The challenges and lessons of security sector reform in post-conflict Sierra Leone

This paper assesses the main elements of SSR process in Sierra Leone, against its historical background as well as the imperatives of a responsive and responsible security sector. The reform of the security sector in Sierra Leone has enhanced the restoration of public safety in the country, and the positive features of the process relate to the inclusion of SSR as the first pillar of the country's poverty reduction strategy, and the emphasis of SSR on the decentralisation of the security apparatus. Significant gaps however remain. Donor dependency and the ‘youth question’ are continuing challenges. Arguably, the most significant deficiency is the fact that the security sector has not been adequately embedded in a democratic governance framework. There is an absence of functional oversight mechanisms, and a failure to involve other actors beyond the executive arm of government in the governance of the security sector. The paper cautions that SSR can be successful only as part of an overarching democratic post conflict reconstruction framework.     

Laudable,ahistorical and overambitious: security sector reform meets state formation theory.

Security sector reform (SSR) is a concept that is highly visible within policy and practice circles and that increasingly shapes international programmes for development assistance, security co-operation and democracy promotion. This paper examines the concept and practice of SSR using theories of the state and state formation within a historical-philosophical perspective. The paper recognises that the processes of SSR are highly laudable and present great steps forward towards more holistic conceptions of security and international development. However, the main argument of the paper is that we should be careful of having too high expectations of the possibility of SSR fulfilling its ambitious goals of creating states that are both stable and democratic and accountable. Instead, we should carefully determine what level of ambition is realistic for each specific project depending on local circumstances. A further argument of this paper is that legitimate order and functioning state structures are prerequisites and preconditions for successful democratisation and accountability reforms within the security sector.     

To arrest insecurity: time for a revised security sector reform agenda

Despite the exponential growth in the attention and resources devoted to security sector reform (SSR), positive tangible outcomes remain hard to find. A ‘conceptual-contextual’ divide exists between SSR's stated goals and its actual implementation, a fissure that suggests the need to re-evaluate its tenets as currently conceived and practiced. This paper contributes to such a reappraisal and argues for a new round of SSR debate and policy formulation that will be simultaneously more pragmatic and less ambitious, while listening carefully to the wishes of those who are to benefit from SSR. Our core argument is that the current understanding of SSR policy provides practitioners with neither the requisite intellectual foundation nor practical guidance to craft institutions that arrest insecurity. Consequently, a number of the central concepts of the current SSR agenda—local ownership, civil society, governance, multi-sectoral approach, etc.—need to be recast to make them operationally effective, managerially coherent, and susceptible to measurable evaluation.     

HIV/AIDS and governance along the corridors of conflict in West Africa

West Africa demonstrates a sub-regional pattern of violence and political instability that has engulfed Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and now extends out from these states through corridors of violent conflict throughout the region; both physical and figurative. This article makes two arguments. That HIV/AIDS has developed a complex inter-relationship with violent conflict in the West African sub-region; and that the presence of HIV/AIDS in West Africa in zones of violent conflict is not given the recognition needed by the international policy community. The neglect of West Africa in the Pan-African response to HIV/AIDS, and the intractability of the region's Complex Political Emergencies, is creating an emerging phenomenon of Complex Human Emergency in the region. An acknowledged gap exists in social analyses of HIV/AIDS between policy speculations and the actual evidence base that these are built upon. Instead of speculative theorizing, this article presents seven key questions that need to be asked about HIV/AIDS and conflict in West Africa, in order to begin the process of serious policy research on the issue.     

Radicalisation and violent extremism in West Africa: implications for African and international security

This article interrogates emerging trends and patterns in the process of radicalisation and violent extremism in West Africa and the implications for regional and international security regimes, practices and thinking. It argues that there are real and imagined challenges of radicalisation and violent extremism. The overarching view is that the emergence of intra- and extra-African preoccupation with violent extremism alone, rather than alongside seriously addressing its structural undercurrents related to preventing and interrupting the process of radicalisation, distorts the security realities and further exacerbates the security situation in Africa. Radicalisation and violent extremism further integrates West Africa into global security assemblages, yet the absence or non-incorporation of an indigenous African (civil society) perspective or counter-narrative about radicalisation and violent extremism uncritically fuses and conflates the strategic interests of major powers with the local realities in Africa. Moreover, there is a huge potential that national governments could exploit local, regional and international interests in counteracting terrorism for domestic political advantages, such as mis-characterisation of subsisting conflicts, regular political opposition and other local grievances as cases of terrorism, thereby risking a deterioration in security conditions.     

