SECURITIZATION OF DEVELOPMENT: THE MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE ACCOUNT

The creation of the Millennium Challenge Account by the Bush administration was the most significant innovation in the United States aid sector in almost half a century. This renewed focus on the aid sector came as part of the strategy employed during the War on Terror which put together defence, diplomacy and development under the same umbrella, the so-called “3D” strategy. The paper at hand discusses the embodiment of the security-development nexus during the Bush administration, specifically in the creation of the MCA, by employing a securitization framework. Three dimensions of the Millennium Challenge Account are scrutinized: discourse, institutional set-up, and policy design in matters of aid selectivity. Tackling these three dimensions together reveals incongruences and continuity with previous aid strategies. By placing securitization within the broader theoretical efforts to define the security-development nexus, the paper showcases the reliance on discourse over empirical findings and the echoing of mainstream development theory and practices.