Securitisation of Development: USAID's Development Assemblage

Abstract

Securitisation of Development: USAID's development assemblage By: Cassandra Stimpson Abstract The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the premier U.S. foreign aid agency, is a significant development player, whose policies affect lives around the globe. USAID provides significant fund inflows for development entities, namely international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and for-profit independent development contractors (IDCs). Yet, scholarly examinations of securitisation of development have largely focused singularly on NGOs or the State, leaving out important market actors that take up a major share of USAID funding - IDCs. Reconciling development actors with development objectives requires a fresh framework that brings together U.S. foreign policy goals with the NGO-sphere and the private market more comprehensively than simply securitisation of development, developmentalisation of military aid, or the technocratisation of both. This research adds to the conceptual framework of an evolving practical securitisation theory base that allows for context, motivations, and actors, using a sociological approach that relies on interpretivist accounts the USAID development market assemblage's political economy. The analysis examines three cases over different USAID and...