Transforming security sectors: the IMF and World Bank approaches

Since the end of the Cold War, donors have come to realise that when security sectors operate autonomously, with scant regard for the rule of law, democratic principles, and sound management practices, sustainable, poverty-reducing development is extremely di?cult, if not impossible, to achieve. Because of the substantial ?nancial resources and technical expertise at their disposal, there is a growing expectation that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will play an important part in supporting improved security-sector governance. These organisations have, however, long taken the position that, because of restrictions on political activities in their Articles of Agreement, their involvement in issues pertaining to the security sector must be limited. This article suggests that a governance approach to the security sector is well within the mandate of both organisations. And it is necessary for the Bank and the Fund to address the quality of security-sector governance if they are to be e?ective in carrying out two of their core functions: reforming public institutions and strengthening governance.     

Democracy in Mexico's Capital: Structural Reforms and Democratic Governance

Historically, the national ruling party has governed the Federal District of Mexico through a presidentially-appointed administrator. Since the late 1980s, however, the national government has initiated several reforms there to satisfy public demands for self-governance. The main purpose of this article is to examine the influence of these initiatives on democratic governance in the Federal District. The study incorporates interviews with city council members, a survey of residents, and reports in scholarly books, articles, and Mexico City newspapers. In 1988 the government created a new city council, La Asamblea de Representantes del Distrito Federal (ARDF), and provided it with advisory powers. Council members, the public, and interest groups demanded more powers for the ARDF and the popular election of a regente (mayor). In response, the government incrementally parcelled out powers to the ARDF, and recently instituted the popular election of a regente and district administrators. The ARDF and regente have gained significant powers and have worked in the public interest. However, they remain dependent on the national government for budgetary revenues and lack policy-making authority in key areas. Also, despite the advances in structural reforms, democratic policy-making has been undermined by corruption in the police department, public transportation sector, and other key areas of governance. The findings support the view of Wayne Cornelius that 'pockets of authoritarianism' at the local level retard the transition to democracy in Mexico.     

The substance of EU democratic governance promotion via transgovernmental cooperation with the Eastern neighbourhood

Existing studies of the European Union’s (EU) democratic governance promotion via transgovernmental cooperation in the EU’s neighbourhood seem to take the substance of what is being promoted by the EU for granted. In filling this gap, this article examines the substance of EU democratic governance promotion by assessing (1) to what extent norms of democratic governance appear in EU Twinning projects implemented in the Eastern neighbourhood, and (2) what factors account for differences in the presence of democratic governance norms across those projects. To explain possible variation, the article hypothesizes that the democratic governance substance of Twinning projects will vary with the country’s political liberalization, sector politicization, sector technical complexity, and EU conditionality attached to reform progress in a given policy sector. Data are retrieved from a content analysis of 117 Twinning project fiches from the Eastern neighbourhood and analysed via standard multiple regression. The article finds that the EU mostly promotes moderate, mixed democratic governance substance, which varies across different projects. This variation may be best explained by the level of political liberalization of the beneficiary country and the politicization and technical complexity of the policy sectors and institutions involved in respective Twinning projects.     

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”: the essential role of EU agencies in combatting the sale of counterfeit goods

This article demonstrates the role and importance of EU agencies in the EU’s regulatory environment, and considers the consequences of an absence of cooperation through agencies for internal security. It does so by exploring the case study of the anti-counterfeiting activities of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and what happens when a state no longer benefits from membership of an EU agency. The effective protection of consumers from counterfeit goods is dependent upon identifying best practices, sharing information on counterfeiting trends, and coordinating responses, activities undertaken through EU agencies. This article demonstrates that the ability of states to effectively counter the sale of counterfeit goods is dependent upon the existence of EU agencies due to the need for transnational cooperation. In the absence of EU agencies, states are likely to suffer diminished operational expertise and a lack of in-depth knowledge concerning counterfeiting trends. It concludes that the EU agencies form an essential part of EU security governance, with states not party to these cooperative endeavours rendered vulnerable and unable to combat at a national level what is ultimately a global problem.     

European Approaches to Security Sector Reform: Examining Trends through the Lens of Afghanistan

Abstract

Since its emergence in the late 1990s, the security sector reform model has come to be accepted as an indispensable element of democratic transitions and state-building projects. Europe has been an incubator for the concept, which is rooted in the notion of human security. While the model's normative framework has reached an advanced stage of development, it has produced few clear successes, revealing a ‘conceptual–contextual divide’. Placed under new pressure due to a shift in security thinking following 11 September 2001, the model faces an identity crisis. The Afghanistan process, above all, has demonstrated the need for new debate in Europe and elsewhere on the direction and structure of the model.     

