The fragmentation of the security-development nexus: the UK government’s approach to security and development 2015-2022

The security-development nexus – the belief that security and development policy goals are closely connected and should be aligned – became a core feature of global peacebuilding policy in the 1990s. Over the last decade, however, the continued relevance of the nexus has been questioned. Drawing on analysis of key policy documents, ministerial speeches, aid flows, and key informant interviews, this article examines how the nexus has been articulated and practised in UK policy. We find that the security-development nexus has become less prominent and more fragmented. The ‘mechanistic’ approach to the nexus that existed until 2015, where broad causal links between poverty and (in)security were emphasised, has been replaced by a more diffuse and fractured approach. While this shift is an outcome of the unusually high degree of turbulence in UK politics since 2015, it also reflects international trends in security and development policy.