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Selling Stabilization: Anxious Practices of Militarized Development Contracting

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  • Jennifer Greenburg

Abstract

This article examines how post‐9/11 US military trainings have conscripted development as a weapon of war. The post‐9/11 years saw the increasing dominance of for‐profit international development contractors (IDCs), who, by 2010, were winning more valuable contracts from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) than non‐profit organizations, UN agencies, and the World Bank. This article describes financial, administrative and bureaucratic shifts in the integration of development and defence that have fed into the increasing dominance of IDCs. In the mid‐2000s, USAID developed an instructional framework to translate development for military audiences. The framework speaks to the rejection in this period of the language of ‘hearts and minds’ and the adoption of a technical language of ‘stabilization’ amenable to private contracting. Drawing on ethnographic observations of private civilian contractors teaching the USAID framework on military bases, I examine the contradictions of ‘stabilization’ as a concept sold in private militarized development markets, and as a lived practice of military learning that often conflicts with other dimensions of soldiering.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Greenburg, 2017. "Selling Stabilization: Anxious Practices of Militarized Development Contracting," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 48(6), pages 1262-1286, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:48:y:2017:i:6:p:1262-1286
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.12348
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Gulrajani, Nilima, 2011. "Transcending the great foreign aid debate: managerialism, radicalism and the search for aid effectiveness," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 30690, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Easterly, William, 2001. "The Lost Decades: Developing Countries' Stagnation in Spite of Policy Reform 1980-1998," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 135-157, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Carol Brunt & John Casey, 2022. "The impacts of marketization on international aid: Transforming relationships among USAID vendors," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(3), pages 167-178, August.

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