Toward the Year 2000

To adapt and renew today's fraying international order, the West must partner more closely with democratic rising powers that remain ambivalent about existing international arrangements. There are four such ‘global swing states’: Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey. An effective engagement strategy will need to adjust the order's main pillars to enhance their appeal without transforming the fundamental character of the system in the process. It will need to influence what global swing states want through outreach to publics and private sectors. And it will need to make the case that all four can best manage China's rise by strengthening international rules of the road. If the West can enlarge the circle of countries that uphold the global order to include these rising democracies, the system that has long safeguarded international security and prosperity and promoted human rights will be able to endure.     

Mind the gap: the importance of local institutional development in peace-building-funded security interventions

In this paper, the authors analyse current spending priorities of the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF)-funded security sector reform (SSR) programmes. They conclude that these spending priorities do not appear to support traditional components of SSR and underfund programmes needed for the development of local public administration and civil society. This is observed despite the published commitments of UN PBF funding priorities to include the strengthening of national institutions in the context of support to the wider security and justice sectors.1 ?1. See UNPBSO, Strategy 2012–2013. The underfunding of civil society and local administration has been shown to undermine PBF's goals for the type of liberal democratic reform upon which peace-building, conflict management and conflict prevention rests. Focusing on the importance of accountability, the authors build on the scholarship of the rule of law literature to explore wider concerns associated with limited support to local public institutions and civil society. Drawing on empirical research on the peace-building experience in Sierra Leone, the authors reflect on concerns with the effects of past and current funding priorities and expose a number of ‘capacity deficits’ which have emerged in the wake of PBF funding patterns. The article concludes with several recommendations for a contextual approach to the development of local institutions and civil society in PBF-recipient countries more generally, and in Sierra Leone more specifically. This work contributes to the growing literature that seeks to link security sector reform with the need for a more nuanced approach to peace-building.     

Sub-regional intervention and the privatisation of politics in Africa

Sub-regional peacekeeping interventions in Africa have met with limited success in terms of conflict resolution. Nevertheless, the international community increasingly supports sub-regional conflict management arrangements so that African states can address the troubles on their own continent. The failings of subregional efforts have been ascribed to various factors, including inadequate training, co-operation and resources, and insufficient diplomatic experience on the part of peacemakers. This article suggests another contributing factor, namely the ‘privatisation of politics’. This paradigm groups various processes that have been identified in recent literature in order to explain the divergence of state functioning in Sub-Saharan Africa¹ from the Western state model. These include the ‘political instrumentalisation of disorder’,² the ‘shadow state’³ and the ‘criminalisation of the state’.⁴ The contention made here is that these processes could also influence inter-state sub-regional security co-operation. Two case studies are used to illustrate this point: the interventions of the Southern African Development Community in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of the Economic Community of West African States in Sierra Leone, including reference to the operation in Liberia.     

Criminalising Academia: The Protection of State Information Bill and Academic Freedom

This article assesses the implications of the controversial Protection of State Information Bill for academic freedom in South Africa, specifically for communications, media and journalism studies. The Bill requires the security cluster to classify sensitive documents on national security grounds. Academic teaching and research can help citizens to understand whether the security cluster is acting in the universal interest, rather than the interest of a political elite; it can also be used to assess media performance in reporting on national security matters. Using a critical approach to the concept of national security, I argue that the Bill favours secrecy over openness, and South Africa’s embrace of the human security definition of national security has contributed to the problem. This overemphasis on secrecy is likely to reduce the few spaces that exist in academia for critical, emancipatory work on security issues, which could hobble the sector’s attempts to understand the deeper processes at work in the security cluster. If such enquiry is marginalised, then the higher education system risks becoming an instrument for continuity rather than change in South Africa’s existing, highly unequal power relations: relations that are being maintained increasingly by force.     

