Adapting Security Sector Reform to Ground-Level Realities: The Transition to a Second-Generation Model

ABSTRACT

The security sector reform (SSR) model has entered a period of uncertainty and change. Despite being mainstreamed in international development and security policy, SSR has had a meagre record of achievement. SSR analysts, practitioners and policymakers are increasingly speaking of the need to move to a second-generation SSR model. There is a growing belief that SSR in its current form is too utopian, technocratic, state-centric, and donor-driven to succeed. While there is no universally accepted blueprint for second-generation SSR, a number of characteristics have emerged that have begun to define the contours of this alternative vision: less overtly liberal; willing to engage non-state actors, norms and structures; more modest in is objectives and time frames; attuned to the political nature of the process; and bottom-up in its orientation.

KEYWORDS:

• Peacebuilding
• statebuilding
• security sector reform
• fragile states

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Mark Sedra is the President and Research Director of the Canadian International Council (CIC), an international affairs think tank. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada. His research focuses on peace building and state building processes in fragile and conflict affected states.