Is development aid securitized? Evidence from a cross‐country examination of aid commitments

Motivation How has the securitization of development affected the distribution of bilateral development aid by sector? Over the past two decades, academics and development NGOs have become increasingly concerned about the impact of the securitization of development. This debate has not, however, adequately addressed the impact of securitization on actual aid commitments to key sectors. If aid commitments are influenced by securitization this will have implications for the types of programmes funded by bilateral donors. Purpose This article examines whether and how securitization has affected the distribution of UK, US, Danish and Swedish development aid by sector through investigating how conflict in aid‐recipient states—and the extent to which these states are perceived as a security threat—affect aid commitments to priority sectors; democratization and peace, conflict and security. Approach and Methods A mixed‐methods approach analyses the policy discourse and aid commitments of the four bilateral donors. The former involves a systematic collection and analysis of development policy documents from the four donors over the last two decades. For the latter we use data from the OECD's Creditor Reporting System and the Uppsala University Conflict Data Programme, along with data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the Global Terrorism Database in a cross‐sectional time‐series regression analysis. Findings The new data produced indicate that the securitization of development has had the most significant effect on aid commitments to states not affected by conflict and that the strategic importance of conflict‐affected states and the domestic character of donor governments both influence the strength of aid securitization. Policy Implications Given the concerns regarding aid for security purposes and donors’ policy discourse, bilateral donors should consider the need of current funding for conflict, peace and security programmes in states not affected by conflict and recognize the role of national security interests in decisions about the distribution of aid.