The relations between development and security

Résumé du document

This work is based on the text written by Lars Buur, Steffen Jensen and Finn Stepputat : The Security-Development Nexus. Development is defined as 'set of governance practices for enhancing the well being of populations, in particular in poor countries'. What is important to understand is that this notion of development is not natural and can become normative. The institutions such as development agencies decide what are the good and the bad forms of development for people. Security is defined as: ?the use of exceptional means of countering threats to the survival of individuals and states?. We find the same problem as with development: even if we can give a theoretical definition of this concept, we see that the works on that field can?t be really objective. The problem of security has to be explored because it is an essential mean for the objective of the State that is to reach sovereignty. However they don?t have the monopoly on the designation of security matters: it seems necessary to discover what are the different institutions that can decide and judge on the designation of security matters.

Extraits

[...] The relations between development and security This work is based on the text written by Lars Buur, Steffen Jensen and Finn Stepputat : The Security-Development Nexus. According to me, this work is really interesting because it starts with a deep work on definition and try to underline the relations between concepts that appear, at first, different. This work is a very good starting point because it provides us with key elements to investigate the relations between the key notions and the consequences of the nature of those relations. [...]

[...] To gain their sovereignty, the states have to protect some essential need for the development of people such as their security. Then, under-development is dangerous for the security so it's necessary to work on the development of people - Finally, the authors show us that: ‘‘through the conceptual lenses of bio- politics and sovereignty, development and security appear to be overlapping and interdependent''. The biopolotics are defined as : ''concerning the management of life at the level of populations through programmes of health , education, population control, agricultural extension services , environmental protection From the perspective of biopolitics the authors show that the concepts of development and security are used by the State in order to ensure their sovereignty. [...]

[...] According to Wacquant, the process of criminalization can also affect the development itself by presenting the poorest as criminals. The ‘‘others'', the ones that we have to fight are no more the communist as during the Cold War but they are the drug dealers or the illegal migrants. That's why we see that the principles and the methods are the same before and during democratisation: we always find the same need to reject the dangerous members of the society thanks to ‘‘psycho-politico-military projects that combine security and development through the identification of particular spaces that are pacified by security measures''. [...]

[...] The concept of development has been securitised. Some people argue that the lack of development can be the source of security issues (terrorism in the fail states). There is a kind of a vicious circle: the lack of development generates security problems that lead to wars and at the end, wars slow down the rhythm of development. On the other hand, the concept of security has been developementalised. There has been a shift on the notion of security itself from the security of states to the security of people. [...]

[...] The security issues are of course used by the States as a political tool: it gives them a hard power to fight against the dissidence. The problem of security has to be explored because it is an essential mean for the objective of the State that is to reach sovereignty. However they don't have the monopoly on the designation of security matters: it seems necessary to discover what are the different institutions that can decide and judge on the designation of security matters. Thanks to those definitions, the authors try to demonstrate that the links between development and security are strong. [...]