The Security-Development Nexus: Peace, Conflict and Development
244
The Security-Development Nexus: Peace, Conflict and Development
244Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783080656 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Anthem Press |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2013 |
| Series: | Anthem Studies in Peace, Conflict and Development |
| Pages: | 244 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Ashok Swain is Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden, and is also Director of the Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development.
Joakim Öjendal is Professor in Peace and Development Studies at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg.
Read an Excerpt
The Security-Development Nexus
Peace, Conflict and Development
By Ramses Amer, Ashok Swain, Joakim Öjendal
Wimbledon Publishing Company
Copyright © 2013 Ramses Amer, Ashok SwainAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84331-398-4
CHAPTER 1
RESEARCHING THE SECURITY-DEVELOPMENT NEXUS THROUGH A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH
Ramses Amer, Ashok Swain and Joakim Öjendal
Introduction
Following a global flurry of 'new wars' and 'new conflicts' in the post–Cold War era (Kaldor 2007; Keen 2008), a lot of rethinking has been done (and certainly will be done) on the causes of violent conflict in the global system. After a decade dominated by, inter alia, '9/11', the unstable and violent African development context and the relatively sustainable peace (and very successful development) in East Asia, reflections on the relations between development and security (and vice versa) became unavoidable. In policy documents (e.g., UN 2004; OECD 2007; DFID 2005; European Council 2003, 2008; UNDP 2005), as well as in academic circles (Buur, Jensen and Stepputat 2007; Chandler 2007, 2008; Duffield 2001, 2007; Paris and Sisk 2007), the 'development-security nexus' was coined as a concept and emerged as a hotly contested topic. Unsurprisingly, the policy world was jumping to 'new solutions', with reductionist conclusions, whereas research remained more sceptical. For instance, irrespective of whether we listen to the 'new' United States foreign policy articulated by Colin Powell or by General Petraeus, to the secretary-general of the United Nations and to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty on 'Responsibility to Protect' (UN 2009; ICISS 2001), or the European Union's 'European Security Strategy' (European Council 2008), the attention is increasingly on how conflicts of various sorts can be prevented through greater focus on 'development'. The nexus became a commodity over which intellectual ownership was as unclear as important. Voices critical of the good intentions (Duffield 2010) as well as the clarity of the concept (Stern and Öjendal 2010) emerged, and the idea is struggling with credibility. In this light, in this edited book we offer an intellectual contribution in order to further the debate through both conceptual, theoretical and case study analyses from a multi-disciplinary approach.
Although the nexus between security and development has come onto the policy agenda explicitly after 9/11, the idea has been influencing international development policy for some time. Even the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine were products of this. In the post–Cold War period, the definition of security has been redefined to include people's security. The United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development Report argued for human security as 'freedom from fear' and 'freedom from want' (UNDP 1994). The recent political priority of emphasizing the nexus has led to the securitization of development policy, and rich countries allocate large portion of their aid to countries and regions perceived as a risk to their security interests. In the post-9/11 period, the US aid policy has been open and obvious in this regard, but the EU donors have also increasingly joined the trend to allocate most of their aid strategically. There is no doubt that this securitization trend of the aid policy has further reduced the already limited resources available for the development to the poor countries. However, the predicament is much more complex than this.
As development and security are relational concepts, many question whose security and whose development this nexus is concerned with. Short-term security considerations of rich and powerful countries increasingly override the long-term developmental challenges of poor regions. This approach also poses challenges for long-term engagements necessary for sustainable peace. There are also huge coordination gaps between different agencies and their policies in connecting development and security. There is a certain move towards policy standardization, but as Chandler (2006) and Paris (2004) argue, that coordination is in most cases limited to rhetoric only. Besides the lack of coordination among relevant agencies, the policies driven by the nexus approach also suffers from a huge disparity between policy and implementation, an absence of real local involvement, and a scarcity of resources. Moreover, the security-development nexus has led, to a certain extent, to a conceptual chaos.
The rationale behind this edited book is to use a multi-disciplinary perspective to address the discussion of different positions on what the security-development nexus necessitates. In the context of the book, several academic disciplines are brought together – peace and conflict, peace and development, international relations, international law and political economy. All contributors have their academic background in one or more of these disciplines. The majority of the contributors come from peace studies and its two main sub-fields, peace and conflict and peace and development.
The main theme of this edited book draws from the 2009 Conference of the Swedish Network of Peace, Conflict and Development Research (PCDRNET) on the topic 'Development and Security Nexus' held in Stockholm, Sweden on 6–7 November 2009. The contributions to the book are revised and updated versions of the keynote address and selected papers presented at the conference. In addition, one chapter has been commissioned and this introductory chapter has been added.
