Police reform and democratic development in lower-profile fragile states

Abstract

Abstract Over the past six years, Western donors have formulated guidelines to orient their increasing involvement in security system reform (SSR) throughout the South and particularly in fragile states. These normative instruments recommend a range of measures to ensure that donor involvement reinforces development goals such as national ownership and democratic consolidation. However, Sedra and others have argued that this model is in crisis in high-profile fragile states such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where counter-insurgency strategies distort or even negate democratic development approaches to SSR.

Résumé Drawing on original case studies of police reform in Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan, this article demonstrates that developmental approaches to SSR have more scope for application in fragile states that are not at war or involved in the War on Terror. Yet, even in such contexts, the case studies suggest that key factors complicate the application of developmental approaches. A social constructivist framework is used to explain how agency at the national and international levels, cultural constructs such as patrimonial politics and structures such as economic underdevelopment, converge to shape the prospects for SSR in these lower-profile fragile states.

Pendant les dernières années, les bailleurs occidentaux ont élaboré des normes pour orienter leur engagement croissant dans la reformé des systèmes de sécurité (RSS), particulièrement dans les États fragiles. Ces normes recommandent un éventail de mesures pour assurer que l'appui des bailleurs renforce des objectifs de développement tels que l'appropriation nationale et la consolidation démocratique. Cependant Sedra et d'autres suggèrent que ce modèle est en crise dans les États fragiles très visibles tels que l'Afghanistan et l'Iraq, où les stratégies de contre-guérilla dénaturent les approches développementales dans ce secteur.

Basé sur trois études originales de la réforme des institutions policières au Burundi, en Haïti et dans le Soudan du Sud, cet article démontre que les approches développementales ont plus de possibilité d'être mises en œuvre dans les États fragiles qui ne sont pas en guerre ou engagés dans la Guerre contre la terreur. Mais même dans de tels contextes, ces études suggèrent que certains facteurs compliquent l'application d'une approche développementale dans le secteur de la sécurité. Une grille constructiviste est employée pour expliquer comment les facteurs agentiels aux niveaux national et international convergent avec les facteurs culturels comme le patrimonialisme et les facteurs structurels tels que le sous développement économique pour contraindre la réforme des systèmes de sécurité même dans ces États fragiles moins visibles.

Keywords:

• Police reform
• security system reform
• governance
• fragile states
• development

Introduction: policy and theoretical issues

Security system reform (SSR) has become a field of considerable international policy and programmatic innovation since the events of 9/11. During the Cold War era most Western donors showed great reluctance to work in this area because it was the preserve of security and intelligence agencies, on the dark side of Cold War politics. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the changing nature of armed conflict and the complex mix of peace processes and international interventions which flowed from these shifts converged to generate new demands for donor involvement in the area of security – well beyond donors' comfort zone of economic and social development, administrative modernisation and democratisation (Kaldor, 1998, Willett, 2005). From the late 1990s onward, policy debates pitted ‘traditional’ donors like Sweden, which argued that scarce overseas development aid (ODA) funds should not be spent in such sensitive parts of the public sector, against those like the UK, which – in the person of then-Minister of International Development Clare Short – argued that ‘without security there could be no development’ and that donors had important roles to play in reforming post-colonial states' security agencies so that they could contribute to human development (Short, 1999, Duffield, 2001, Easterly, 2008).

A few years after 9/11 and in the context of renewed international concern about fragile states, donors adopted the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) guidelines to bridge this debate and orient their growing engagement in security affairs (OECD, 2004). The DAC guidelines and the Handbook published shortly after (OECD, 2007), frame SSR as: (1) developing a clear institutional framework for the provision of security that integrates security and development and includes all relevant security actors; (2) strengthening the governance of security institutions; and (3) building capable and professional security forces that are accountable to civil authorities (OECD, 2007, p. 13).

By ‘all relevant security actors,’ the DAC means core security agencies like the military and police; judicial institutions and civilian oversight bodies; the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of irregular forces; as well as the regulation of non-state security providers.

The DAC guidelines urge donors to take a coherent, system-wide approach to all these institutions/actors. They stress the importance of fostering democratic governance in the security system. Democratic governance is seen as a quid pro quo for donor contributions to improve the delivery of security services. Fostering national and particularly democratic ownership is seen as a crucial means of promoting developmental approaches that are sustainable over the long term, which is viewed as a central goal of donors' engagement in this area. The guidelines also stress the importance of taking multi-agency approaches to SSR to promote coherence between donors and other state agencies such as defence or trade ministries, as well as multilateral bodies such as the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the International Monetary Fund. These guidelines are organically related to other contemporary norms orienting development co-operation, particularly the 2005 Paris Declaration on Strengthening Aid Effectiveness. Like effective development co-operation itself, this transformative approach to SSR is an ambitious and complex exercise, particularly in fragile states.

