【Report】Diffusion of citizen security by the Inter-American Development Bank

In the lecture, Dr Kolmasova introduced her co-authored research on the diffusion of the concept of “citizen security”. Although the concept was initially developed in Latin America, it diffused northwards, where it was repackaged by institutions in the United States, and then re-diffused to Latin America. In this lecture, Dr Kolmasova focuses on the role of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and critically reflects on the process of repackaging and diffusion. Her findings show that in re-packaging the concept of citizen security, the US-based institutions have made major and distinct alterations to the concept, which have affected conditions for financial and development aid.

Citizen security is initially presented as an alternative for state-centric militarised security doctrines prevalent across Latin American states in the 1980s. Citizen security focuses on ensuring the protection of citizens’ fundamental political and civil rights, establishing control over the military, and the well-being of individuals. At its core, citizen security focuses on a bottom-up and democratic approach to building security. This made it distinct from the notion of human security, which enjoys more support in the Western world.

However, in the 1990s, the concept began to undergo a process of mainstreaming as it caught the attention of US-based development institutions, among which include the IDB. During these years, these institutions engaged in “repackaging”, wherein they reinterpreted citizen security to conform to their preferred state-centric interpretation of security. This was manifest in policies governing loan conditions and technical assistance, which emphasised building institutions in the recipient state in issue-areas in which IDB loans may be used. This often entailed the employment of external third parties tasked with building institutions, such as consultants, but with often little regard for the actual impact of the policies. The result was a complete redefining of citizen security on IDB terms. Moreover, political dialogues and knowledge transfers, many of which are supported and facilitated by the IDB, further entrench the IDB’s preferred definition of citizen security.

Dr Kolmasova concluded the lecture by emphasising two salient critiques. First, in redefining citizen security, the IDB’s practices mirror the neoliberal and technocratic biases in global development institutions. Second, by promoting a state-centric version of citizen security, the IDB potentially ignores the problems caused by power centralisation and autocratic leadership in the recipient countries.

In the ensuing discussion session, participants and Dr Kolmasova engaged in lively dialogue. They discussed the links between citizenship and citizen security amidst globalisation, the differences between human security and citizen security in a practical sense, proposals for measuring policy effectiveness, and transnational implications of citizen security. The session concluded with some remarks by Dr Kolmasova on the wider implications of her case study on norm diffusion in great power politics.