After the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, ‘War on Terror’ has become priority number one on the global political agenda. That ‘War on Terror’ has become the priority has caused concerns amongst development workers from British Overseas NGOs for Development, Oxfam and Christian Aid. This concern has revolved around the fear that post- 9/11 international development aid has become securitized, i.e., turned into security. This fear has been confirmed as being warranted in the case of post-9/11 Danish development aid by Aning who argues that Danish development aid has been securitized since Danish development aid has increasingly been allocated to fragile countries which are perceived to presenting a threat to Danish and global security. This Brown and Grävingholt, however, refute. Due to these two contradicting views, this thesis is going to investigate
Has Danish post-9/11 development aid been securitized, and if so, to what extent?
This research question this thesis seeks to answer through a content analysis of Danish policy papers on development aid and a documentary analysis of annual reports on Danish development aid, which have both been produced after 9/11 by the Danish government development aid agency DANIDA. The study is based on deductive reasoning which seeks to test the Securitization Theory on the empirical case of Danish post-9/11 development aid. The Securitization Theory claims that something becomes securitized by a security discourse.
By looking at the Danish policy papers on development aid and annual reports on Danish development aid, it can be concluded that Danish post-9/11 development aid has been securitized through 1) a security discourse, 2) allocation of development aid to fragile countries, 3) allocation of development aid to security sectors, and 4) coordination of Danish development efforts with military efforts. Since Danish post-9/11 development aid has been securitized by development aid practices of allocation of development aid to fragile countries, allocation of development aid to security sectors and coordination of Danish development efforts with military efforts, this thesis concludes that the Securitization Theory can only to some extent be applied to the empirical case of Danish post-9/11 development aid to explain how it has become securitized.
Moreover, the thesis concludes that Danish post-9/11 development aid, however, has only been securitized to some extent. Danish post-9/11 development aid has only been securitized to some extent since 1) development issues not become presented as posing a threat to the security of the donor countries, only ‘migrants’ and development issues also become presented as threats to the developing countries themselves which serves justify that development aid is spent on promoting economic development and wellbeing for the developing countries and not just the strategic security interest of Denmark or development. 2) Nothing or as little as 4.3 percent of Danish development aid was allocated to security sectors. 3) Danish development have not been sacrificed to security since Denmark exceeded DAC’s GNI target. And 4) Danish development efforts have only been coordinated in Afghanistan, South Sudan and Somalia, and Mali not in other fragile countries.
Since Denmark can be seen as an extreme case, this finding might be generalizable for all donor countries indicating a general tendency that post-9/11 development aid of all donor countries may have securitized to some extent. Hence the fear of the development workers, that international development aid has become securitized has been warranted.