Police reform is an important part of the SSR agenda. It is critical to the demilitarisation of public security and (re)establishing the rule of law and respect for human rights, as well as the recovery of national sovereignty in contexts like Haiti, where the presence of international forces is justified partly on the grounds of public security. The DAC Handbook focuses on how donors can follow a developmental approach to SSR in the area of policing. It explains how they can start with joint assessments of police reform needs, opportunities and challenges in particular countries. It shows how they might formulate joint strategies linking short-term changes like recruiting new police personnel with long-term changes like promoting co-operation between police and judicial institutions. It also shows how donors can complement investments in hardware (like buildings) with investments in software (like training and measures to foster democratic accountability). The Handbook is becoming increasingly gender-sensitive, as evidenced by the recent publication of a supplementary chapter on gender and SSR.

To what extent are the DAC's model of SSR and its guidance on police reform actually being applied? An increase of funding is one indicator of donor approaches. Indeed, DAC data suggests that Western donors' ODA for SSR activities has increased from about US$ 225 million in 2004 to US$ 580 million in 2008, an increase of over 100 per cent in four years (OECD, 2010, p. 16). Western donors clearly are more active in this domain. Yet, a growing analytical literature suggests that donors' actions fall far short of DAC principles in qualitative terms.

In his formative analysis of US and broader Western approaches to SSR in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sedra (2007) suggests that war and Western counter-insurgency strategies impede developmental approaches to SSR. Despite their rhetoric of national ownership, the US and other Western donors actually control SSR processes on the ground. As a result, ‘hard’ security priorities like training and equipping security forces have displaced or undermined ‘soft’ justice and governance reforms. Short-term military and political expediency have trumped long-term development objectives like democratic accountability and fiscal sustainability. Western actors have not invested enough in understanding local complexities and have therefore made costly mistakes: the West is fuelling conflict by aligning itself to certain elites, ethnic groups and paramilitary forces in each society. These policy–practice gaps are driven by post-9/11 US priorities and the fact that, especially since 2004, SSR has been attempted in the context of escalating warfare. In more recent work on SSR in Afghanistan, the author adds a deeper analysis of national actors and their co-responsibility for SSR failures there (Sedra, 2008).

Other scholars suggest that some of these policy–practice gaps also apply to other contexts. Andersen (2006), Abrahamsen and Williams (2006), as well as Baker and Scheye (2007), argue that donors have difficulty delivering on their vision of SSR because they fail to grasp the character of post-colonial states and societies, particularly in Africa. As a result, donors focus on reinforcing problematic state security institutions and virtually ignore traditional security and justice providers that may enjoy more legitimacy. Peake and Marenin (2008) add that, in the realm of policing, donors have shown a striking inability to apply lessons about rooting SSR interventions in careful context analysis. In particular, many Western donors have been inept at understanding the agency and institutional cultures of the police services they seek to assist, as well as the broader domestic political constraints impeding extensive reforms.

Donais (2009) concurs that many donors' arrogance, bureaucratic cultures, geopolitical agendas and limited understanding of local complexities combine to limit their respect for democratic ownership. In practice, ‘local ownership becomes less about local authorship and control than about getting domestic actors to buy into what remains largely an externally-defined vision’ (Donais, 2009, p. 128). Salahub and Nerland (2010) examine women and men's different experiences of (in)security, how the preponderance of men in decision-making positions shapes SSR processes, and how women's (and men's) agency can alter the historic tendencies of patriarchy in certain post-colonial security institutions.

On the basis of a rich collection of case and thematic studies from/on Africa, Bryden and Olonisakin (2010) conclude that one downside of aiming for system-wide approaches and policy coherence is that it is extremely difficult to understand and influence fundamentally political processes in such large swaths of complex, post-colonial societies. A recent synthesis of lessons learned since the release of the DAC guidelines confirms some of these tendencies (OECD, 2010). It notes that, despite increased understanding and commitment to SSR in donor agency headquarters, in the field it seems very difficult for donors to follow DAC guidelines on core challenges like achieving policy coherence, aligning donor support with host state priorities and programs, or respecting national ownership.

As this cursory review suggests, much of the SSR literature comes from the North and focuses on donor roles, though it opens the door to understanding national actors and their complex dynamics. Important contributions are also emerging from the global South. Sayigh's studies (2007, 2009) show how SSR has been limited and even ‘contradictory’ in some Arab countries. He attributes these limitations to the consolidation of repressive, undemocratic post-colonial states in the region, as well as Western (or Soviet/Russian) support for these states during the Cold War and since 9/11. African analysts have made similar arguments with regard to SSR in their region, while placing more emphasis on the enduring impacts of patrimonial politics in post-colonial Africa (Cawthra, 2006, Opuku et al., 2007). Gender-based analyses of SSR in Africa reveal further limitations of such processes rooted in patriarchal structures and gendered imbalances of power (Hendricks and Valasek, 2010, Salahub, 2011).

