Security Assistance in a Post-interventionist Era: The Impact on Limited Statehood in Lebanon and Tunisia

Abstract

Post-interventionist security assistance is premised on non-normative security understandings and flexible arrangements between external and local actors. In hybrid political regimes or areas of limited statehood, these forms of assistance, while strengthening specific aspects of a country’s security context, reinforce some domestic actors vis-à-vis others thanks to processes of selective borrowing by local political elites. This paper demonstrates how such processes contribute to the proliferation of hybrid elements in the country’s security sector. In two contrasting case studies, we illustrate how security assistance packages in Lebanon and Tunisia have diluted emerging democratic reforms, producing more coercive manifestation of state power.

Keywords:

• Security assistance
• limited statehood
• Tunisia
• Lebanon

Notes

1. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Building Partner Capacity.

2. Chandler, “New Narratives of International Security Governance”.

3. Moe and Mueller, Complexity, Resilience and the ‘Local Turn’.

4. Chandler, “Resilience and Human Security”.

5. Bueger and Tholens “Theorizing Capacity Building”.

6. Gheciu, “International Norms”.

7. Schroeder, Chappuis and Kocak, “Security Sector Reform”; and Hanau Santini and Moro, “Between hierarchy and heterarchy”.

8. Risse, “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”.

9. Hanau Santini, Limited Statehood in Post-revolutionary Tunisia; and Tholens, “Border Management”.

10. Doyle and Sambanis, “International Peacebuilding”.

11. Ignatieff, Empire Lite; Richmond, The Transformation of Peace; and Chandler, Empire in Denial.

12. Darby, “Rolling Back the Frontiers of Empire”.

13. MacGinty, “Hybrid Peace”.

14. Schroeder, Chappuis and Kocak, “Security Sector Reform”.

15. Jarstad and Belloni, “Introducing Hybrid Peace Governance”; and Richmond, “The Dilemmas of a Hybrid Peace”.

16. See note 14.

17. Björkdahl and Höglund, “Precarious Peacebuilding”; and Millar, van der Lijn, and Verkoren, “Peacebuilding Plans and Local Reconfigurations”.

18. See note 4 above.

19. Ibid., 221.

20. Moe and Mueller, Complexity, Resilience and the ‘Local Turn’, 20.

21. Ibid., 6.

22. See Moe and Mueller Complexity, Resilience and the ‘Local Turn’; Khalili, Time in the Shadows; and Niva, “Disappearing Violence”.

23. Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights.

24. Abrahamsen and Williams, Security Beyond the State.

25. Sandor, “Border Security”.

26. See note 14.

27. Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty; and Fregonese, Beyond the ‘Weak State'.

28. Chojnacki and Branovic “New modes of Security”.

29. See note 14.

30. Stone, “Transfer and Translation of Policy”.

31. See note 14.

32. Hibou, La Force de l’Obéissance.

33. Sayigh, Missed Opportunity.

34. International Crisis Group, Reform and Security Strategy in Tunisia.

35. Ibid.

36. Bou Nassif, “Generals and Autocrats”.

37. Ben Mahfoudh, “Security Sector Reform in Tunisia”.

38. Kartas, “Foreign Aid”.

39. European Court of Auditors, “EU Assistance to Tunisia”.

40. Author interview, EU Delegation, June 2017.

41. Abbes, “Tunisie”.

42. Author interviews, European embassies, Tunis, June 2017.

43. Author interviews WITH WHOM?, Tunis, June 2017.

44. Szakal, “New Security Draft Law”.

45. UNSC, Resolution 1701.

46. Norton, Hezbollah.

47. Lang and Awadallah, Playing the Long Game.

48. Tholens, “Border Management”.

49. See http://securityassistance.org/data/program/military/Lebanon/

50. U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification.

51. See note 47 above.

52. See Nerguizian, “Between Sectarianism and Military Development”, 115, 116.

53. Alami, The Lebanese Army.

54. Shabb, “The Syrian Conflict”.

55. Schenker, U.S. Security Assistance to Lebanon.

56. Hazbun, “Assembling Security in a ‘Weak State’”.