Fairlie Chappuis

Security sector reform (SSR), targeting security forces and their management and oversight institutions, has become a major feature of international peace- and statebuilding activities. The article draws on policy transfer research to assess substantive and procedural changes in how international actors intervene in the security governance of fragile or post-conflict states. By comparing transfer processes in Liberia, Timor-Leste and the Palestinian Territories, the article shows that despite variations across political, economic and strategic factors in each domestic context, external SSR interventions showed distinct similarities. SSR interventions expanded their substantive scope over time; less directly coercive mechanisms of persuasion and socialization increasingly replaced the direct imposition of external models of security governance; and the influence of domestic elite actors on transfer processes increased over the duration of interventions.

Security sector reform (SSR) and democratisation are closely linked in both theory and practice. The high levels of volatility that characterise democratisation processes, therefore, have direct implications for SSR strategy. We identify possible scenarios for SSR in the context of democratic reversals by focussing on two observations about this relationship: first, limited progress in SSR is still possible under conditions of democratic reversal; and second, certain systematic features characterise how SSR stalls as a result of democratic reversals. On the basis of these observations, we argue that a return to SSR following a democratic reversal holds specific challenges for reform and offer recommendations for how to frame SSR in such contexts as well as “second-chance” scenarios once the democratisation process resumes.

1. New Perspectives on Security Sector Reform: The Role of Local Agency and Domestic Politics Ursula C. Schroeder and Fairlie Chappuis 2. From Weakness to Strength: The Political Roots of Security Sector Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina Louis-Alexandre Berg 3. Security Sector or Security Arena? The Evidence from Somalia Alice Hills 4. Reformed or Deformed? Patronage Politics, International Influence, and the Palestinian Authority Security Forces Kimberly Marten 5. Resistance in the Time of Cholera: The Limits of Stabilization through Securitization in Haiti Nicolas Lemay-Hebert 6. Security Sector Reform and the Emergence of Hybrid Security Governance Ursula C. Schroeder, Fairlie Chappuis and Deniz Kocak 7. The International Intervention and its Impact on Security Governance in North-East Afghanistan Jan Koehler and Kristof Gosztonyi 8. Overcoming the State/Non-state Divide: An End User Approach to Security and Justice Reform Lisa Denney 9. From Paternalism to Facilitation: SSR Shortcomings and the Potential of Social Anthropological Perspectives Sabine Mannitz

African and external approaches to security governance and reform have come to stress the importance of local, national and regional ownership, embodied at the national level by the concept of “local ownership” of Security Sector Reform and in the recourse to regional and sub-regional security mechanisms as “African solutions to African problems”. While a normative consensus on this idea seems to have emerged in the policy sphere, we ask what traits can be discerned in the national and regional discourses and practices of security governance that might be plausibly considered specifically African. This article thus explores the discourses and practices of attempts to link aspects of security governance to specific times and places at the national and regional levels in Africa. Tracing the discursive recourse to identity across four eras of modern African history, we argue that specifically African traits of security governance at national and regional levels can be discerned in institutional legacies of repression and poor security governance, as well as the discursive commitment to norms of human security at the regional level, as embodied in the African Peace and Security Architecture.

Security sector reform (SSR) and democratisation are closely linked in both theory and practice. The high levels of volatility that characterise democratisation processes, therefore, have direct implications for SSR strategy. We identify possible scenarios for SSR in the context of democratic reversals by focussing on two observations about this relationship: first, limited progress in SSR is still possible under conditions of democratic reversal; and second, certain systematic features characterise how SSR stalls as a result of democratic reversals. On the basis of these observations, we argue that a return to SSR following a democratic reversal holds specific challenges for reform and offer recommendations for how to frame SSR in such contexts as well as “second-chance” scenarios once the democratisation process resumes.

While statebuilding under international auspices is a relatively new agenda, security sector reform (SSR) is an even newer concept within it, having first emerged in the late 1990s. Three main developments have contributed to the rise of SSR as an important policy concept. These include the growing recognition among the donor community of security as a developmental issue; the appreciation of SSR as an important element of democratization, as most recently shown in the context of the political transitions initiated by the revolutions of the ‘Arab Spring’; and, finally, the involvement of international stabilization operations in post-conflict security sector (re)construction. Thus the SSR concept increasingly shapes international development cooperation, democracy assistance, and peacebuilding efforts. It has also become a centerpiece of international efforts to restore state authority in post-conflict contexts, as demonstrated, for example, by the integration of SSR support across the United Nations system. SSR has become central to international support to statebuilding in post-conflict contexts because the theoretical argument for SSR is compelling in the context of the liberal paradigm based on democratic governance, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. Yet looking back over a decade of interventions of this kind, examples of unqualified success are difficult to find. Despite many isolated instances of impressive transformation, SSR remains an inherently challenging reform agenda.

Security sector reform (SSR), targeting security forces and their management and oversight institutions, has become a major feature of international peace- and statebuilding activities. The article draws on policy transfer research to assess substantive and procedural changes in how international actors intervene in the security governance of fragile or post-conflict states. By comparing transfer processes in Liberia, Timor-Leste and the Palestinian Territories, the article shows that despite variations across political, economic and strategic factors in each domestic context, external SSR interventions showed distinct similarities. SSR interventions expanded their substantive scope over time; less directly coercive mechanisms of persuasion and socialization increasingly replaced the direct imposition of external models of security governance; and the influence of domestic elite actors on transfer processes increased over the duration of interventions.

Comprehensive Security Sector Reform (SSR) has become a crucial component of many international peace- and statebuilding operations. The paper assesses the consequences of these attempts to foster international standards of ‘democratic security governance’ in the security sectors of post-conflict or fragile states. The paper builds on qualitative case study research of SSR interventions in Timor-Leste, Liberia, and the Palestinian Territories, conducted 2010–2012, to trace patterns of adoption, adaptation or rejection of international security governance standards by domestic actors. The article uses insights from sociological organization theories to identify different types of ‘hybrid security orders’ that result from encounters between international and domestic models of security governance in SSR processes.