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- Convenor:
-
Brendan Howe
(Ewha Womans University)
Send message to Convenor
- Location:
- J19 (Richmond building)
- Start time:
- 7 September, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Prioritization of national economic development models has been reflected in policymaking, international assistance, and resistance to humanitarian 'interference' in East Asia. This panel unpacks the complex relationship between international aid, statecentricity, and human security in the region.
Long Abstract:
Northeast and Southeast Asia have seen many development success stories. Often, however, East Asian countries have prioritized national economic development over social or political development. While the solution of all society's ills may be sought through such economic development, and there is no doubt that it has contributed to remarkable patterns of economic growth, it has also seen the rise in importance of challenges to human security. The fundamental premise is that improvements in the general economy will benefit all, thus both domestic policy-making and international assistance should focus primarily on the national macroeconomic environment. Hence motivation for economic models which give tax breaks and other incentives to high-earning individuals and corporations in the hope that they will generated wealth for all either directly, or through a 'trickle-down' effect. But also the extent to which regional governments have embraced neoliberalism including financial market liberalization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, and the promotion of trade. Developmentalism and statecentricity have furthermore been reflected in the assistance given by East Asian donors, with the prioritization of infrastructure projects; and finally in the resistance to humanitarian 'interference' displayed by some regional recipients of aid. This panel, therefore, will seek to unpack the complex relationship between international aid, statecentricity, and human security in East Asia. Considerations include the human impact of the nature of international aid on developing economies in the region, and of that of regional donors on recipients in the region and beyond. Also the rejection of humanitarian assistance by national governments.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Eun Mee Kim (Ewha Womans University ) Jisun Song (Ewha Womans University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines human security in South Korea's Official Development Assistance (ODA) in order to examine its readiness to cope with increasing natural disasters and other disasters in particular in the Asia Pacific.
Paper long abstract:
Human Security in Asia is a relatively new concept and practice in development cooperation. Research was conducted for South Korea, which is the newest member of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee from Asia. Empirical research on how "human security" is understood and practiced showed interesting findings that South Korea readily utilizes the spirit of human security in its development aid in particular in humanitarian assistance, post-war/conflict reconstruction projects, and in their assistance to fragile states. However, the South Korean government does not use the term, "human security" since there is some bias that this has been heavily promoted by the Japanese aid agencies, and thus did not want to adopt that term. As there are more incidence of natural disasters and their heavy consequences on the people and assets in Asia, there should be more cooperation among Asian neighbors, especially large donors.
Sachiko Ishikawa (Japan International Cooperation Agency)
Paper short abstract:
The advocacy of human security by the Japanese government is reflected in the policy and practice of its ODA. Japan's peacebuilding in Mindanao is a showcase of her new practice. This paper clarifies how human security addressed Philippine sovereignty and the stalemate of the GPH-MILF peace process.
Paper long abstract:
Since the late 1990s Japan has been a leader in advocating and promoting human security as a key component of its ODA. Japan's "3P" strategies, namely propaganda, policy and practice were implemented to concretize human security as a norm of interational society. While propaganda activities were concentrated in the UN arena, Japan further strengthened her international cooperation by placing human security at the center of her ODA policy and practice. The concept of human security has significantly influenced, among other issues, Japan's peacebuilding assistance sine 2003. Japan's assistance in Mindanao has been its largest peacebuilding operation by far in terms of budget and aid modalities. This paper thus examines the case of Mindanao to see how Japan attempted to bring human security to local communities with bottom-up as well as top-down approaches. This paper focuses on three major challenges for external assistance to advocate human security in the conflict-affected Mindanao. First the paper clarifies how conflict of interest with Philippine sovereignty was handled with minimal confrontation. Second is the comprehensiveness of assistance, for which the paper discloses how Japan carried out locally aligned development projects in concert with the pace of the peace process between the Philippine government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The third challenge was how to sustain assistance during the stalemate in the peace negotiation. Local empowerment was an important tool in such difficult situations. The case of Mindanao offers a model of future assistance of Japan under the current Development Cooperation Charter.
Ako Muto (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Oscar A. Gomez (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Yoichi Mine (Doshisha University)
Paper short abstract:
While perspective of state security is dominant in East Asia, many types of stakeholders have engaged in various practices addressing human security without using the term explicitly. This paper uncovers diverse understandings of "human security" and different perceptions of threats in the region.
Paper long abstract:
While the perspective of traditional state security is dominant in East Asia, national and local stakeholders have engaged in various practices addressing human security without using the term explicitly. Given the variety of East Asian nations in terms of nature, culture, history and political regimes, the interpretations of localized human security and to some extent border-crossing downside risks in this region are extremely diverse. This paper is based on the outcome of the research project on "Human Security in East Asia" commissioned by the JICA-RI (the Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute). Experienced scholars from China, South Korea, Japan, and eight out of ten ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) have analyzed how stakeholders understand the concept of human security and what downside risks are being prioritized in each country. Even though East Asia enjoys relative peace for the moment, a large number of people are still affected by serious natural disasters, emerging infectious diseases as well as remaining unsolved violent conflicts, saddled with extreme poverty, or deprived of basic freedoms. In this paper, particular interactions between people and the states, as well as a "soft paternalistic" relationship between them that could be viewed as a feature of Eastern political culture and underlying understanding of human security will be examined. While the role of the states in protecting citizens is acknowledged, cultural implications of the term, "empowerment", tend to evoke mixed reactions in East Asia. Finally, the localized notions of dignity are explored.
