The Nexus between Development and Security: Searching for Common Ground in Countering Terrorism

ICCT Research Fellow Dr. Bibi van Ginkel and Clingendael Senior Research Fellow Ivan Briscoe analyse the relationship between the development and counter-terrorism sectors in light of the changing nature of terrorism. The authors argue that there is a complex but important connection between political violence and socio-economic development and argue for new synergies between development and counter-terrorism experts.

In recent years, only limited collaboration existed between the counter-terrorism community and the development sector. With the exception of some shared rhetoric on state-building and a common focus on an instrumental use of “development”, there has been more mistrust than cooperation, and
civil-military exercises have repeatedly created grave problems for humanitarian workers.

For many aid organisations the grand rhetoric of a nexus between security and development, first enunciated by the United Nations (UN) in the 1990s as part of the broader meaning of “human security”,4 has been irrevocably tainted through its co-option by military tacticians seeking to win over the “hearts and minds” of native populations without attending to the slower, deeper and more inclusive processes that development requires.