A Multi-disciplinary Approach
As noted above, the security-development nexus can be researched through a number of academic disciplines, and in this book the various contributors address the nexus from several relevant academic disciplines. The majority of the contributors come from peace studies.
Being a relatively young academic discipline, peace studies draws on other more established disciplines including international relations, international law and political economy in the context of global, regional, and other forms of interstate disputes and conflicts, as well as from political science, sociology and anthropology in the context of intra-state disputes and conflicts. Peace studies seeks to explain and understand factors that cause disputes and conflicts. It also seeks to study and develop various approaches to resolve and manage potential and existing disputes and conflicts. The approaches range from actions of international and regional organizations through frameworks, principles and mechanisms to various forms of actions including peacekeeping. Peace studies is also concerned with factors that hamper conflict management and disputes settlement as in, for example, so-called spoilers and their impact on peace processes and the implementation of peace agreements (e.g., Stedman 1997). The role of third parties is of particular relevance in peace studies and this can be seen in the study of both negotiation and mediation as, for example, in the research on 'ripeness' (e.g., Zartman 2001), as well as in the study of various forms of interventionism (e.g., Amer 1994). Peace studies also addresses the linkage between regime types and conflict behaviour, e.g., 'democratic peace' and 'liberal peace' (e.g., Richmond 2007). If peace studies historically has been focusing to a large extent on 'from war to peace' the introduction of, and interest for, the 'security-development nexus' turns this on its head and suggests an increased focus on (preventing the passage) 'from peace to war'. As such, it is an important piece in the puzzle of understanding the full circle of conflict cycles from causes of conflicts to post-conflict developments.
In this edited book a number of these dimensions of peace studies are highlighted in the context of the study of the links between security and development. The starting point is an exploration of the conceptual dimensions of the security-development nexus in Chapter 2. This chapter also links the book to both the existing scholarly literature in the field (e.g., Security Dialogue 2010; Third World Quarterly 2009) and to the policy debates relating to the linkages between security and development. The linkages are also explored through two case studies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Africa, with Chapter 9 dealing with trade and exploitation of minerals in the DRC and Chapter 10 dealing with water management through a case study of eThekwini Municipality in South Africa. Also related is the broad human security dimension which is examined in Chapter 7 through a study of the Central Asian region. In Chapter 3, key dimensions of 'liberal peace' are addressed through a case study of Kosovo. The role of external parties in intra-state conflicts is addressed through the analysis of the cases of Aceh and Sri Lanka in Chapter 6. Chapter 4 examines the rise of China and the possible impact that will have on the existing international order. Both Chapters 4 and 5 address issues relating to interventionism – in particular, the principle on non-interference and the prohibition of the threat or use of force in inter-state relations – through analyses of the foreign policy of China and an analysis of the principles governing the Association of SSoutheast Asia Nations (ASEAN).
The multi-disciplinary approach can clearly bee seen through the different approaches utilized by the contributors to the book. Chapter 4, dealing with the rise China, applies a purely international law approach to the problematic, and Chapter 5 also addresses some dimensions through the international legal tradition but combines it with some aspects on peace and conflict, in particular those dealing with interventionism. Taken as whole, this edited book displays how multi-disciplinary peace studies really is and how broad the methodological, theoretical and conceptual approaches encompassed under the umbrella of peace studies are.
The contributions to the book display the complexities of the linkages between security and development at both the inter-state and intra-state levels, and the book also addresses the conceptual discourse relating to the nexus. This is complemented by both theoretical testing on relevant case studies and by in-depth empirical case studies. Taken as whole, the contributions make the edited book both conceptually, theoretically and empirically relevant in the context of the scholarly debate and study of the security-development nexus. It is also of relevance for the broader policy debate on the linkages between security and development at global, regional and national levels in the international system.
Geographical Focus and Case Studies
The edited book is not intended to deal with one specific geographical area; consequently, the book deals with cases from a wide section of the world, notably Africa, Asia and Europe. The two chapters dealing with African cases focus on the DRC and South Africa. Four chapters address Asian cases: one chapter deals with China specifically; one with China and ASEAN; one with the cases of Ache (in Indonesia) and Sri Lanka; and one with Central Asia as a whole. The two chapters dealing with European cases focus on Kosovo and Sweden (specifically, the Vietnamese diaspora).
The cases are studied from different perspectives in the respective chapters. One dimension is the international involvement in intra-state disputes both through international intervention, as with Kosovo, and through international mediation, as with Ache and Sri Lanka. Another dimension concerns foreign policy and international security relating to inter-state relations, as with China and ASEAN.