Suyoun Jang (SIPRI)
Paper short abstract:
This research is to create a better understanding of dangerous places, especially in the Asian region, where the world's poverty, insecurity, and underdevelopment have been concentrated, and to explore how development assistance to the dangerous places could be improved.
Paper long abstract:
The evolving concept of development has been expanded in the SDGs and is now far more ambitious. The prospects for delivering this agenda are most demanding in places affected by violence, referred to in this paper as dangerous places. The status quo that left many behind in the era of the MDGs is unlikely to lead to development progress in dangerous places. Nonetheless, these are not hopeless cases. Progress has been made in a number of previously fragile situations and the new development agenda opens the door for doing things differently in the next 15 years.
In response to the growing attention to situations of conflict and fragility as well as challenges faced by the international development community, this research is to create a better understanding of dangerous places where the world's poverty, insecurity, and underdevelopment have been concentrated, and to explore how development assistance to the dangerous places could be improved.
To this end, first, the paper defines dangerous places, an alternative to the term 'fragile states'. Through a quantitative analysis, it will remap dangerous places at the geospatial level. It then reviews trends in development, humanitarian and security situations and examines development/humanitarian aid and strategies in these dangerous places. With a specific focus on selected dangerous places in Asia, it will demonstrate how relief, security and development are interlinked in these dangerous places and explore better bridging the humanitarian/development divide in the region.
Brendan Howe (Ewha Womans University)
Paper short abstract:
Successive government administrations in Myanmar have had a state centric focus, to the detriment of human security. The 2015 National League for Democracy victory was supposed to address such issues. Structural impediments to change have, however, left the most vulnerable insecure.
Paper long abstract:
Martin Smith has described Myanmar as pre-eminent examples of post-colonial states subsumed in what development analysis describes as a "conflict trap" (Smith, 2007. p. 3). Facing diverse challenges, including ethnic insurgencies, disputed borders, and the remnants of colonial and/or Cold War experiences, successive governments have adopted state-centric national security policies with an emphasis on national sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity (Tin, 1998, p. 392). The devestation wrought by Cyclone Nargis in 2008 revealed the extent to which nation security and development prioritisation had imperilled the human security of the most vulnerable, and as a result significant governance changes were set in motion resulting in the dramatic electoral win of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in 2015. Much has been expected of the new NLD administration, yet its leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has found herself the subject of international criticism for allowing the continued persecution of one of the most vulnerable groups of people in the country, the Muslim Rohingya. This presentation contends that it is the continued state centric policy focus of success governments, combined with structural impediments to change, which have allowed and contributed to human insecurity in Myanmar.
Woojin Jung (UC Berkeley)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to identify key ideological elements of community driven development (CDD) using a case study in Myanmar. An Agency-Power-Dimension framework is used to compare two CDD models: developmental state and revised neoliberalism. The framework helps to focus evaluation efforts of CDD.
Paper long abstract:
Reconciling the dual imperatives of legitimate state building and efficient service delivery, Community-Driven Development (CDD) is praised as "a new way of engagement" in fragile states. However, a lack of a coherent analytical framework contributes to the complexity in evaluating the effects of CDD projects. This paper aims to identify key ideological elements of CDD and its operationalization in two aid projects in Myanmar: Korea's SMU and the World Bank's NCDDP.
An Agency-Power-Dimension framework is used to describe CDD aid policies from two development approaches: developmental state and revised neoliberalism, represented by SMU and NCDDP respectively.
Agency refers to the main agents of delivering public goods. Emphasizing the role of the government, SMU deploys quasi-governmental agencies from Korea to train local government extension workers. In contrast, the NCDDP emphasizes the role of the market - private companies or international NGOs - who hire facilitators to train villagers.
The two projects also differ in the distribution and source of power. Whereas the success of SMU depends largely on the outcomes of local projects, NCDDP focuses on the processes of equity and inclusion.
Finally, SMU is dedicated to the dimension of economic development in local communities, with an emphasis on agricultural production and related income generation. NCDDP's efforts focus on the dimension of social development in the context of infrastructure enhancements and emergency response.
The framework helps to focus evaluation efforts of CDD. Policymakers seeking development opportunities in other fragile states can use the approach to be responsive to these local conditions.
Sung-Mi Kim (University Of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
What are the ways to make human security idea more palatable for practitioners? This paper explores the case of nuclearised North Korea focusing on the issues of political relevance and analytical scoping.
Paper long abstract:
Despite its many virtues and novelty, critics say human security idea is practically naïve and conceptually vague, if not also subservient to primarily Western interests. To date human security analyses on North Korea made significant contributions in bringing critical attention to political atrocities and underdevelopment - and the nexus thereof - suffered by North Korean population to rationalise external intervention in such forms as international assistance or R2P. However, the language of human security has not been taken seriously among mainstream security analysts and practitioners of the Korean Peninsula. This paper argues human security risks involving a de facto nuclearised state present a qualitatively different case from other poor, insecure countries and populations. In analysing North Korea's human insecurity, for instance, it is necessary to expand the scope of the human security lens to consider how contagious nuclear security risks adversely affect human security entitlements (e.g. freedom from fear) of populations in neighbouring countries. For politicians and policy analysts in Seoul, South Korea is not only an aid provider to North Korea but also living under heightened security threat posed by the nuclearised North. Domestic politics counts. Governments may choose to prioritise nuclear non-proliferation because it affects human security of their own populations, and such a strategic decision does not necessarily make them hard-nosed realists. Unless fully addressing perennial human insecurity effects of Pyongyang's nuclear weaponry over populations in the region, human security discourse on North Korea would not be able to sustain itself against criticisms of policy irrelevance.