Israel and the Emerging Strategic Architecture in the Middle East

The Middle East has undergone significant changes in the past two decades. Most significantly, the region has experienced the dissolution of the post-1991 America-centric regional security complex as the United States reduces its forces and retools its center of effort toward the Indo-Pacific, and the creation of a new gas-centered sub-regional security complex in the Eastern Mediterranean. These changes have impacted Israel’s stature in its region and have led to significant changes in Israel’s foreign and national security policy. While in the past, Israel viewed itself as a “villa in the jungle”—not as an integral part of the region—it now sees itself as part of its surroundings and is pursuing a much more regional-centric policy. This change is clear in issue-specific alliances and collective security arrangements, as well as in long-range economic relationships. This article analyzes the regional changes and their impact in Israeli strategic thinking and policy.     

Europe's global ambitions and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD): of what relevance is the Politique Africaine?

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) agreed in 2001 between the G7 and African leaders is an ambitious initiative to resolve the problems of economic underdevelopment, political instability and armed conflict in Africa. Essentially, it rests on the promise of increased economic aid in exchange for African commitment to liberal political and economic governance. This article examines the implications of NEPAD for the EU's policies towards Africa. It argues that the EU's economic instruments are more suitable for tackling security problems in Africa than its evolving military capacity or global multilateral cooperation with African states through NEPAD structures. It is argued that extant structures of European-African relations can significantly impact on African governance processes and their security outcomes only if they can be graduated into ‘constitutive’ forms of economic intervention similar to processes of accession into the EU. Such a modification, based on variegated competitive partnerships, would be consistent with the French origins of European-African relations and maybe possible because of the links between French foreign policy and Europe's evolving global role.     

Why “Conservative,” Not Liberal,Internationalism?

There is no broad literature defining conservative internationalism as there is for liberal internationalism and realism. Yet conservative internationalism differs from liberal internationalism and realism in four important ways. First, it seeks a world of limited government or separate sovereign nations not big international institutions. Second, it believes that national security is a function of ideological differences not just relative power or diplomatic misunderstandings. The democratic peace is a much safer world for America than the balance of power or United Nations. Third, it recognizes the need to use force during negotiations, not just after negotiations fail, because authoritarian states will not take negotiations seriously if they can achieve their objectives outside negotiations. And fourth, it advances democracy conservatively by prioritizing regions where strong democracies exist nearby (today Ukraine and Korea) and by using military leverage to reach timely compromises that weaken authoritarian states.     

对国家安全特点与治理原则的思考

近年来,世界各国越来越重视国家安全问题,并把它放在国家治理中越来越重要的位置,中国也不例外。然而,不少人对国家安全的理解还存在较大偏差,主要表现在要么笼统抽象地谈论国家安全,要么只是关注国家安全的某一个方面,对国家安全涉及问题的系统性讨论不多,即使那些为数不多的讨论也不够全面和深入。有效进行国家安全治理,需要全面、系统和深入地厘清“国家安全”概念的内涵和外延,以及国家安全与其他价值之间的关系,并在此基础上探讨国家安全治理的原则和路径。国家安全是一个内涵极为丰富的概念,具有多面性、关联性、变动性、相对性、非唯一性、主观性和社会性等特征,深入研究和把握国家安全要有总体安全思维,从总体安全的角度全面审视我们面临的挑战,借鉴中外历史经验和教训,并在此基础上加以认真应对。因此,国家安全治理的路径选择至少应遵循总体、全面、兼顾、适度、平衡、顺势与合作等原则。     

Gunning for security governance in a resource-rich African state? Interrogating militarisation in a democratic Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This article examines the socio-historical factors that underpin the political sociology of militarism in Nigeria. In spite of subscribing to a democratic constitution and several regional mechanisms that advance democratic values, security governance in Nigeria has been marked by the increasing use of military force in responding to perceived threats posed by armed militias in the oil-rich Niger Delta. I argue that the securitisation of oil is fuels militarisation, facilitated by local, national and international actors. The turn to democratisation and changing conceptions of security have reinforced rather than reined in militarism, which results in a competitive and often violent politics between national, local and global security and military actors over access to and control of oil resources. These dynamics also result in dangerous socio-economic and political consequences for Niger Delta communities.     

Putting security governance to the test: conceptual,empirical, and normative challenges

Security governance has featured prominently in recent debates about fragmentation, informalization, and privatization in the increasingly diverse field of security policy. It has inspired much valuable research. Yet, there are not just very different conceptual understandings of security governance; there is also a lack of clarity regarding its empirical manifestations and normative connotations. After a decade of research, the special issue therefore puts security governance to the test and scrutinizes its analytical and political pitfalls and potentials. This editorial briefly reviews the rise of security governance, identifies central conceptual, empirical, and normative challenges that need to be addressed, and introduces the individual contributions to this special issue.