A study of SSR in Latin America and the Caribbean, co-ordinated by Dammert (2007) of FLACSO-Chile, documents the surprising variety of reforms that have taken place in the region since the end of the Cold War. It observes the progress of military and police professionalisation in many countries. It also documents the continued autonomy of security and intelligence agencies, as well as the renewed blurring of military and police functions in some countries. The study emphasises national factors that explain these uneven results – from the residual power of security forces and the weakness of judicial and legislative institutions, to the renewed use of security agencies for political-electoral ends and the growth of organised crime.

These studies offer locally generated data, Southern analyses and recommendations that go beyond the usual focus on donors. They complement insights emerging from critical, historically informed analysis in the North. Yet many gaps endure. There are insufficient Southern studies of SSR in what are still Northern-dominated debates. With notable exceptions (like Andersen, Abrahamsen and Williams, Donais), the literature also eschews sophisticated engagement with social theory. As such it misses opportunities to confront ‘lessons learned’ through SSR with deeper understandings of the social construction/deconstruction of development, democracy and the rule of law in contemporary post-colonial societies. We aim to address these knowledge gaps in this article, as well as through the case studies in this section.

This article compares insights from three case studies of police and broader security system reforms in Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan. These cases were chosen for two reasons. At a practical level, these were countries in which the North–South Institute had built research partnerships with the aim of nurturing Southern capacities for evidence-based, policy-relevant SSR analysis.1 As such, the case studies in this special section were carried out by mostly Southern researchers in each society. They are based on extensive document research, interviews and focus groups with a range of stakeholders.2 In the cases of Burundi and Southern Sudan, they are also based on unique surveys of citizen perceptions of security and insecurity.3 Earlier versions were published as working papers and validated in each society, as well as in Canada (Nindorera, 2007, Fortin and Pierre, 2008, Sebit Lokuji, et al., 2009).

Conceptually, we also wanted to examine SSR in contexts that were not on the front lines of the War on Terror (WOT), to see if there was more scope for the kind of SSR envisaged by the DAC there, compared to tough cases like Iraq.4 This interest was informed by our earlier comparative study of post-Cold War peacebuilding, which showed that the scope for liberal peacebuilding was greater in fragile states that were marginal to the post-9/11 WOT, but that even there it was difficult to put the deeper reforms required for sustainable peace into effect because of the local-to-global alignment of power relations in those contexts (Baranyi, 2008).

Our research agenda has also been informed by Wulf's notion of the potential for SSR in different contexts. In the year that the DAC was finalising its guidelines, Herbert Wulf (2004, p. 6) presciently argued that the potential for SSR ranged from ‘impossible’ in contexts of protracted war (like Afghanistan and Iraq), to ‘difficult’ in societies that were in transition from war/dictatorship to peace/democracy, to having ‘major potential’ in post-conflict societies. Although his insight was largely ignored by Western policyii8makers in Afghanistan and Iraq, it remains useful for conceptualising the potential for SSR in different contexts.

Combining Wulf's scheme with our analysis of peacebuilding can help us situate contemporary SSR experiences in historical and comparative perspectives. Embedding these ideas in broader constructivist theorisations should help us analyse the complex social dynamics of SSR in different contexts. We identify ourselves with the more historical materialist variants of constructivism put forward by Giddens (1984) in sociology, Kratochwil (1989) in international relations or Barrett and Phillips (1992) in feminist theory. What these authors have in common at the meta-theoretical level (despite their differences), is an appreciation for how different individual and institutional agents/subjects use their power to shape history, but not under conditions entirely of their choosing, as Marx (1976) noted almost 160 years ago. These scholars do not privilege particular subjects or structures trans-historically; for them, the relative weight of states, classes, genders, ethnic groups or institutions, as well as of economic, demographic or geopolitical structures, varies with time and place. These scholars also appreciate how social norms and broader cultures profoundly affect human agency. They share this premise with other constructivists like Foucault et al. (2009), but they place considerably less emphasis on discourses and more emphasis on material conditions enabling/constraining collective action.

One purpose of this article is to explore the value of bringing social constructivism to bear on the analysis of SSR processes. We examine how institutional agents like senior police officials and donors and women's organisations interact, how they are influenced by cultural constructs like patrimonialism, as well as by structures like the domestic political economy, and how these forces align to perpetuate or change policing in post-colonial societies.

The article is organised around a focused comparison of the case studies and their answers to three questions:

•	What kind of police reform and wider SSR are underway in each society?
•	With what effect, from a democratic development angle?
•	Why: what factors explain advances and limitations in these cases?

