); national policies that hinder or encourage movement; and the personal
goals or motivations of the migrant.
Week 6: February 10th-24th
Rotmann, P. "Toward a Realistic and Responsible Idea of Stabilisation". Stability:
International Journal of Security & Development, 5(1):5 (2016): pp. 1-14.
What is stabilisation, and why do we need a conceptual discussion? Based on interviews and policy
documents from Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States,
this article distils two conceptual visions of stabilisation, outlines a range of institutional and
budgetary designs and offers a number of lessons of what a realistic and responsible idea of
stabilisation might look like. Given the ubiquity of fragility and the lack of generalised knowledge
about social engineering, this article argues in favour of a narrow understanding of stabilisation
that seeks only to mitigate acute situations of crisis marked by extreme political volatility and
violence. Even this more limited goal is ambitious enough to require sober assessment and
communication of risk, continuing improvements to the conceptual and institutional tools for
stabilisation and stronger commitment to constant reflection and learning.
In short, the dilemma between post-Iraq and Afghanistan ‘intervention fatigue’ and the continued
challenges of political instability is superficially resolved by seeing ‘fragility’ as the problem,
‘stability’ as the solution and ‘stabilisation’ as the way from one to the other. Based on a larger
study conducted at the request of the German Foreign Office (Rotmann/Steinacker 2014), this
article reviews the current conceptual, institutional and practical implementation of this trend in
five Euro-Atlantic countries that have significantly invested in this area over the past decade:
Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. It seeks to identify
some of the blind spots of the stabilisation agenda and to suggest ways to sharpen an idea of
stabilisation that is both realistic and responsible.
Formulating a definition of stabilisation distinct from adjacent concepts such as conflict
transformation and peacebuilding can be challenging, not least due to the ways in which selfdescribed actors of stabilisation have evaded the pressure to define and explain their work. Rather
than enabling context-specific innovation, the resulting conceptual void has arguably exacerbated
the core challenges of coordinating development, diplomacy and defence, and led to turf battles,
duplication and delivery gaps. Combined with the empirical novelty of bureaucratic actors and
processes such as the United Kingdom’s Stabilisation Unit, the US State Department’s Bureau of
Conflict and Stabilization Operations or the new Directorate-General for Conflict Prevention,
Stabilisation and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in the German Foreign Office, the lack of a
conceptual debate has made it easier to focus on questions of institutional design than on policy
substance. Informed by the experiences of practitioners interviewed for the underlying study, this
article attempts to provide some directions toward restoring that balance.
33
The following article proceeds in three steps. After outlining the sources and context, the following
two sections briefly compare the five governments’ current conceptual approaches, institutional
setups and funding arrangements. Building on this foundation, the final section distils practical
lessons for conceptualising, designing and communicating stabilisation.
Among the five governments surveyed for this article, there are essentially two institutional models
(with some variations) in terms of inter-agency structures and dynamics, with accompanying
budgetary models. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands represent the more integrated setups,
while Canada, Germany and the United States show more decentralised models.
In the United Kingdom, the bureaucracy has been forced into numerous joint decision-making
mechanisms at various levels of policy development and implementation. Starting with the
National Security Council (NSC) at the top, this includes the Building Stability Overseas Board,
decision-making over the use of the inter-ministerial Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF)
and the operational work of the Stabilisation Unit. While chairmanship generally rotates between
the three main players – the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the Department for
International Development (DFID) and the Ministry of Defence – the role of secretariat for the
sub-NSC bodies sits with the FCO. Including the United Kingdom’s financial contributions to
multilateral stabilisation efforts such as UN peace operations (which account for £462m), the
CSSF stands at £1.033bn for the 2015–16 financial year.
