| ID | 104027 |
| Title Proper | Spaces of security and development |
| Other Title Information | an alternative mapping of the security-development nexus |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Reid-Henry, Simon |
| Publication | 2011. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | As Maria Stern and Joakim Öjendal (2010) rightly point out, the security-development nexus 'matters'. If security and development are today more closely entwined than ever before - 'two sides of a coin', according to Beall and Goodfellow (2006: 52; see also Stewart, 2004) - their conjuncture is not unproblematic. Certainly, there is no doubt that the 'nexus' has its own discursive reality and that the felt need of the international community to pursue development and security policies alongside one another is shaping practice in this regard (a trend that is often taken to be something quintessentially new; however, for a useful argument against such presumed novelty, see Buur et al., 2007a; see also Cooper, 2006). Establishing quite what sort of meanings actors and scholars are attributing to the nexus, therefore, is a task of some importance. It was the explicit aim of the editorial essay in a recent special issue of this journal on 'the Security-Development Nexus Revisited' and the implicit task of the other contributory essays to the same issue. 1 The dissection by the editors, Stern and Öjendal, of the 'infinite' meanings that can be attributed to the security-development nexus helps reveal (and develop) what Chandler (2007) has elsewhere argued: that the nexus is in effect a hollow signifier capable of carrying any number of meanings, and that this capacity is maintained through its (paradoxically) attaining the veneer of a stable and uncontested notion. Such dissection is an undoubtedly important task, from which follows what Foucault would call both critical and effective possibilities ( Dean, 1994). |
| `In' analytical Note | Security Dialogue Vol. 42, No. 1; Feb 2011: p97-104 |
| Journal Source | Security Dialogue Vol. 42, No. 1; Feb 2011: p97-104 |
| Key Words | Development-security Nexus ; Foreign Policy ; Identity ; Insecurity ; Security |