Book Review (New War Theories) Chyi Lyn, NG

DUFFIELD, Mark. Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of
Development and Security. London: Zed Books, 2001.

This book is based on the concept that fields of development and security are merging due to
the manner in which the international community deals with new wars. The author, Mark
Duffield, is a Professor of Development Politics at the School of Sociology, Politics and
International Studies in the University of Bristol, and Director of the Global Insecurities
Centre. Prior, he has taught at University of Leeds and University of Birmingham, amongst
others. He has had four years of field experience as Oxfam’s Country Representative in Sudan
during the latter half of the 1980s, and has carried out many research and consultancy
exercises for UN agencies, donor governments and non-government organizations such as
DFID, EU (ECHO), UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, etc.1

On the whole, Duffield wrote the book in an attempt to close the theoretical gap between
development and security in new wars. From the outset, he draws the reader’s attention to the
notion that underdevelopment poses a security threat to regional and international stability.
He first explores globalization and its effects so as to provide a framework for better
understanding the origins and historical background of new wars. At the time of his writing,
little research has explicitly stated and studied the complex development-security terrain in
depth. Due to his background, the book has a very development focus and it forms the basis
of his work. Having said that, he ties it in with security in the context of new wars, and its
correlation with the role of the international community, while introducing relatively new
concepts such as the strategic complexes of liberal peace and emerging political complexes.
In his words, “development is ultimately impossible without stability and, at the same time,
security is not sustainable without development” (p.16). Though this was written before the
September 11 attacks, one can see its applicability in Afghanistan today, for example. In
short, his thesis is on the study of the incorporation of war into the development discourse, or
simply, the perception of new wars from an economic and developmental point of view.

Duffield presents the development of his arguments in a comprehensive and organized

manner of three main parts. Firstly, Duffield interprets new wars as a “form of non-territorial
network war that works through and around states” (p.14). The framework of his argument
lies more in the economic aspect of new wars, wherein it exists as a shadow economy,
alongside the Northern developed countries, as a result of globalization. From there, he moves
on to explain global governance on the basis of liberal peace, as opposed to emerging political
complexes, in chapters two and three. Liberal peace reflects a radical developmental agenda
of social transformation, where liberal refers to “contemporary liberal economic and political
tenets”, and peace refers to the “present policy predilection towards conflict resolution and
societal reconstruction” (p.11). Basically, global governance is the pursuit of liberal peace by
the international community, which can include states, international organizations, non-
governmental organizations and private enterprises. Bearing in mind the danger of
underdevelopment, the incorporation of conflict resolution and societal reconstruction within
aid policy amounts to a commitment to transform societies as a whole into cooperative and
stable entities with the North, which in turn signifies a radicalization of the politics of
development. At the same time, there exists what Duffield terms as emerging political
complexes – new forms of authority and largely non-state parallel and shadow transborder
trade – which are essentially non-liberal terms of social transformation and system

1
Bristol University, School of Sociology, Politics and Interantional Studies, Director of the GIC, last
updated: 14 October 2010, <http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/gic/gicdirector/>.

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Book Review (New War Theories) Chyi Lyn, NG

innovation. On this regard, he tends to be rather vague which can be hard to comprehend on
its own, but it can be better understood as a competing concept with the strategic complexes
of global governance, in relation to the forms of authority and regulation they wish to
establish. He further analyses the radicalization of the politics of development by examining
the new humanitarianism that has emerged, which he claims that instead of helping people,
the legitimacy of aid policy has shifted towards its ability to support the process of conflict
resolution and transformational aims of liberal peace. This is concluded in chapter four with
the notion of ‘do no harm’, and that relief is now linked with development in the liberal sense,
instead of just helping people.

