Non-Western Visions of Development?

The human security literature is notoriously fraught with conceptual disagreements. It spans a number of subfields of IR most notably security (Paris 2001, McDonald 2002, Ryerson 2010, Newman 2010), human rights (Dunne and Wheeler 2004, Oberlietner 2005), and development (McGrew and Poku 2007). It features in policy as well as International Relations theory, having been used as a critical concept (Bubandt 2005, Pupavac 2005, Ryerson 2010), an activist concept (Denov 2006), and a policy program (Human Development Report 1994). This contribution aims to contribute to this diverse body of literature through a focus on human security promotion within Japan’s international aid program, Official Development Assistance, which has over the last two decades embraced human security as a guiding principle of development aid. Therefore, at a theoretical level we seek to understand some of the incongruities within the debate as to the differentiation between Japanese human security and the human security associated with the West. ¹ This distinction is often made as a human rights argument. Japan’s human security espouses ‘Asian values’ that are not commensurate with Western liberal human rights (Tadjbakhsh and Chenoy 2007). ² Simultaneously, the shift in Japan’s ODA priorities following the Asian economic crisis in the 1990s witnessed a purported return of the Japanese model of development aid, which sought to secure state economic security interests. To be sure, while Japan’s approach focuses on development, it emphasizes a relationship between the agent distributing aid and the recipient. That is, rather than a ‘command and control’ ethos to the distribution of aid, ODA relies on a logic of self-management and responsibility on the part of the agencies receiving aid. We argue that despite friction that has emerged between Japan and Western donors, this does not constitute an important difference between the Japanese model of human security and the Western model of human security in that both advance the values of global neoliberalism, albeit in different ways. Furthermore, criticism of Japan as a ‘weak’ human rights state fails to take recent human security initiatives into account and fails to critically engage the interests espoused by the states characterized as having a ‘strong’ human rights platform. After an elaboration of the case in Japan we offer a reading of Japan’s human security initiatives that posits the emphasis on non-governmental organizations manages such organizations according to a model of global governmentality. We argue that Japan’s human security program functions as part of the broader global neoliberal system through mechanisms of governmentality and responsibilization. Further to that, the Japanese case gives insight into the privileged role of the state, and the decentred role of responsibility. Individuals and NGOs take on this responsibility in lieu of the state, while the state can continue to act in its own security interests. This is indicative of the interrelated mechanisms of global governance, which are made visible through Japan’s ODA program.