Security Sector Reform from a Policy Transfer Perspective: A Comparative Study of International Interventions in the Palestinian Territories, Liberia and Timor-Leste

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• local ownership
• policy transfer
• security governance
• security sector reform
• statebuilding

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the context of the Collaborative Research Centre 700 ‘Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood’ in Berlin. The authors wish to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments as well as Jill Poeggel and Michael Wingens for research assistance in the preparation of this article.

Notes on Contributors

Ursula C. Schroeder is a Lecturer in International Relations at the Free University Berlin, Germany, and directs the research project ‘Exporting the State Monopoly on Violence. Security Governance Transfers to Areas of Limited Statehood’ at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 700: Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood. ([email protected])

Fairlie Chappuis is a Research Associate at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 700: Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood and a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Berlin Graduate School of Transnational Studies, Free University Berlin. ([email protected])

Deniz Kocak is a Research Associate at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 700: Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood, and a PhD candidate at the Berlin Graduate School of Transnational Studies, Free University Berlin. His research focuses on the security sector transformation of Southeast Asian countries. ([email protected])