In the conclusions, we draw the threads together into a social constructivist interpretation of SSR in fragile states that we have labelled ‘lower-profile’ because they are not at the centre of the enduring global War on Terror. Our main hypotheses are that: (1) while key agents, their negotiated transitions (from war to peace and/or from authoritarian to liberal democratic forms of governance) and their distance from major geopolitical confrontations, have opened spaces for police and wider security reforms in Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan, (2) the ambivalence of certain actors and their relations of power converge with certain norms and structures to limit the scope of SSR from a development standpoint even in more promising contexts.

Three contexts: commonalities and specificities

Before we analyse SSR in these societies, let us recall some of their shared characteristics. Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan are small, extremely poor post-colonial societies. Their populations range from about nine million inhabitants in Southern Sudan to about 10 million in Burundi. They are among the least developed societies in the world: in 2010, Burundi ranked fourth from the bottom of the Human Development Index; Sudan as a whole 15th and Haiti 24th (UNDP, 2010). They are all part of the ‘bottom billion’ of humanity (Collier, 2007) and are often classified as extremely fragile or even failed states. Indeed, in 2010 the US-based non-profit Fund for Peace ranked Sudan as the third most ‘failed state’, Haiti as the 11th and Burundi as the 23rd – based on indicators of demographic pressures, refugees, uneven economic development, external interventions and so on (Fund for Peace, 2010). One could question the conceptual and methodological rigour of these rankings, yet it is hard to dispute the fragility of statehood and the broader vulnerability of the societies found at the extreme end of these scales.5

Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan also share patrimonial politics, namely personalised rule, usually by male leaders, exercised through the state, kinship and other networks. In all three contexts, patrimonialism converges with patriarchy – namely the institutionalised domination of women by men, manifested in the tendency for men to occupy most positions of power, as well as in widespread discrimination and violence against women. In this conjuncture, they all host a large presence of international peacekeepers and/or Western donors. None of these societies is currently affected by open warfare, yet they sit at different points of Wulf's spectrum: Burundi is in a process of postwar peacebuilding and democratic consolidation; Haiti of democratic consolidation and post-disaster reconstruction; and Southern Sudan in an uncertain transition from war and authoritarian rule. This mix of factors shapes SSR efforts in all three societies, yet as documented in the case studies, each country has its own distinct history.

Burundi gained its independence from Belgium in 1962 as part of the wave of decolonisation in Africa. The early post-colonial period was marked by recurrent, extremely violent conflict between the main ethnic communities and the eventual capture of state power by Tutsi military elites. The 2003 Arusha Peace Accords opened the door to ceasefires, elections that brought the mainly Hutu CNDD-FDD party to power, as well as reforms to key state institutions including security providers. The presence of international military forces evolved from an African Union mission to a large UN peace operation (ONUB) and then to a smaller UN office after 2008. The country remains quite dependent on official development assistance. Donors like Belgium and the Netherlands have been deeply engaged bilaterally and multilaterally through the UN Peacebuilding Commission. Agriculture – centred on subsistence farming as well as the production of coffee and tea for export – remains the most important sector of the economy (Nindorera, 2007, Uvin, 2009).

Haiti has the dubious honour of having gained its independence from France in 1804. As the first independent black republic in the Americas, it experienced French and US hostility during the early nineteenth century, as well as economic stagnation and recurrent conflicts among elites and between them and the mostly black, poor, rural majority. In the twentieth century authoritarian regimes, uneven economic development, a long US military occupation (1915–1934) and US support for the Duvalier dictatorship during the Cold War all shaped Haitian society in profound ways. Democratic struggles from the mid-1980s onward, a US military intervention in 1994 and several international monitoring missions, the US–Franco–Canadian intervention in 2004 followed by a large UN stabilisation mission (MINUSTAH), opened the door to the relatively peaceful election of the Préval government in 2006, as well as to SSR and other public sector reforms. With its sluggish agricultural economy and modest exports of light manufactured goods to the US, Haiti remains highly dependent on remittances and on official development assistance (Fatton, 2007, Fortin and Pierre, 2011).

Southern Sudan is formally part of the Republic of the Sudan. After Sudan gained its independence from Britain in 1956, the government in Khartoum attempted to unify the state and its diverse population by implementing Islamic policies across the country. This fuelled two extremely destructive wars between the North and the mostly black and Christian South, finally leading to a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the central government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) in 2005.

Since then the parties have negotiated largely through political means, while the SPLA/M has attempted to consolidate its power in the South, with support from the US, the UK and other Western powers. A large UN mission (UNMIS) monitors compliance with the CPA. National elections took place in April 2010 and a referendum on autonomy/independence was held in January 2011. The economy of Southern Sudan rests on subsistence agriculture and on oil extraction, as well as on a small commercial and construction sector linked to the growing presence of donors and oil firms in the Southern Sudanese capital, Juba (Sebit Lokuji et al., 2009, Sewonet Abatneh and Monoja Lubang, 2011).

What kind of police reform and wider SSR?

Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan are all engaged in attempts to build security system institutions along the lines envisaged by the DAC SSR guidelines. In each context, security forces are being restructured to reflect the society's geography, economic capacity and security needs. Police services are being tasked to provide public safety, enforce the rule of law, respect the rights of the population and respect the authority of elected civilian officials. In each context, the security forces have absorbed personnel from earlier state or irregular forces through demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration programs. Most have vetting processes and basic training programs for recruits. Reforms have included some attention to gender issues and the specific security needs of women. The UN and Western donors are extensively involved in police and broader SSR efforts in each society. Beyond these commonalities, the legal framework, scope and contents of police reform are distinct in each context.

In Burundi, the studies by Nindorera (2007, 2011) show how significant reforms to the country's security system rested on the Arusha peace accords, subsequent ceasefire agreements, new secondary legislation, institution-specific plans and two national strategies for growth, poverty reduction and peacebuilding. On that basis, the military was restructured and renamed the National Defense Force (FDN). A new Burundi National Police (PNB) was created separate from the military; by 2009, the PNB had 17,000 personnel. A substantial number of FDN and PNB personnel were retained from former state security institutions. Recruits came largely from the ex-combatants in the civil war who were demobilised through DDR processes. Their integration into the new security institutions, based on the quota system agreed in the peace accords, produced forces with a slight majority of Hutu personnel. Though the Arusha Accords contained provisions for vetting security forces personnel to exclude those deeply involved in past coups or grave human rights violations, in practice vetting has been limited.

PNB recruits have received basic training and most officers have received more advanced training through programs delivered by Belgium, France and the Netherlands, as well as by Egypt, the UN and some NGOs. Resource constraints and the staggered integration of recruits from ex-rebel groups led to uneven training across the police. The slow adoption of regulatory texts hindered PNB management from establishing clear disciplinary processes during the first years, though since 2007 internal disciplinary measures have been applied to over 500 PNB personnel involved in serious crimes. The UN and certain Burundian NGOs have provided some support to improve women's participation in the PNB, yet in 2009 women represented only 2.7 per cent of the force. Female officers face difficult conditions such as having to share living quarters with men, and discrimination in acceding to the best-paying positions. There are few provisions to enhance the sensitivity of PNB personnel to the security needs of women and girls.

Some steps have been taken to nurture civilian oversight of security institutions. The judiciary, the two parliamentary commissions on defence and security, and the Independent Human Rights Commission each provide a measure of oversight. Human rights NGOs and the media monitor the performance of security agencies, sometimes denouncing their abuses or corrupt practices. The Centre d'alerte et de prévention des conflits (CENAP) facilitates dialogues between PNB officials and local leaders in communities across Burundi.

In Haiti, the studies by Fortin and Pierre (2008, 2011) explain how SSR unfolded in two main phases: first after the return of President Aristide by US forces in 1994; and second after the removal of President Aristide by US, French and Canadian forces in 2004. During the first phase President Aristide disbanded the Forces armées d'Haïti (FADH) and created the Haitian National Police (PNH). The PNH functioned quite professionally during its first years, yet it was sucked into the vortex of politicisation and violence during Aristide's second mandate. In 2004, reform efforts were revived under the aegis of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). In 2006, the election of President Préval and the adoption of the PNH Reform Plan increased space for reform. Until the earthquake of 2010, the Reform Plan and the 2008 National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction were the normative frames for PNH reform.

At the time of the US-led intervention in February 2004, the PNH had dwindled to a force of about 2,500 officers. Intense recruitment programs were initiated to rebuild and elevate the human resource profile of the PNH, including measures to recruit women. Basic training has been provided by national and foreign officers though the National Police Academy, while more specialised training has generally been offered abroad. By 2009, the PNH had been rebuilt into a force of about 9,500 officers, with the goal of attaining a force size of 14,000 by 2011. The costs of rebuilding infrastructure, re-equipping the police and training recruits has largely been borne by donors such the US, Canada and Latin American forces operating under MINUSTAH.

Given the alleged involvement of police officers and other actors in the penal chain in corruption, politically motivated crimes or human rights violations, MINUSTAH saw a vetting program as crucial to re-establish the integrity of the institution. A PNH-wide vetting process initiated in 2007 has been jointly-managed by MINUSTAH and the PNH General Inspectorate. About 7,500 police officers' files had been reviewed by 2009, yet no cases have been prosecuted to date. In contrast, by 2009 an internal review process had led to sanctions against about 550 officers alleged to have committed infractions or more serious crimes, though it appears that none of these disciplinary measures has led to convictions by the judiciary.

