Fighting Poverty to Fight Terrorism: Security in DfID's Development Policy During the War on Terror

Abstract

This article builds on existing research on the securitisation of development aid following 9/11. Investigating arguments that the UK's concern is with security at home and not the security of developing states, the policy discourse of the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) is examined through its 4 major policy documents and 2 major security documents for the period from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. Two levels of analysis are used; a content analysis and a discourse analysis. This article argues that DfID has given increasing space to conflict and security and, after initial restrictions placed on DfID's involvement in security in the late 1990s, security has become a key development concern during the War on Terror. In the process the goal of Human Security – to place development issues as security concerns – has been reversed and, instead, DfID has included security as a development problem.