The European Union's Development Policy: A Balancing Act between ‘A More Comprehensive Approach’ and Creeping Securitisation

Abstract

Abstract'Security' has become prominent in official EU development discourse in recent years, and references to security concerns are routinely included in policy statements and documents. Our objective in this paper is to determine whether security concerns have had a growing influence over EU development policy and aid allocation. If so, we are interested in whether this trend can properly be understood as 'securitisation' in the critical sense that resources are being diverted away from socio-economic development, or whether we should see it as a positive trend towards greater coherence in EU development policy.

Development Policy under Fire? The Politicization of European External Relations*

“…In doing so, we also conceptualize the relations between development policy and other external policy domains. Although there is a rich literature on policy nexuses, most notably with regard to the development–security nexus (Furness and Gänzle, 2016; Hout, 2010; Youngs, 2008); the development–migration nexus (Chou, 2006; Lavenex and Kunz, 2008; Schöfberger, 2019); the development–democracy nexus (Crawford, 2000; del Biondo and Orbie, 2014; Hackenesch, 2018); or the development–trade nexus (Carbone and Orbie, 2014; Elgström, 2009; Young and Peterson, 2013), this literature is relatively light in theorizing, a finding that also holds for research on European development policy more broadly (Delputte and Orbie, 2018, p. 292‐293). The concept of horizontal politicization also allows us to look at these dynamics in a more open‐ended way and to take into consideration reverse dynamics where, for instance, development policy influences trade, security or international climate policy.…”

“…Scholars working on European development policy have analysed the securitization and instrumentalization of European aid for other foreign policy purposes (Furness and Gänzle, 2016;Olivié and Pérez, 2019). These analyses sometimes refer to the politicization of aid (Dany, 2015;Hilpold, 2017).…”

Cooperating Through Competition: EU Challenge and Support to the World Bank Focality in Multilateral Development Finance

“…During the Cold War, the EU approach to development had indeed replicated the special relationships between member states and their former colonies. Thus, until the 1990s, politicisation of bilateral aid was matched by a norm of ‘political neutrality’ in EU aid, with no explicit reference to security issues in the policy dialogue between the Commission and third countries (Furness and Gänzle, 2016). Only in 1993 did the Maastricht Treaty attribute explicit competence to the Commission on development policy, qualifying it as a ‘shared competency’ between the European Community and member states.…”

Whose and what aid securitisation? An analysis of EU aid narratives and flows

“…We also deal with the somehow narrower view of sticking to the analysis of the narrative by incorporating a study of aid flows too, in line with previous studies on aid securitization. Indeed, according to academic literature on aid securitization, evidence of this process can be found in three distinct (but complementary) levels: aid discourse, allocations and institutions (Brown et al, 2016, Furness andGänzle, 2016). The securitization of the aid discourse is manifested in increasing references to security, conflict, fragile states, terrorism or the perils of migration in development cooperation white papers, master plans or official interventions in national parliaments or multilateral fora.…”