Sécurité et développement : production et circulation des normes politiques

Résumé : Security is one of the objectives that has become associated with development policies. This article offers a genealogical perspective on this shift, focusing on the introduction of "Security Sector Reform" (SSR) into development policy as an apparatus with a two-fold normative process. The first point of note is the securitization of development policy. This pertains both to the discourse elements of the apparatus-here, the effects of the use of security semantics-and to its political technologies, with an SSR apparatus which can function as a new label for military co-operation. This has led to new approaches in societies where this has taken place, with threat a key focus. There has also been a process of depoliticization in the wake of technical, standardized approaches. This has sidelined debate on the norms and political choices involved, albeit implicitly. Secondly, one can observe structural ambivalences in the field, chiefly on the issue of the state and the normative contradictions of a policy to strengthen "fragile states" that relies on external intervention in national politics. The case study of Lebanon complements this analysis, highlighting the structural tensions between the various aims of SSR, and how this affects local ownership: both the perception and reception of SSR are marked by power relationships which translate into hegemonic and counter-hegemonic labelling.

Résumé : Security has become part and parcel of the objectives of development policies where a particular emphasis is placed on the interlinkages between security and development. The history of approaches to security in the development field sheds light on how this has come about, i.e. on how the notion of ‛human security‛ has evolved into ‛security sector reform‛ (SSR). While development stakeholders first devised the human-security approach as a means of mainstreaming their objectives into the security sector, it also had the effect of opening their own field up to the semantics of security; and today, the objectives of the narrower approach of SSR, together with the new norms it has brought into play, appear torn between support for Western security policies and, on the other hand, the strengthening of democratic control over the sector and its capacity to ensure a secure national environment in the non-Western States where they are introduced. This is confirmed in a study of SSR in the Lebanon, which exposes the conflicting norms inherent to a policy of reinforcing ‛weak states‛ through outside intervention in national policy-making.

Résumé : Les ONG sont confrontées de façon croissante à des réticences, des réactions de refus voire d’hostilité sur leurs terrains d’opération. Leur personnel peut être pris comme cible, l’utilité de leurs programmes remise en cause, les objectifs exacts de leur intervention questionnés. Contestant leur volonté de neutralité, les détracteurs des ONGsoulignent les liens avec les États anciennement colonisateurs ou les considèrent comme le poste avancé d’un impérialisme occidental.