The second part of the book applies and elaborates the concepts explained earlier by putting
them into context. It starts by analyzing how strategic actors perceive the causes of the
conflict; and then demonstrates how globalization has resulted in a shadow networks in the
South – economic focus of new wars –; and finishes by looking at the political complex, the
effects of the breakdown of order and the intra-state characteristics of new wars; in chapters
five, six and seven respectively. One interesting idea here is the merging of war and peace in
new wars, and that the conditions of war and peace are relative rather than absolute. Duffield
also tries to present a rather controversial point in that the strategic complexes of liberal peace
– the emerging relations between governments, NGOs, militaries and the business sector – are
in fact rather similar with new wars in structural and organizational terms. Furthermore, while
opposing the violence and dislocation of the new wars, the strategic complexes of global
governance might end up perpetuating the conflict whether intentionally or not, due to the
complicity involved. He then uses the compelling case study of Sudan, detailed out in
chapters eight and nine to show how donor governments and aid agencies have reinforced the
relations of violations they oppose. His extensive experience on the field provides a
comprehensive first hand account of the challenges faced in humanitarian aid and
development.

Finally, Duffield concludes in his last chapter by presenting several fresh insights on his
analysis. Most importantly, he contends that it is essential to reform the institutions and
networks of global governance to address complexity. The state-centered system of
international regulation has evolved to networked global governance, but the organizational
culture in donor organizations and aid agencies have yet to undergo the same process of
reform. This explains the reason for the mismatch and unfitting policies of the international
community being applied, failing to take into account the complexity of the environment of
new wars. Taking into consideration the transborder nature of network war, combined
together with the strategic nodes and flows of liberal peace, a new and complex development-
security terrain is produced. Hence, he also puts forward the suggestion that more
ethnographic study is required in the following three main areas to better deal with such
complexities: nature of political complexes associated with the new wars; how such
complexes are integrated within the liberal world system; and the mode of operation of global
liberal governance itself.

On the whole, this book is quite well received by the scientific community and professional
actors. Most comment that this work is a significant contribution to the literature on
development and security. Taking into account that this book has only been published for nine
years, it has been referenced and cited broadly in both development and security fields.
Conversely, perhaps due to a more development orientation of the book, Mary Kaldor, author
of ‘New and Old wars’, are one of those that acknowledge the originality and insight it offers,
but criticizes the lack of sufficient consideration on certain aspects such as the extreme

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ideologies that hold together networks, and the dismissal of the ‘sheer brutality and horror of
the new wars’.2 Her criticism is legitimate and could perhaps provide a basis for future
research to deepen in this area. Another critic of the book lies in the ambiguous and somewhat
under-developed role of the state in Duffield’s analysis, where “he proposes several
alternative measures but somehow they seem to presuppose a well-functioning state”. 3 This is
also a valid critic and true to a certain extent.

In my opinion, the strength of this book lies in its ability to step back and look at the broader
context of new wars and development. Duffield presents successfully, a holistic
understanding of the bigger picture through the study of the relationship between different
fields. On the other hand, it may seem like quite an ambitious undertaking to cover such a
large scope in one book, and it takes a while to fully grasps the concepts. Nonetheless, his
ability to explain the connections well makes his case very valid and relevant, allowing his
book to stand out against others. This book is very relevant and informative not only for
students and academics in the security and development field, but also professionals and
humanitarian staffs. It will definitely help war theoreticians and professionals not just
understand how new wars function alongside globalization, but also understand the role that
humanitarianism and aid policy play in new wars. In other words, how war is relevant to
development, and how they can occur concurrently, not simply in succession. In light of the
ongoing conflicts which fall under the category of new war, and the extent of global
governance today, Duffield’s book definitely adds value and provides basis for even further
studies on understanding new wars and how to better deal with them, even more so because
he approaches the topic from a different perspective.

2
M Kaldor, ‘Book Reviews’, Development in Practice, Volume 12, No. 3 & 4, August 2002, pp.548-
549.
3
F Stepputat ‘Book Reviews’, Refugee Studies, Vol. 15, 2002, pp.120-121.