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ABSTRACT
Successful outcomes in security sector reform (SSR) implementation are often conditioned on two key inter-related operational principles: international agencies’ understanding of the ‘local context’ where they intervene and their encouragement of the country ‘ownership’ of the institutional reforms they advocate. Outcomes, however, are determined by power, and different patterns of outcomes are likely to emerge from different types and degrees of power exercised by a multiplicity of actors operating in a dynamic political and social context. Drawing upon these inter-connections between outcomes and power, this article examines Kosovo’s security sector development experience since 1999. It argues that depending on types of, and changes in, power-based interplays between international and domestic forces, different patterns of ‘ownership’ have emerged in the context of SSR implementation in Kosovo.
Acknowledgements
This study is one of the products of the research project, entitled ‘Policy and Practice of Integrated Security and Development as a Sustainable Peace-Building Strategy’, supported by Turkey’s Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK) under its Post-Doctoral Returns Programme.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the author
Selver B. Sahin is an assistant professor of international relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. She is the author of International Intervention and State-Making: How the Exception Became the Norm (Routledge, 2015). Her research is focused on the forms and consequences of state-capacity-building interventions and has been published in Democratization, Asian Survey, Australian Journal of International Affairs, and the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies.
Notes
1 UN, ‘An Agenda for Peace’.
2 Among others, see, for example, UN, A More Secure World; UN, ‘Securing Peace and Development’; OECD/DAC, Supporting Statebuilding; DFID, Eliminating World Poverty; World Bank, 2011 World Development Report; UNDP, Peace for Governance.
3 UN, ‘An Agenda for Peace’, para. 59.
4 OECD/DAC, OECD–DAC Handbook, 29; DFID, Understanding and Supporting, 13.
5 OECD/DAC, OECD-DAC Handbook, 29.
6 Pinto, ‘UNMIT Mission’.
7 International Crisis Group (ICG), ‘Timor-Leste’; Sahin and Feaver, ‘Politics of Security Sector Reform’.
8 OECD/DAC, OECD-DAC Handbook; UN, ‘Securing Peace and Development’; OECD/DAC, Security System Reform: What Have We Learned?; UN, ‘Securing Peace and Development’; UN, ‘Securing States and Societies’; Scheye and Peake, ‘Unknotting Local Ownership’; Nathan, No Ownership, No Commitment; Donais, ‘Understanding Local Ownership’; Mobekk, ‘Security Sector Reform’.
9 Elias, What Is Sociology?
10 Ibid., 93.
11 Ibid., 96.
12 Wilson, Smoke and Mirrors.
13 Mac Ginty, ‘Where Is the Local?’
14 Scheye, ‘Unknotting Local Ownership Redux’.
15 OECD/DAC, ‘Principles for Good International Engagement’.
16 Mac Ginty, ‘Where Is the Local?’
17 OECD/DAC, ‘Principles for Good International Engagement’. https://www.eda.admin.ch/content/dam/countries/countries-content/nepal/en/38368714.pdf (accessed June 9, 2016).
18 OECD/DAC, Do No Harm.
19 Ibid., 147.
20 OECD/DAC, Security System Reform and Governance, 61.
21 OECD/DAC, Monitoring the Principles, 10.
22 Ibid.
23 Chesterman, ‘Ownership in Theory’, 4, 9.
24 Ibid.; Nathan, ‘Challenge of Local Ownership’.
25 Bendix and Stanley, ‘Deconstructing Local Ownership’, 95.
26 Nathan, ‘Challenge of Local Ownership’, 21.
27 Donais, ‘Inclusion or Exclusion?’, 120.
28 Nathan, ‘Challenge of Local Ownership’, 21.
29 Bendix and Stanley, ‘Deconstructing Local Ownership’, 98–9.
30 Nathan, ‘Challenge of Local Ownership’, 22.
31 Donais, ‘Inclusion or Exclusion’, 121.
32 Nathan, ‘Challenge of Local Ownership’.
33 Bendix and Stanley, ‘Deconstructing Local Ownership’, 99.
34 Nathan, ‘Challenge of Local Ownership’, 22.
35 Von Billerbeck, ‘Local Ownership and UN Peacebuilding’.
36 Mac Ginty, ‘Where Is the Local?’; see also Richmond, ‘De-Romanticising the Local’, 847.
37 I am grateful to my research assistant Mr. Levent Ozan for bringing these points to my attention and allowing me to incorporate them into this article.
38 Martin and Wilson, ‘Security Sector Evolution’.
39 UN, ‘Securing Peace and Development’.
40 Von Billerbeck, ‘Local Ownership and UN Peacebuilding’.
41 Whalan, How Peace Operations Work.
42 Ibid.
43 Gippert, ‘Exploring Local Compliance’, 58.
44 Whalan, How Peace Operations Work, 76.
45 Ibid., 63.
46 Gippert, ‘Exploring Local Compliance’.
47 Whalan, How Peace Operations Work, 32.
48 Gordon, ‘Security Sector Reform’, 129.
49 Ibid.; Bendix and Stanley, ‘Deconstructing Local Ownership’, 96.
50 For a detailed analysis of competing societal interests in the context of Timor-Leste's security sector development process, see Sahin and Feaver, ‘Politics of Security Sector Reform’.
51 Bendix and Stanley, ‘Deconstructing Local Ownership’, 94, 101.
52 Chandler, Empire in Denial.
53 Mac Ginty, ‘Where Is the Local?’
54 Ibid.
55 Chandler, Empire in Denial.
56 Chandler, International Statebuilding.
57 Boege, ‘Hybrid Forms of Peace’.
58 Richmond, ‘Resistance and the Post-Liberal Peace’.
59 Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace.
