Introduction

Following a global flurry of ‘new wars’ and ‘new conflicts’ in the post–Cold War era (Kaldor 2007; Keen 2008), a lot of rethinking has been done (and certainly will be done) on the causes of violent conflict in the global system. After a decade dominated by, inter alia, ‘9/11’, the unstable and violent African development context and the relatively sustainable peace (and very successful development) in East Asia, reflections on the relations between development and security (and vice versa) became unavoidable. In policy documents (e.g., UN 2004; OECD 2007; DFID 2005; European Council 2003, 2008; UNDP 2005), as well as in academic circles (Buur, Jensen and Stepputat 2007; Chandler 2007, 2008; Duffield 2001, 2007; Paris and Sisk 2007), the ‘development-security nexus’ was coined as a concept and emerged as a hotly contested topic. Unsurprisingly, the policy world was jumping to ‘new solutions’, with reductionist conclusions, whereas research remained more sceptical. For instance, irrespective of whether we listen to the ‘new’ United States foreign policy articulated by Colin Powell or by General Petraeus, to the secretary-general of the United Nations and to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty on ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (UN 2009; ICISS 2001), or the European Union's ‘European Security Strategy’ (European Council 2008), the attention is increasingly on how conflicts of various sorts can be prevented through greater focus on ‘development’. The nexus became a commodity over which intellectual ownership was as unclear as important.