Zyck, S A and Muggah, R 2015 Preparing Stabilisation for 21st Century stability Security Challenges. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 4(1): 54, pp. 1–9, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.gs RESEARCH ARTICLE Preparing Stabilisation for 21st Century Security Challenges Steven A. Zyck* and Robert Muggah† Stabilisation, as a concept and set of practices, has proliferated over the past two decades and is now implicitly integrated into a range of global frameworks. However, this enthusiasm has at times risked turning this increasingly common, albeit contested, idea into a piece of jargon that discounts its unique facets: a focus on all sorts of violence, not just conflict, that create political instability and human harm and a problem-solving approach that draws selectively on various forms of intervention (e.g., statebuilding, counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, etc.) without being beholden to any one toolkit. The pragmatism inherent within the concept of stabilisation will grow increasingly important as new security chal- lenges emerge or proliferate. These include the fragmentation and regionalisation of conflict systems, transnational organised crime, large-scale migration and new, disruptive technologies. Novel approaches rooted in big data and technology will increasingly need to be applied. Most importantly, in foreign policy, military and development communities often driven by perceptions about what causes, ends or prevents violence, stabilisation must maintain its agnostic, problem-solving roots and allegiance to evidence over ideology. Introduction form of ‘development in reverse’ (Collier and Academic and policy-level debate over the Hoeffler 2004). Moreover, the risks of conflict association between security and develop- termination are positively correlated with ment proliferated over the past two decades. income growth in locations where conflicts A consensus emerged: insecurity contrib- had rather decisively come to a close (Collier utes to underdevelopment and that efforts 2004). The relatively limited but convincing to restore stability in war-affected areas can econometric evidence aligns with the wide- establish conditions in which social and spreadperception that ‘peace dividends’ – economic recovery and development can those are the material benefits that typically begin or resume. Research demonstrates that accompany security – will incentivize elites, armed conflict, in particular, constitutes a combatants and ordinary citizens to support stability over warfare.1 The virtuous links between security and * Independent Researcher, Overseas development were further reinforced in Development Institute, GB [email protected] the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), † Research Director, Igarapé Institute, BR agreed in September 2015, though SDG doc- [email protected] uments do not use the term ‘stabilisation’.2 Art. 54, page 2 of 9 Zyck and Muggah: Preparing Stabilisation for 21st Century Security Challenges The SDGs are unprecedented in the history extremist groups, spreading criminal vio- of the United Nations in that they explic- lence and climate change? This is the ques- itly acknowledge the two-way relationship tion we ask in this special series on ‘The between security and development (Muggah Future of Stabilisation’, supported by the UK 2015). A draft SDG report highlights the asso- government’s Stabilisation Unit. This series ciation between conflict, violence and under- contains a range of articles on a range of development, and SDG 16 in particular aims backward and, in particular, forward-looking to ‘[p]romote peaceful and inclusive societies issues. For instance, separate articles inter- for sustainable development, provide access rogate how governments and the United to justice for all and build effective, account- Nations are using and operationalising stabi- able and inclusive institutions at all levels’ lisation, and other pieces take more theoreti- (United Nations 2015). The SDGs are universal – cal approaches, with one applying complexity and not just directed at low- and middle- theory to instability and stabilisation. While income countries. An implicit assumption is most pieces in the series tackle multiple sec- that all societies are vulnerable to fragility, tors and interventions, two focused pieces conflict and violence. emphasise the importance of civilian pro- The security-development nexus is tection and the disarmament, demobilisa- extraordinarily influential. It is enshrined tion and reintegration (DDR) of combatants in the mandates of governmental and mul- within stabilisation missions. Furthermore, tilateral institutions, from the UK govern- geographical case studies look at contexts ment’s Stabilisation Unit to the US State such as the DR Congo and Iraq and Syria, Department’s Bureau for Conflict and with the latter article asking how a concept Stabilization Operations (CSO). Australia, of stabilisation can or cannot be applied to Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, groups, such as the self-proclaimed Islamic Sweden and other nations have either estab- State, which seek absolutist goals. lished agencies or policies intended to sta- bilise fragile environments. The World Bank The Distinctiveness of Stabilisation too has made fragility reduction one of its Stabilisation continues to face an identity cri- primary areas of focus. The United Nations sis. Is stabilisation an end-state, somewhere also established ‘stabilisation’ missions in on the path between conflict and peace? Or Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is stabilisation a process, a mode of interven- Mali, the Central African Republic, and tion? Relatedly, there are some observers elsewhere (Muggah and Zyck 2015). Even who treat stabilisation as a singular category regional organisations like the African Union of intervention akin to peacekeeping while (AU) and Intergovernmental Authority on others describe it as a generic vessel for Development (IGAD) in East Africa increas- all ideas and activities related to restoring ingly use the terms ‘stabilisation’ and ‘stability security and development in so-called ‘frag- operations’ within their discussions and policy ile states’. In some circles, stabilisation is a documents. euphemism for state building, civil-military The stabilisation concept, once criticized cooperation (CIMIC) and counter-insurgency as a passing fad in the wake of US-led mili- (COIN), which is understandably unpopular tary interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, is in some quarters (Barakat, Deely and Zyck showing remarkable staying power. But how 2010). Reinforcing this definitional hurdle, do different actors understand and opera- the High-Level Independent Panel on United tionalise stabilisation? Is this construct, first Nations Peace Operations (HIPPO) called for applied to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina the UN to clarify its understanding of stabili- twenty years ago, still relevant in a world sation after highlighting the fact that several revolutionized by new information technolo- UN organs ‘have used the term “stabilization” gies, cyber-security threats, transnational for a number of missions’ despite the fact Zyck and Muggah: Preparing Stabilisation for 21st Century Security Challenges Art. 54, page 3 of 9 that ‘[t]heterm stabilization has a wide range There is, however, at least one foundational of interpretations’ (HIPPO 2015: 30). dimension of stabilisation that differentiates Given the diversity of meanings attached it from competing concepts, whether peace- to stabilisation, it is hardly surprising that keeping, COIN, CIMIC and state building: the a widely accepted definition has failed to value-free nature of the term. This is not to materialize. Even many academic attempts to suggest that those involved in stabilisation forge a meta definition have also fallen flat. are not guided by clear values and principles. Instead what have emerged are bland and By value-free, what is implied is that stabili- generic formulations that sidestep rather sation is not beholden to any one particular than resolve key conceptual debates. For understanding of insecurity and develop- instance, Zyck, Barakat and Deely (2013: 19) ment, much less one set of tactics. While defined stabilisation as: ‘a process involving state building typically privileges Weberian coercive force in concert with reconstruction state institutions over customary ones, stabi- and development assistance during or in the lisation can include formal or informal insti- immediate aftermath of a violent conflict in tutions or a focus on individuals rather than order to prevent the continuation or recur- institutions. While COIN presumes a military- rence of conflict and destabilizing levels of centric response, as does CIMIC in many non-conflict violence’. While useful in set- instances, stabilisation may fully exclude the ting the conceptual parameters of stabilisa- armed forces and draw on a wider variety of tion and defining what it does and does not actors. Furthermore, in a policy environment entail, it nevertheless fails to present what focused on security-through-livelihood, stabi- makes stabilisation distinctive from compet- lisation does not pre-ordain the means or sec- ing concepts and practices. tors involved. It gives no a priori preference How do we propose to define stabilisa- to security sector governance, justice reform tion? Simply put, we do not – and we believe and national as well as localised ceasefires that the continued debate over the term’s and peace talks. As such,