In the Netherlands, inter-agency cooperation between the joint Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
Development and Trade (MBZ) and its partners in the ministries of defence and public security
takes place mostly among informal channels, through high-ranking and centrally-placed liaison
officers and a joint ‘homogenous budget for international cooperation’ (HGIS) that includes all
foreign military activities. A high-level Steering Group Military Operations provides a formal link
between ministries at the level of directors-general. Beyond the particular functional contributions
of military operations and police deployments, most of the tools and functional expertise on
stabilisation reside in a Department for Stabilisation and Humanitarian Aid (DSH) in the foreign
ministry, which plays a central role within the government. The relevant part of HGIS amounts to
almost €1bn (2014), including all multilateral contributions – a remarkable amount for a country
the size of the Netherlands, and even more so in a constrained fiscal environment in which the
defence budget has seen heavy cuts in recent years
Canada continues to maintain the largest stabilisation unit in any foreign ministry, with its more
than 100 staff (as of 2013) assigned to a Stabilisation and Reconstruction Task Force (START)
that is more of a large division or department than a ‘task force’. It plays a key role in inter-agency
coordination in country-specific task forces with the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police and (until its recent merger into the foreign ministry) the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA). START also administers a specific funding line for stabilisation
efforts and coordinates Canadian contributions to humanitarian assistance as well as peacekeeping
operations. The most recent available figures for 2011/12 put the Global Peace and Security Fund
(GPSF), START’s own funding line which excludes classic multilateral expenditures such as
Canada’s assessed contributions to UN peace operations, at CAN$149.9m.
34
In the German government, the loose and broadly voluntary setup for inter-ministerial cooperation
based on separate budgets and authorities is widely seen as the indispensable foundation for any
initiative in the implementation of the Foreign Office ‘Review 2014’. So far, with the exception
of Afghanistan, there has not been any functional institution for joint decision-making on political
crisis management or stabilisation. Policy and budgets are separate among the ministries of foreign
affairs, development, defence and interior. The Foreign Office, the natural facilitator in the absence
of leadership from the Chancellery, has long been ill equipped and bogged down by its own
internal divisions between regional and functional desks, therefore often unwilling to drive joint
policy development. The development and interior ministries have been equally unwilling to
participate in such exercises. Despite the many weaknesses of this setup, the calls from pundits to
establish a central ‘national security council’ in the Chancellery or to pool large-scale funding
between the ministries are dismissed as unrealistic by most insiders, particularly in light of
entrenched traditions of coalition politics and the associated division of ministerial posts. Instead,
it is upon the Foreign Office to muster the resources, expertise, credibility and political weight to
assume a more effective leadership role among equals. The newly created directorate-general for
Conflict Prevention, Stabilisation and Post-Conflict Reconstruction (official abbreviation: ‘S’) will
be central to this effort.
The United States is the most unusual case among the five governments surveyed because, despite
the official lead role of the State Department, stabilisation efforts are effectively dominated in
financial and often in political terms by the Department of Defense. For the most part, the Pentagon
does not want this role, but Congress is unwilling to entrust substantial resources and authority to
the State Department. In spite of a highly institutionalised system of committees and working
groups run by the National Security Council, inter-agency coordination is often weak, particularly
with regard to countries that are not at the very top of the President’s agenda. To begin
counterbalancing the multi-billion-dollar Pentagon budgets on stabilisation-related efforts,4 the
Obama administration made a new attempt to build up the expertise and progressively the
resources for civilian stabilisation in the State Department’s Bureau for Conflict and Stabilisation
Operations (CSO) which, despite having existed since 2012, continues to limit its focus to a
handful of countries in order to avoid overextending its limited resources (US$30m for 2015).
Similarly, the Office of Transition Initiatives in the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) has long resisted expansion beyond a ceiling of US$500m per year globally, arguing that
its model of small-scale, dynamic projects is too dependent on experienced personnel to be quickly
scalable.
If stabilisation is to describe a realistic and responsible political way forward after the arrogance
of democratic state-building, it needs to be narrowly defined. In this sense, though resulting from
intervention fatigue after Iraq and Afghanistan rather than dispassionate analysis, the shift from
stabilisation-as-peacebuilding to stabilisation-as-crisis-management is a welcome development.
