^aCentre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, 32–38 Wells Street, London W1T 3UW, UK. E-mail: D.Chandler@Westminster.ac.uk

Abstract

Current debates and discussions of the emerging security–development nexus tend to portray this as signifying the increased importance of the problems of non-Western states to Western policy-makers. This article seeks to challenge this perspective and analyses how the policy 'nexus' reflects a retreat from strategic policy-making and a more inward-looking approach to foreign policy, more concerned with self-image than the policy consequences in the areas concerned. Rather than demonstrating a new seriousness of approach to tackling the security and development problems of the non-Western world, the discussions around this framework betray the separation between policy rhetoric and policy planning. This reflects the rise of anti-foreign policy: attempts to use the international sphere as an arena for self-referential statements of political mission and purpose, decoupled from their subject matter, resulting in ad hoc and arbitrary foreign policy-making.