Although the PNH Reform Plan is largely silent on gender issues, several measures to promote gender equality have been initiated. The targeted recruitment of women increased the percentage of female personnel to about 8.5 per cent of the force in 2008. A Principal Commissioner was appointed to co-ordinate women's affairs, though there are still very few other women at senior levels of the PNH. Training for all recruits now includes a gender component and equipment for female officers has improved. Support from the international community has led to pilot programs creating specialised reception centres in certain police stations for survivors of violence against women. Nevertheless, serious challenges remain in terms of discrimination and sexual harassment, which reflect broader inequalities in Haitian society.

Civilian oversight of the force is exercised through various mechanisms. The PNH Superior Council (chaired by the Minister of Justice and Public Security) is mandated to provide regular oversight, but it is not yet capable of playing that role. Two parliamentary committees have a mandate to oversee the security system; however, in practice their political and human resource constraints, including the absence of mechanisms to allow parliamentarians access to government documents, impede their ability to oversee security agencies. The Citizens' Protection Office (OPC) should ensure that complaints against the police are brought to justice, yet since it was established in 2007 it has not demonstrated the capacity to follow up on such complaints. The almost complete blockage of judicial reforms is the broader institutional underpinning of enduring impunity in the country. Haitian civil society organisations, particularly feminist organisations and human rights NGOs, document problems in the security system, provide support to survivors and actively advocate for specific institutional reforms.

In Southern Sudan, the studies by Sebit Lokuji et al. (2009) and Sewonet Abatneh and Monoja Lubang (2011) note that the creation of the Southern Sudan Police Service (SSPS) and broader SSR were based on the Comprehensive Peace Accord and the Southern Sudan Interim Constitution. The CPA devoted about 30 pages to DDR and military reform and only two pages to public security issues (Sedra, 2009). The bulk of Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and donor resources for security have gone to DDR and the transformation of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) into a military force capable of consolidating territorial control in the South and defending against a re-occupation by Khartoum. These strategic priorities and the historic legacies of war and extreme poverty have hampered investment in basic infrastructure such as police stations, transportation and communication equipment, severely limiting the operational effectiveness of the SSPS. Moreover, the size of the SSPS combined with the significant number of senior officers means that a vast majority of the police budget is absorbed by salaries.

In 2008 the SSPS adopted a Strategic Development Plan and in 2009 the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly passed a Police Act. With support from Western donors and UNMIS, the Service has initiated the registration, training and equipping of its estimated 20,000–25,000 personnel, a majority of whom are ex-combatants from the SPLA.6 Due to their integration in the SPLA, women make up a significant minority of SSPS officers, including to the rank of colonel. Internal estimates put the percentage of female SSPS personnel around 25 per cent. More women have been recruited into the force, including at the officer level, though recruitment is strictly merit based and there is no targeted recruitment program for women to address their general lower education and literacy. Also, some police have received limited training in gender sensitivity and human rights. Yet there is no process to vet existing personnel or recruits to ensure they meet basic normative standards. The military background, low education and low literacy of most recruits and the lack of dedicated police training institutions impede progress in this area. The studies also suggest that the irregular disbursement of salaries has made police officers vulnerable to bribery and corruption.

Though the SSPS is formally accountable to the Ministry of the Interior, the Legislative Assembly and the judiciary, in practice there is weak oversight of SSPS activities. Accountability mechanisms are largely ignored by the GoSS, donors and the SSPS itself. As legal structures are established, ‘nascent institutions and their incumbent managers have tended to resist statutes that would delimit their authority' (Sedra, 2009, p. 5). The SSPS remains strategically and often tactically subordinated to the SPLA even on matters of public security. Competition between the two bodies contributes to insecurity, rather than fulfilling each force's protection mandate. The SSPS also faces competition from the Boma Chiefs – the traditional community-level leaders. Despite their legitimacy among the public and their potential contributions to civilian disarmament or broader public security, the Boma Chiefs are largely ignored by the SSPS and by the GoSS leadership.

What effects? Initial outcomes of security reforms

This summary of SSR in Burundi, Haiti and Southern Sudan indicates that police and other security reforms are advancing in each society. New police institutions have been created or revived. New laws or at least police reform plans have been adopted. These norms affirm the civilian policing mandates and democratic vocations of police forces. In Burundi and Haiti, security reforms are embedded in national growth and poverty reduction strategies. In Southern Sudan, the new Police Act is being operationalised and new regulations are being developed. Considerable national and international resources have been mobilised to facilitate the growth, training and equipment of police services. In Burundi and Haiti, internal disciplinary standards have been codified and are being applied. In those contexts, there have also been steps towards gender equality and accountability to executive authorities. In Burundi there has been dramatic progress towards redressing ethnic imbalances in the police and in the defence force.