60 Rayroux and Wilen, ‘Resisting Ownership’.
61 Wilen, ‘Hybrid Peace’, 1331.
62 Arnstein, ‘Ladder of Citizen Participation’.
63 Wilson, Smoke and Mirrors, 19–25.
64 Arnstein, ‘Ladder of Citizen Participation’, 216.
65 Ibid., 217–23.
66 UNMIK, ‘UNMIK Convenes First Meeting’.
67 UN, ‘UN Interim Administration Mission’.
68 UNMIK, ‘UNMIK Regulation No. 1999/24’.
69 For details, see David Holley, ‘Kosovo Factions' Differences Apparent at Council Meeting’, Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug. 1999.
70 Yannis, ‘Kosovo under International Administration’, 34.
71 UNMIK, ‘UNMIK Regulation No. 8’.
72 International Organization for Migration (IOM), ‘Kosovo Reintegration Efforts'; UNMIK, ‘Kosovo Protection Corps'.
73 UNMIK, ‘Kosovo Protection Corps'.
74 UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Mission’, para. 44.
75 O’Neill, Kosovo, 112.
76 Heinemann-Gruder and Paes, ‘Wag the Dog’.
77 Rees, Security Sector Reform, 20.
78 Ibid.
79 Personal communication with a member of the expatriate community in Pristina, Sep. 2015.
80 ‘Standards for Kosovo’.
81 ICG, ‘Collapse in Kosovo’, 2.
82 UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission’, para. 3.
83 Eide, ‘Report of the Situation in Kosovo’.
84 Eide, ‘Comprehensive Review’.
85 UN, ‘Report of the Special Envoy’.
86 Ibid., Annex XI.
87 Anthony Cleland Welch et al., Kosovo Internal Security Sector Review.
88 Ibid., xiii.
89 Cleland Welch, ‘Security Sector Review in Kosovo’, 47.
90 Cleland Welch, ‘Appraising the 2006 Kosovo Internal Security Sector Review’.
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid.
93 Quoted in Bajraktari and Parajon, ‘Future of Kosovo's Security Sector’. http://www.usip.org/publications/the-future-of-kosovos-security-sector (accessed June 9, 2016).
94 Cleland Welch et al., Kosovo Internal Security Sector Review, 5.
95 It is noted in the review document that ‘should the international community attempt to deny an independent Kosovo its own defence force, action would be taken to create such a force. The ISSR [Internal Security Sector Review] further believe that such an outcome would work against the progress that has been made to bring security to Kosovo and the region as a whole.’ Ibid., xviii. See also, ibid., 140.
96 Saferworld, ‘Internal Security Sector Review’.
97 Interview with Florian Qehaja, Director of Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, Pristina, Mar. 2015.
98 ‘Law No. 04/L-177 on Overseas Deployment’.
99 Interview, Ministry of Kosovo Security Force, Pristina, Jul. 2015.
100 Blease and Qehaja, ‘Conundrum of Local Ownership’.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Interview, Gap Institute, Pristina, Jul. 2014.
104 Forum for Civic Initiatives (FIQ) et al., ‘New Kosovo Security Strategy Formulation’.
105 Derks-Normandin, Linking Peace and Durable Solutions, 15; Cleland Welch, ‘Kosovo's Home-Grown SSR’.
106 Government of Republic of Kosovo, Analysis of the Strategic Security Sector Review.
107 Interview, Ministry of Kosovo Security Force, Pristina, Jul. 2014.
108 Cleland Welch, ‘Kosovo's Home-Grown SSR’.
109 Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED), Kosovo Security Sector Observer.
110 Interview, Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, Mar. 2015.
111 ‘Thaci: Pristina Has NATO's Approval’.
112 ‘Kosovo to Create Own Army’.
113 Interview with Florian Qehaja, Director of Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, Pristina, Mar. 2015.
114 NATO, ‘Joint Press Point. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_116807.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed June 9, 2016).
115 Ministry of Kosovo Security Force, Annual Report 2014, 5.
116 ‘Ministry for the Kosovo Security Force Newsletter’. http://www.mksf-ks.org/repository/docs/Newsletter_November_2015_Frame.pdf
117 Under its current mandate, international judges and prosecutors are ‘embedded’ in Kosovo institutions, and they will not take on new cases and transfer competencies to the Kosovo judicial system with the exception of the northern part of the country where ‘EULEX will remain in charge of judicial proceedings until the EU Facilitated Dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade brings a solution for the judiciary’. ‘Short History of EULEX’, http://www.eulex-kosovo.eu/?page=2,44,197 (accessed 12 Aug. 2015).
118 Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, Kosovo Security Barometer, Dec. 2014.
119 ‘Kosovo Police and KSF Most Trusted Institutions, KIPRED Survey Finds', http://www.kosovapress.com/en/nacional/kipred-nxjerr-policine-dhe-fsk-ne-si-me-te-besueshmet-48599 (accessed 26 Aug. 2015).
120 Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, Kosovo Security Barometer, Dec. 2015.
121 ‘The Establishment of Kosovo’.
122 Hajdari, ‘Kosovo Serbs MPs Say “No”’.
123 ‘Draft Law on the Armed Forces’; ‘Kosovo MPs to Vote’; Ezik, ‘Under Western Pressure’.
124 See, for example, ‘Ministry for the Kosovo Security Force Newsletter’.