Security-Development Nexus: a postmodern analysis

Present paper completes a series on conceptual aspects of the ‘security–development nexus’ and its use by leading bilateral donors and multilateral organizations providing assistance to developing countries of the Global South. In order to assess the place of the ‘nexus’ in contemporary security studies and its role in the evolution of the corresponding subdiscipline, the paper examines this concept through the prism of postmodern theories of international relations. The first section summarizes basic premises of postmodern security studies and highlights the most notable examples of their implementation in conceptualization of security. Special attention was paid to the phenomenon of death and specific relations produced by attempts of individuals and societies to rationalize it. The second section determines the reasons behind a development and rapid recognition of the ‘security–development nexus’ concept in political rhetoric and practices of developed states using ontological and epistemological premises of the postmodern security studies. Such an approach reveals that an excessive broadening of security studies, embodied in the concept of the ‘nexus’, risks to undermine not only the legitimacy of nation-states as pivotal international actors, but also the very foundations of the rational scientific knowledge with everyday security issues collapsing into a state of ontological insecurity of an individual. In this context the conclusion is drawn that it is imperative to develop a novel methodology of security studies allowing to limit – in a systematic and rational manner – their excessive broadening and to provide them with firm scientific foundations. To that end the use of advances in materialistic approaches in international relations theory appears the most promising