Development, Poverty and Security : Treacherous concepts and proposals for alternatives

Seminar at the WSF, Caracas, 25th of January 2006
by Francine Mestrum

This session was chaired by Thomas Ponniah who explained that the main objective was to reflect on the risks of the merging development and security agendas, and to propose alternatives to traditional development thinking.

An introduction was given by Francine Mestrum. She explained that the link between development and security is far from new. We find it in the constitution of the ILO, which is almost 100 years old, and in the UN Charter. However, this ‘old’ link has always remained theoretical, but today it is being materialized in a way that implies a risk of re-colonization of poor countries.

What happened?

First, security has been redefined. After the end of the cold war, the UNDP proposed a concept of ‘human security,’ and the ILO launched a programme for ‘economic security.’ These concepts come close to social progress, although, simultaneously, ‘social security’ is slowly disappearing from the discourse of international organisations.

A second element in this redefinition of ‘security’ is the shift from inter-state to intra-state conflicts. This leads to important questions around possible ‘humanitarian’ interventions, and the sovereignty of nations.

A third element concerns new discourse on ‘failed states,’ where institutional capacity has weakened and external help is needed for both ‘capacity’ and ‘institution-building’. Here, the line between security and development is totally blurred.

Simultaneously, development is being redefined. In the 60s and 70s, the UN defined it mainly as a collective emancipation process, including economic and social modernization; the criticisms on this ‘unifying’ and ‘eurocentric’ approach have never stopped. Today, it is no longer countries, rather it is people who one wants to ‘develop,’ and the whole agenda has been reduced to ‘poverty reduction strategies.’ Moreover, the World Bank has conceptualized this poverty in such a way that the solution to it leads automatically towards its neoliberal policies. Poverty reduction, then, becomes the human face of globalization. Today, it is because of poverty that privatization, free trade and the deregulation of labour markets is being promoted. Poverty is also described as being a ‘threat,’ it is something we have to ‘fight’, which brings the concept closer to ‘security.’

A second element in the redefinition of ‘development’ is the growth of humanitarian aid, post-conflict and post-catastrophe assistance. In these areas, the military and NGOs happily work together, in order ‘to win the hearts and minds’ of populations. Here, security and development are clearly interlinked.

Finally, a third element concerns the institutional dimension. ‘Good governance’ is now said to be crucial for the effectiveness of aid policies. NGOs invest in ‘democracy-building,’ and military aid is more frequently included in development aid. Aid is given according to the national interests of the donor countries.

A first conclusion could be that the link between development and security can be a positive, if donor countries show a real willingness to foster economic and social development in order to improve global stability and security. Unfortunately, this is not often the case.

A second conclusion could be that the unavoidable ‘failed’ state’s conflicts and catastrophes (given neoliberal policies and the lack of environmental concerns) are used to impose free market capitalism. A whole new discourse is thus emerging on ‘pre-modern’ states, where ‘the law of the jungle’ has to be applied. In the neoliberal, global context these developments can lead towards a militarization, and finally, re-colonization of poor countries.

Katrien Demuynck agrees with this analysis and points to the need to demystify all the concepts used by international organisations. Countries, such as Cuba, have perfectly feasible social policies that are not derive from its economic policies. Its positive result is clearly linked to the fact that the World Bank and the IMF never had an opportunity to impose their neoliberalism. Social development can only happen with a political decision, a decision to redistribute wealth. The terminology used by international organisations is also highly political, and it is used to de-legitimize socialist policies. Chile is a country that is being congratulated for its successful export and poverty reduction policies, but it remains one of the countries with the highest rate of inequality in the world. We should realize that economic growth is not a guarantee for social development.

Poverty, according to Virginia Vargas, is a concept meant to depoliticize social relations, whereas the bigger problem is inequality. In order to organize our resistance to neoliberal policies, we must politicize ‘inequality’ and use a class analysis. Inequality is now presented as something totally normal, whereas, the ‘right to have rights’ is completely forgotten. Women, especially, are the victims of a system that does not see nor pay for their work. Women contribute, to a very high degree, to the wealth of nations and are part of the economic reproductive system. If we look at security, we should also take into account the violence used against women, in its fullest meaning. We must refuse all the meaningless concepts from international organisations, such as poverty and ‘governance,’ that can in no way help us build a resistance movement.

Thomas Ponniah sees ‘social justice’ as the binding element between two different strategies within the global justice and solidarity movement. On the one hand, those who promote a participatory state, and on the other hand the horizontalists. Since the state can no longer deliver egalitarian social programs, they no longer believe in it. Despite all their differences, both groups demand a radical democracy that is participatory and self-organizing to be the essence of another possible world. Both believe that public self-representation is a pre-condition to genuinely solving the problems of economic mal-distribution and cultural mal-recognition.

Teivo Teivainen proposes to radically reject the old dichotomy of ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ states. The old dichotomy introduces a pedagogy of power in which the underdeveloped are classified as children-like and therefore treated as students, whereas the developed are considered adult-like and therefore capable of teaching the others. This relation of power is reproduced every time we unreflectively use the concepts ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ countries. Some may consider that using these terms is important in order to struggle against the inequalities in the world. For Teivainen, it is crucial to focus on the real, material inequalities, but the struggle against them cannot be adequately waged if we rely on the concepts that reproduce power relations and help constitute these inequalities. It is more useful to use terms, such as, ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ to analyze the inequalities, since these terms do not assume lineal trajectories of development.

In the following debate with the audience, the question of Cuba was repeatedly touched upon. Some pointed to the fact that political and civil rights were not respected, whereas others referred to the practical denial of the rights of poor people in so-called democratic countries.

Other speakers underlined the necessary cultural changes we need in order to get rid of the conceptual apparatus of neoliberal organisations. These cultural changes imply more participation and a true citizenship. We need both dynamics of change and resistance.

In her conclusion Francine Mestrum repeated that we definitely have to change the formal development agenda, and that we need to promote social security instead of military security. This social security implies more than the traditional welfare state policies, and should have a global dimension. Furthermore, we should get rid of useless concepts and promote the concepts that international organisations never use, like emancipation and social justice. All peoples should be able to elaborate their own development and security agendas.