Structure of the Book
The edited book is structured in the following way. Chapter 2 by Maria Stern and Joakim Öjendal is a conceptual exploration of the security-development nexus. Chapter 3 by Roland Kostic', Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain assesses liberal state-building and environmental security in the context of the case of Kosovo. Chapter 4 by Zou Keyuan assesses the rise of China in the context of the existing international order. Chapter 5 by Ramses Amer investigates the linkages between some key dimensions of the Charter of the United Nations and the issue of security with specific reference to Pacific Asia. Chapter 6 by Malin Åkebo deals with the international dimensions of the peace processes in Aceh and Sri Lanka with a focus on the role of intermediaries. Chapter 7 by Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse assesses the challenges of human security and development in Central Asia. Chapter 8 by Ashok Swain and Nhi Phan explores the role of diasporas in peacebuilding through the case of the Vietnamese diaspora in Sweden. Chapter 9 by Ruben de Koning examines the nexus between development and security in the DRC through the study of the exploration and tracing of minerals. Finally, Chapter 10 by Sofie Hellberg studies the linkage between water management and the security-development nexus through a case study of eThekwini Municipality in South Africa.
Main Findings
The chapters included in this edited book deal with issues relating to the linkages between security and development from various perspectives and through various approaches providing relevant findings for a broader understand of the complexities of the security-development nexus in today's world.
In Chapter 2 'Exploring the Security-Development Nexus', Maria Stern and Joakim Öjendal observe that it is now beyond doubt that attention to the 'security-development nexus' has become commonplace in national and global policy-making; yet it remains underexplored how 'the nexus' is differently imbued with meaning and ultimately employed. In their chapter Stern and Öjendal suggest one possible framework for mapping the multiple understandings which underlie specific articulations of 'the nexus' in order to reveal the ways in which meaning may shift in different (yet seemingly similar) discourses. To this end, Stern and Öjendal draw upon familiar stories about development and about security and offer a brief reading of ways in which 'the nexus' is articulated in policy texts. This framework also provides insights into what such articulations may imply for the policy agenda.
In Chapter 3, 'Liberal State-Building and Environmental Security: The International Community Between Trade-Off and Carelessness', Roland Kostic', Florian Krampe and Ashok Swain note that several studies show that environmental stress is one of the main catalysts of societal insecurities that can escalate to armed conflict. Current international peacebuilding efforts, resting on the premises of liberal peace, strive to ameliorate such conflicts and address societal insecurities in the post-conflict situation. However, the focus on democratization, human rights, rule of law institution and capacity building means that the issue of environmental stress often remains unaddressed, thus creating new casus belli. The authors take Kosovo as a case in point to illustrate how the efforts of a complex peacebuilding operation aiming to provide conditions for durable peace can lead to an increasing environmental stress. As a result, the effects are development-induced displacement and pollution caused, for example, by the extensive opencast mining for lignite. The authors argue that environmental and societal security needs have to be addressed simultaneously to reduce the danger of recurring conflicts.
In Chapter 4, 'The Rising China and Maintaining the International Order: Some Reflections', Zou Keyuan notes that with the rise of China, people around the world are wondering whether this rising power would change the existing international order, which is a result of the order reconstruction after World War II with the establishment of the United Nations and its associated specialized intergovernmental organizations. Zou argues that as a member, China is bound by the Charter of the United Nations, including its legal principles, and must carry out its corresponding obligations. The chapter discusses and assesses China's practices in international affairs including the maintenance of international peace and security in three aspects: fighting against terrorism and other international crimes, humanitarian intervention and international disarmament. It also examines China's role in the promotion of a new order for the environment and economy in two aspects: the establishment of both an international climate change regime and a new international economic order. Finally, the chapter examines China's approaches to international dispute settlement. Some conclusions are drawn from relevant observations that, although the rising China is no doubt playing a more active and on some occasions critical role in international affairs, it is not yet a global power which can direct the course of change in the international order. Zou observes that China is a maintainer and supporter of the existing international order rather than a challenger – and much less an overthrower – of the current order. This can be seen from Chinese statements made within the United Nations system that the authority of the charter must be maintained and that 'defending the authority of the Charter is essential for maintaining the rule of law at the international level' (Duan 2007, 187). However, working within the current international order does not mean that China is contented with the international system in all aspects. Due to its rise as an economic power, China is demanding a bigger say in international financial and banking affairs as discussed above, and even attempted to call for the establishment of a new international economic order. Zou argues that history shows that China's foreign policy is subject to changes and adjustments from time to time. The author concludes that if China is accommodated satisfactorily in the current international economic order, it is very likely that it will drop its call for a new order and live within the existing one. Zou also argues that if China demands a bigger and more vigorous say, it should consider whether it is ready to assume more responsibilities in world affairs. He observes that this is a real challenge to China in assuming its global responsibilities and there may be several benchmarks against which to observe China's readiness in this regard.
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