Forty years ago, development aid programmes in the ‘Third World’, if colonial in thrust and often imperial in economic purpose, were at least usually recognisably different from war, conflict and internal repression. And the respective roles of metropolitan governmental departments and private companies, national governments and international NGOs were clearly delineated. But today, with neoliberalism breaking down the distinctions between the public and private, the war on terror conflating risk into security and pushing towards a pre-emptive geopolitics, the shape of development is changing. Innovation in areas such as border control and transportation systems, still marketed as development, are better analysed in terms of biopolitics (as conceptualised by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben and others). Using this framework and that of pre-emptive securitisation the author unpicks some of the ‘aid’ programmes of one German agency – the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and South Africa over the last fifteen years.
It was created through a merger of the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (Agency for Technical Cooperation, GTZ), the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (German Development Service, DED) and the Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung gGmbH (International Education and Development, gGmbH, InWEnt. Ulla Scharfenberg, ‘Gar nicht kuschelig. 50 Jahre Entwicklungshilfeministerium’, Stern (15November2011), available at: http://www.stern/de/politik/deutschland/50-jahre-entwicklungshilfeministerium-ger-nicht-kuschelig-1751048.html.
‘Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit unterstützt waffentraining für Sicherheitskräfte des Saudi-arabischen Regimes’, Der Spiegel (24June2012).
5.
BrendelPeter, ‘Entwicklungshilfe für EADS. Ausbildung Saudi-arabischer Grenzschutzer durch Bundespolizei wird ausgeweitet. Einsazt soll privates Rustungsgeschäft flankieren’, Junge Welt (24July2012), available at: http://www.ag-friedensforschung.de/regionen/Saudi-Arabien/eads.html.
GIZ, Vernetzte Sicherheit in der Praxis. Neue Kooperationsvereinbarung zwischen Bundesverteidigungsministerium und GIZ. With the assistance of Bettina Berg and Stefan Libisch (Bonn and Eschborn: GIZ, 2011), available at: http://www.giz.de/de/mediathek/631.html. The concept of Vernetzte Sicherheit is usually translated in English documents as ‘comprehensive approach’. I prefer my own translation of ‘networked security’ as it is much closer to the original meaning of the German term. Throughout this article, all translations of German documents are mine, unless noted otherwise.
8.
MarréFranz B., ‘Promoting safety and security in cities: bridging the urban divide’, in German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), ed., Urban (In)Security (Bonn: BMZ, 2010), p. 3.
9.
NiebelDirk, ‘Vernetzte Sicherheit: Erfahrungen in Afghanistan und Lehren für die Zukunft’, Zeitschrift für Außen-und Sicherheitspolitik (ZfAS) 5 (2012), pp. 63–72. In the run-up to the election which saw him secure his post as minister, Niebel ran on a ticket to disband the BMZ. He also served in the German Army for eight years in the rank of airborne infantry officer, and still holds the position of liaison officer in the division for special operations.
10.
GIZ, ‘Unterstützung des Grenzprogramms der Afrikanischen Union’ (n.d.), available at: http://www.giz.de/themen/de/31046.htm (accessed 24 August 2013).
11.
Jean, ‘Good fences’.
12.
ParisiLucianaGoodmanSteve, ‘Mnemonic control’, in CloughPatricia TicinetoWillseCraig, eds, Beyond Biopolitics: essays on the governance of life and death (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), pp. 163–76.
13.
HayesBen, Arming Big Brother: the EU’s Security Research Programme (Amsterdam: Statewatch/Transnational Institute, 2006), pp. 11–12.
14.
HayesBen, NeoConOpticon: the EU Security-Industrial Complex (Amsterdam: Statewatch/Transnational Institute, 2009), p. 16.
15.
GIZ, ‘Unterstützung des Grenzprogramms der Afrikanischen Union’.
16.
See BMZ, Urban (In)security.
17.
GIZ, Resilient Cities: disaster management and climate change: strengthening cities, reducing risks (Bonn and Eschborn: GIZ, 2013).
18.
GIZ, Creating stability and security, building military bases for the German armed forces in Kunduz and Taloqan; GIZ, Resilient cities: disaster management and climate change; GIZ, Establishing internal security: rebuilding the police force in Afghanistan; and Factsheet on the methodological framework ‘Peace and Conflict Assessment (PCA)’, all (Bonn and Eschborn: GIZ, 2011).
19.
GIZ, Vernetzte Sicherheit in der Praxis.
20.
Hayes, NeoConOpticon, p. 30.
21.
MassumiBrian, ‘Potential politics and the primacy of preemption’, Theory & Event10, no. 2 (2007).
22.
Didier Bigo has described the aim of security governance as policing the future by anticipation in ‘Detention of foreigners, states of exception, and the social practices of control of the Banopticon’, in RajaramPrem KumarGrundy-WarrCarl, eds, Borderscapes: hidden geographies and politics at territory’s edge(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press/Borderlines 29, 2007), pp. 3–33.
23.
Aktivitäten der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit im Sicherheitssektor und für menschenrechtsverachtende Regime, Antwort der Bundesregierung auf die Kleine Anfrage der Fraktion Bündnis, 90/Die Grünen, 17th German Bundestag, Drucksache 17/7470. Deutscher Bundestag, Federal German Government (2011), available at: http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/074/1707470.pdf. It should be noted that several projects such as the building of bridges and military bases for the German army in Afghanistan, or community policing measures in South Africa are not to be found on the list offered by the Federal German government, which suggests certain definitional liberties by the government as to what kind of activities are seen to belong to the security sector (see pp. 16–17).
24.
GIZ, Creating Stability and Security.
25.
GIZ, Establishing internal security: rebuilding the police force in Afghanistan (Bonn and Eschborn: GIZ, 2011) and GIZ, Fight Against Trafficking from and to Afghanistan with ECO Member States (Bonn and Eschborn: GIZ, 2012), available at: http://www.giz.de/themen/en/29425.htm (accessed 24 August 2013).
26.
BlencoweClaire, Biopolitical Experience: Foucault, power and positive critique (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
ØstensenÅse Gilje, ‘In the business of peace: the political influence of private military and security companies on UN Peacekeeping’, International Peacekeeping20, no.1 (2013), pp. 33–47.
ChakwiziraJ.., ‘Some missing dimensions of urban public transport in Africa: insights and perspectives from South Africa’, The Built & Human Environment Review4, Special Issue 2 (2011), pp. 79, 80.