Fragility of states or institutions cannot be identified as the problem. It must be recognised as part
of normality, to be addressed by local populations, with international support in generational
timelines. The ambition for stabilisation, sparked for better or worse by immediate crises, needs to
be far less grand than to ‘fix failing states’ (Ghani & Lockhart 2009). A possible, still ambitious,
way to frame it may be as an ‘intervention in an acute crisis to support local partners in restoring
a legitimate and effective political order as part of the long-term promotion of peace and
35
development’ (Rotmann & Steinacker 2013: 40). Such a framing also points toward two major
dilemmas that are here to stay: the imbalance of interests and influence in stabilisation (in which
local elites have greater sway but sometimes little interest in resilient political dynamics), and the
contradiction of local ownership (in which the owners are both the source of the problem and
indispensable to the solution).
The analysis of in-depth interviews with practitioners and experts from five Euro-Atlantic
countries in 2013 have shown how much more remains to be discussed than the questions of
institutional choice and budgetary integration. A realistic attitude to risk of failure and lack of
knowledge, an honest and effective negotiation of symbolic resources with local officials, real
investment in political analysis and planning, effective communication, a better way of managing
stabilisation funds and human resources, as well as an institutionalised commitment to reflection
and learning may be more important than the shape or place of a stabilisation department or
agency.
Mele, Valentina & Cappellaro, Giulia. “Cross-level coordination among
international organizations: Dilemmas and practices”. Public Administration.
96 (2018): 736–752.
This article contributes to the understanding of inter‐agency coordination among international
organizations, conceived as international public administrations (IPAs). We adopt a practice‐based
approach to study the dilemmas of coordination across levels of government in the empirical
setting of United Nations agencies involved in field‐level development activities. Based on elite
interviews in both pilot countries and agency headquarters, complemented by extensive archival
analysis, we track the emergence of a specific type of coordination dilemma that has been
understudied, that is, the dilemma of inter‐ and intra‐agency coordination. We identify two sets of
coordinating practices that aided in balancing the dilemma, that is, ‘systemic thinking’ and ‘jointly
mobilizing resources and consensus’, and we discuss the organizational factors mediating the
perception of each set of practices.
The design of our study and its focus on the everyday experience of coordinating complement the
public administration literature on ‘inter‐agency collaboration’ (Bardach 1998; Thomas 2003;
O'Toole and Meier 2004; Ospina and Saz‐Carranza 2010; Askim et al. 2011; Saz‐Carranza and
Ospina 2011; Bel and Warner 2015) by adding a cross‐level dimension to the notion that tensions
are activated when agencies work together and to the practices that address those tensions.
Specifically, our findings integrate the results of the few studies that have explored the
coordination dilemma in IOs and the organizational arrangements that are in place to address it
(Egeberg and Trondal 2016). The dynamic and relational perspective offered by the practice‐based
approach led to the identification of two sets of coordinating practices that create a balance in the
trade‐off between organizational and inter‐agency coordination. While these two sets of
coordinating practices display a degree of interaction and synergy, we may argue that one set is
more related to the core mandate and competencies, while the second set is more oriented towards
securing resources and stakeholder consensus.
More specifically, we have labelled as systemic thinking the set of practices that promoted
coordination of the core UN activity in the field and enabled agencies to move beyond the
coordination dilemma and their early response in the form of decoupling. Over time, agencies
36
reorganized their intervention around thematic areas resulting from a concerted effort to synthesize
rotating leadership based on expertise (thematic clustering), thereby fitting their mandate within a
broader puzzle and aligning the technicalities of specific procedures. We may argue that this type
of coordination of practices creates a ‘new inter‐agency space of knowledge’ that includes, instead
of fending off, agencies’ headquarters (Hanrieder 2015a). Therefore, rather than exacerbating,
these practices enable improved management of the coordination dilemma. Coordination among
the agency representatives in the field became an enabler of information flow with the HQs.
