“Security – Development nexus” in Western Bibliography

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, numerous new constructs entered the vocabulary of international relations. Some neologisms may be labeled ‘hybrid’ concepts, since they are composed of previously known terms. The security-development nexus is one of the most illustrative examples. Despite its fast entrenchment in both political and academic discourses throughout the 2000s, this concept remains subject to lively scholarly debate. The first section of this paper examines the historical context of the emergence of the nexus and the key phases of the developement of a relevant discourse. It focuses, on the one hand, on the end of the Cold War and on numerous ‘complex emergencies’ in the former Third World countries during the 1990s. These wars and emergencies formed an environment conducive to a ‘developmentalization of security’, and, on the other hand, the terrorist attacks of the 9/11 and the consecutive Global War on Terror, which in turn led to a reverse trend of ‘securitization of development’. The second and the third sections summarize arguments of proponents and critics of the nexus respectively. The proponents of the nexus tend to be in line with the discourse of international organizations and development agencies of established donors and back their arguments with solid statistical data. The critics’ arguments tend to be more theoretical and methodology-driven. The security-development nexus is being criticized mainly for the following reasons: 1) ambiguity of content; 2) political bias; 3) negative political implications; 4) lack of empirical evidence. The conclusion identifies several research niches to be filled by implementing contextualization techniques. The most promising directions for future research seem to be the following: 1) comparative analysis of the evolution of various international actors’ conceptualizations of ‘security’, ‘development’ and ‘security-development nexus’, in particular; 2) examination of discourse at the intra-state level and comparison of different agencies’ views on the most complex and pressing issues lying at the intersection of security and development; 3) comparative analysis of different donors’ policies in selected fragile states and regions; 4) examination of the impact of budget austerity on the leading world powers’ international development cooperation policies.