Human security and the rise of global therapeutic governance

This article discusses the emergence of global therapeutic governance or the influence of social psychology on international development policy. Therapeutic governance links psychosocial well-being and security, and seeks to foster personalities able to cope with risk and insecurity. The article analyses how Western alarm at the destabilizing impact of development eroded its support for an industrialization model of development. The article then examines how the basic needs model is underpinned by social psychological theories and involves an abandonment of national development. Finally, the article considers development as therapeutic governance and the implications of abandoning national development for the concept of human security.