Resistance by HQs, in turn, was prevented by the acquisition of new knowledge that had the
potential to lead to a broadening of the mandate, which cast collaborative endeavours as more
appealing and through which single agencies were asked to share their competitive advantage in
terms of knowledge and know‐how.
A second set of practices that we have labelled jointly mobilizing resources and consensus enabled
coordination among agencies on issues that involved external players, be they donor countries or
host governments. Previous studies focusing on the coordination dilemma in the EU network
governance recognized that through supranational networks, national agencies find peers and
supporters outside the national boundaries and become more empowered in relation to their parent
ministries (Egeberg and Trondal 2016). Our findings confirm this dynamic and complement
previous insights by accounting for the specific practices that determined a rebalance in the
relationship between headquarters and field offices in the search for donors’ funding and in
attempts to influence the host government agenda. We found that agencies demarcated a field of
play by setting criteria for resource allocation and by specifying the behavioural expectations of
local team members, particularly with regard to their loyalty to their headquarters. Agencies
leveraged selected common areas of intervention to attract funds (flagships) and learned to speak
with one voice, both through the UN Resident Coordinator and through a system of rotation
typically based on thematic expertise. Taken as a whole, we may argue that these practices create
‘a new inter‐agency space to reach out’, shifting the individual efforts of UN agencies to the
background but also making the perception of the field more salient thanks to the critical mass of
UN agencies working together at that level. In turn, concerted efforts in the field activate a virtuous
circle in that they require the active participation of agency headquarters to support the activities
of institutional relations and advocacy.
Our findings point to the fact that not all agencies perceived the impact of coordinating practices
on the dilemma equally. This variation responds to a call for the inclusion of a comparative
perspective in the current studies of IOs (Trondal et al. 2010) and to the specific recommendation
that ‘reforms that aim for policy coherence must also be tailored to the different preconditions of
specific institutional trajectories within the UN’ (Hanrieder 2015a, p. 137). We found evidence of
the importance of the interplay between specific organizational factors and the coordinating
practices. In particular, practices of ‘systemic thinking’ seem more salient for non‐resident and
small specialized agencies. Meanwhile, practices aimed at the ‘joint mobilization of resources and
consensus’ appear to be more salient for agencies with a politically sensitive mandate and for those
with a strong brand. The identification of specific organizational factors related to the modus
operandi of individual agencies (i.e., geographical deployment and size of the agency), the
characteristics of their mandate (i.e., highly specialized and politically sensitive) and the strength
of their brand provide additional ammunition to the strand of research concerned with the
organizational features and administrative structures that confer an autonomous agentic power to
international bureaucracies (Bauer and Ege 2016; Trondal 2016; Ege 2017). In particular, the
influence of the brand strength of specific agencies on how those agencies perceive coordinating
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practices resonates with the relevance of reputation in previous studies of cooperative
arrangements at the European level (Busuioc 2016). An immediate implication of this finding is
that mapping the different reputational impacts of coordination for the agencies concerned implies
the need to be prepared to concede some brand visibility to resistant members in order to keep
them committed.
This study points to the importance of international civil servants as agents of change and
information brokers (Trondal et al. 2010; Weller and Chong 2010; Saz‐Carranza 2015; Mele et
al. 2016) and gives voice to how they perceive their institutional and professional lives. In so
doing, it addresses the call to base our understanding of the functioning of IOs on a ‘frank and
confidential dialogue’ with the large numbers of individuals working there (Trondal et al. 2010, p.
197). The international civil servants we interviewed embody roles that are strongly rooted in the
agency to which they belong. However, in their words we found strong evidence of the positive
impact of engaging in system‐wide practices, such as rotation in both thematic and managerial
duties, on the emergence of their inter‐agency sense of belonging.
To conclude, in spite of the specificities of IOs and of the UN system, we believe the implications
of our study lend themselves to serious consideration by any administrations engaging in inter‐
agency coordination. In particular, these implications seem extremely suitable for settings such as
one‐stop offices or local networks operating close to their users in which members operate
remotely from their parent organizations (Askim et al. 2011; Bel and Warner 2015).