The public opinion surveys reported in the Burundi and Southern Sudan (Nindorera 2011) case studies suggest that citizens recognise these advances but still have concerns about police conduct. In Burundi, the survey carried out in late 2008 (n = 2,260 respondents) suggested that almost 54 per cent of the population felt that the police did its work well or very well. Over 63 per cent felt that police performance had improved since the previous year. Nonetheless, over 27 per cent of the population was concerned about police corruption, almost 23 per cent about indiscipline and almost 16 per cent about inadequate training. In Southern Sudan, the survey carried out in late 2008 (n = 850) suggested that almost 61 per cent of the population felt that police performance was fair or good – note the lower benchmarks than those used in Burundi (Sewonet and Lubang 2011). Moreover, 25 per cent of respondents felt that police performance was poor – in terms of respect for human rights, the provision of equitable services and the rule of law. A majority of Southern Sudanese respondents viewed customary arrangements (the Boma Chiefs) as being one of the main security providers in their community.

Document research, in-depth interviews with key informants and focus groups provide a more textured picture of the uneven impact of reforms to date. They show that the incipient application of internal disciplinary procedures, in Burundi and Haiti, has not been combined with a service-wide vetting of security personnel guilty of grave human rights violations or other serious crimes in the past, despite provisions for vetting in the peace accords or institutional reform plans. Vetting has even lower political traction in Southern Sudan. Impunity for past crimes endures; this is one factor that explains continued human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence, by police services in all three contexts. Though recruitment has been conducted quite professionally by the police in Haiti and to a lesser extent in Burundi, advanced training (for example, in forensic investigations) remains limited. Meanwhile, in Southern Sudan, recruitment has been driven by the imperative of accommodating demobilised SPLA ex-combatants; basic and advanced training remain woefully inadequate compared to the territory's public security needs, and efforts to develop the SSPS's operational capacity are severely limited by high rates of illiteracy.

Steps to increase the representation of women in police forces have had better results in Haiti (8.5%) than in Burundi (2.7%). The SSPS's estimate that women make up 25 per cent of the force seems optimistic but not incredible, though whether most of these women play significant roles in police service development remains to be seen. Some personnel have received gender sensitivity training, but this too seems to fall far short of responding to women and girls' security needs on the ground.

Steps towards accountability are also important given the historical experience of these states (or quasi-state in Southern Sudan), yet progress has been uneven here too. Formal police accountability to the elected executive and to parliament has advanced most in Burundi, though the use of the police for political-electoral ends remains a concern. Formal oversight by elected authorities and the judiciary seems weaker in Haiti and weaker still in Southern Sudan. Accountability to and engagement with civil society organisations is frail across the board, though Burundi and Haiti have made some progress on this score, while Southern Sudan has only begun to develop a civil society capable of engaging GoSS (or donors) on policy issues.

In sum, while the evidence gathered through these case studies does not suggest that the developmental model of SSR codified in the DAC guidelines is ‘in crisis’ as it seems to be in Afghanistan and Iraq, it confirms that there are also major gaps between the model and its contemporary application in lower-profile fragile states. As Wulf's framework would predict, these gaps are greatest in Southern Sudan, the society that is closest to the war and authoritarian politics end of the spectrum. Policy–practice gaps are narrower in Burundi and Haiti, yet gaps are still large on core principles of developmental SSR like respect for democratic accountability and human rights.

Why? Constructivist explanations

The case studies also offer fascinating insights into the mix of institutional agency, cultural and structural factors, at the national and international levels, that shape police and broader security reforms in these societies. Let us summarise and compare these insights.

Nindorera's studies on security reforms in Burundi (2007, 2011) assign considerable weight to key national actors in shaping security reforms since 2003. They suggest that the pragmatism of certain Tutsi and Hutu political-military leaders, in agreeing to the Arusha Accords, was a central factor in setting the foundations for SSR. The power of Hutu elites represented by the CNDD-FDD and their insistence on the implementation of provisions regarding ethnic balance and the professionalisation of the security institutions has been a driver of SSR since 2003. The commitment of senior police officials to professionalising the PNB has also positively affected police reform. Nindorera also recognises the critical role of key Western donors and of the UN in promoting and supporting democratic approaches to police reform and broader SSR.

Yet some of these same actors are also responsible for the limits of police and broader security reforms. It is Hutu and Tutsi political and security elites, including the leadership of the PNB, who have shelved the vetting of security personnel responsible for grave human rights violations or other past crimes. It is those elites, and particularly the democratically elected CNDD-FDD, who have continued to use the police for political-electoral ends; it is those elites who have not pushed hard for parliamentary and judicial oversight of police operations. The renaissance of civil society, particularly of human rights NGOs and of women's organisations, has not been sufficient to counterbalance elite disinterest in deeper, substantive SSR. Donors also share some responsibility, particularly for their limited assistance of specialised training in crucial areas such as forensic investigations and gender sensitivity.

