Development, Security and Unending War (ePub)

According to politicians, we now live in a radically interconnected
world. Unless there is international stability - even
in the most distant places - the West's way of life is
threatened. In meeting this global danger, reducing poverty and
developing the unstable regions of the world are now imperative. In
what has become a truism of the post-Cold War period, security
without development is questionable, while development without
security is impossible.

In this accessible and path-breaking book, Mark Duffield
questions this conventional wisdom and lays bare development not as
a way of bettering other people but of governing them. He offers a
profound critique of the new wave of Western humanitarian and peace
interventionism, arguing that rather than bridging the lifechance
divide between development and underdevelopment, it maintains and
polices it. As part of the defence of an insatiable mass consumer
society, those living beyond its borders must be content with
self-reliance.

With case studies drawn from Mozambique, Ethiopia and
Afghanistan, the book provides a critical and historically informed
analysis of the NGO movement, humanitarian intervention,
sustainable development, human security, coherence, fragile states,
migration and the place of racism within development. It is a
must-read for all students and scholars of development,
humanitarian intervention and security studies as well as anyone
concerned with our present predicament.