The Securitization of Foreign Aid: Trends
Added on 2020-10-23
14 Pages4885 Words348 Views
Political Science
|
|
|
Critically assess the impactof the securitisation ofdevelopment aid
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1The Securitisation of Foreign Aid and its trends........................................................................1Impact of the securitisation of development aid.........................................................................6REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
INTRODUCTIONSecuritisation of aid refers to the aid given by donor countries to fragile or conflict pronecountries and they have their national security interests attached to it. The term securitisation waspopularised in the study of international relations which jotted at Copenhagen School. It meanssecurity concerns become unrelated and securitised by the entities who attach a security value tothem. In this context, the focus is on the impact of securitisation of developmental aid. Since thelast two decades, multilateral as well as bilateral donors of development aid have rapidly cited intheir proclamations of national as well as international security as the justification for aidprovision. In this context, the report examines the influence of securitisation of international aidgiven by foreign countries for developmental motives. MAIN BODYThe Securitisation of Foreign Aid and its trendsCountries that are affected with violence, the argument on development and securitywhich concentrates on providing security to human beings has been embarked after 9/11 terroristattack in the United States. Simultaneously, all main donor nations of Europe, North Americaand Asia acknowledged their aid systems to reflect effective conflict sensitivity with newemphasis on security that has related impact and has efficient coherence between traditionalforeign aid, development assistance and security policy. However, due to military interventionsin Iraq, Afghanistan, Balkans and other war prone areas, international security and armed forceincluding homeland security has been deployed by industrialised nations. Thus, thiscreates moretension and conflict between their military and armed forces. Brown and Grävingholt, (2016)states that nevertheless, although all donor nations frequently refer to twin rationales reducingdisputes for the sake of human beings immediately. This is also helpful in providing peopleassistance to prevent spill over negative consequences. For instance, Canada vigorouslypromoted human security at one point, whilst the United States formulated prevention ofterrorism a core objective of its agenda. In United Kingdom, industrial innovation anddevelopment such as Conflict Prevention Pools stood alongside an explicit aid allocationfocusing on eradication of poverty (Brown, 2016). Germany heavily invested in developingrobust infrastructure in order to underpin civilian conflict prevention. The European Commissionat European Union level has developed its objectives with new focus on enhancing securitywhich was laid down in 2003 European Security Strategy.1
Approach of government and fragile states are usually associated with securitisation offoreign aid. All donor countries involved in this volume came to concentrate on state fragility,albeit as they utilise different terminologies and sometimes it depicts different meanings.According to Brown and Grävingholt, (2016) all donor countries embrace whole government orgovernment approaches with the exception of Japan. Further, other terminologies were not sowidely deployed. For example, Japan and United States especially concentrates on War towardsTerror whilst only Japan considered the value of human security with a comprehensiveperspective of harmony and peace building. By virtue of limited foreign policy mandates,European Union needs to be aware of its collective interests as well as interests of its memberstates. Nations like France and United States depicts much more national self-interest thatmanifest in their discourse. This was done by Canada to a certain extent. Brown, (2018)elucidated that only country like Japan and United Kingdom contributes their analysis and effortsin more international and altruistic terms without eschewing self-interest. It sometimes becomescomplicated to assess at what extent the new discourses are contributing towards national self-interest or concentrating on international public goods. These two elements often overlap inorder to attain more stability in fragile states. This could be efficient for donor countries and forthe stability of international systems. There is greater impact of securitisation of foreign aid fordevelopmental purposes. Donor countries provide security aid to fragile states in order to boostup their nation economy. In present era, many countries like Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, etc. havebeen facing critical situations which affect the livelihood of human beings residing there. Theforeign aid provided by the industrialised and developed countries, helps in enhancing theprotection and security level of human beings residing in the countries. Fragile states are themost common term to emerge as part of securitisation process. Brown, (2016) argued that thefragile states discourse inextricably linked with the post 9/11 securitisation of foreign aid. Ithelps in diverging the discourse away from poverty focused, an ethnically based which practicestowards developing a more self-interested national or international security based rationale.Canadian government defined the meaning of fragile states in vaguely and ambiguous manner.They state fragility as “failed and failing states” to those countries that were prone to securitythreats. Canada concentrates on five fragile states; according to them, they were Afghanistan,Iraq, Haiti, Palestine and Sudan. Most of these nations have been provided with significantamount of Canadian aid but added fragility label gives these countries an additional credibility2
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
War, Peace and Terrorism: Military Technologies and War Crimes in Syrian Civil Warlg...
|6
|781
|88