The Nindorera studies (2007, 2011) also suggest that these actors' strategies are embedded in deeper norms and structures. Two of these seem particularly salient. The first is the enduring weight of patrimonial politics and patriarchy in Burundi, sustained by culture and by the distribution of power across classes and genders. The second is Burundi's precarious economy. Weak macro-economic growth rooted in a low level of diversification and high dependence on ODA, threaten the fiscal and political sustainability of SSR as well as social stability more broadly. As a small, landlocked African country with few dynamic development poles, Burundi is challenged in its ability to generate the revenues required to sustain sophisticated SSR and complement it with the pro-poor economic and social development required to consolidate human security. These structural and cultural factors greatly constrain the movement beyond minimal SSR in Burundi.

In Haiti, the Fortin and Pierre studies (2008, 2011) also emphasise the ambiguous agency of national actors. They note the central role of President Aristide and his followers in disbanding the Forces Armées d‘Haiti and creating the National Police in the mid-1990s, and their role in undermining the professionalisation of the PNH after 2000. They note the role that the senior PNH leadership, as well as key ministers and secretaries of state in the Préval government, have played in putting PNH reform on a more promising footing since 2006. Yet, like the studies of Burundi, they also suggest that these same political leaders and senior police officials have backed away from deeper reforms such as the vetting of personnel responsible for grave human rights violations or other crimes. It is those elites who have been unwilling or unable to implement the judicial reforms and parliamentary oversight required for the rule of law and for democratic consolidation. It is mostly male senior police officials who have given tepid support to gender equality measures. In Haiti, progress on gender equality has been driven by a relatively well-organised women's movement, backed by liberal donors like Canada and the UN.

The Fortin and Pierre studies also note the ambiguous roles of international agencies in these processes. Key foreign powers like the US, various Western donors and the UN also made essential contributions to the creation of the PNH in the 1990s and the revival of PNH and broader SSR since 2004. Donor funding and UN technical support have been crucial to the growth and professionalisation of the PNH, particularly since 2004. Yet, in both historical moments, some donor approaches undermined the principles of democratic, development-oriented SSR. The UN has often tried to drive PNH reform despite its rhetorical commitment to national ownership. Since 2004, Western donors have also invested much more in the hardware of SSR than in software such as judicial reform or parliamentary and societal oversight.

Finally, in the Haitian case some of these actors' strategies also reflect the weight of historic norms and structures. Fortin and Pierre stress two such factors. First, they note the enduring weight of patrimonial politics and to a lesser extent of patriarchy. Changes in gender relations of power over the past generation remind us that structures and cultures are not immutable; yet they also remind us of how difficult it is to change such social constructions. The second factor is a weak and dependent economy. Haiti's position as a small insular Caribbean society with few high-value natural resources or dynamic development poles, highly dependent on remittances and development assistance and vulnerable to natural disasters, profoundly challenges its ability to generate the revenues required to finance SSR and complement it with the pro-poor economic and social development needed to consolidate citizen security. These structural and cultural factors greatly constrain the movement beyond minimal SSR in Haiti, as they do in Burundi.

Sebit Lokuji, et al. (2009) and Sewonet Abatneh and Monoja Lubang (2011) show how human agency, cultural norms and structures converge in an even more constraining fashion in Southern Sudan. The political-military power and vision of the SPLA/M leadership, and the calculated pragmatism of leaders in Khartoum, are central factors explaining the SSR provisions in the Comprehensive Peace Accords. The authors also suggest that senior Southern Sudan Police Service officials have been the agents driving the creation and incipient professionalisation of the SSPS since 2005. Yet the power and priorities of SPLA/M leaders, particularly their strategic priorities of consolidating territorial control in the South while deterring re-occupation from the North, have limited deeper SSPS reforms. Western powers have also played ambiguous roles. While the UN and some donors have lobbied for more democratic approaches to the SSPS and more accountability by security forces in general, strong US and British support for the transformation of the SPLA into a professional military force has converged with SPLA/M strategies to sideline deeper SSPS and democratic reforms, though new American and British investments in policing in Southern Sudan may indicate progress.7

Certain norms and structures reinforce these tendencies. Here, too, we find the salience of patrimonial politics and patriarchy, reinforced by the overriding priority of consolidating SPLA/M hegemony in the South. These cultural constructs are sustained by the state of ‘no war, no peace’ between the North and South, particularly in contested states like Abyei. Given the historic alignment of Khartoum with radical Islam and the alignment of the SPLA/M with Western projects, local conflicts are affected by the global War on Terror even if Sudan is not on the front lines of that epochal conflict. On the social and economic side, extremely low literacy greatly impedes SSPS professionalisation and broader human development. Oil extraction could help Southern Sudan gradually overcome these obstacles. Yet weak governance and tenuous linkages between this sector, the pastoral rural economy and emerging service industries in Juba make it difficult to harness oil revenues for shared development. The alignment of these factors suggests that the prospects for democratic, development-oriented approaches to police and wider SSR are even dimmer in Southern Sudan than they are in Burundi and Haiti.

Conclusions

Two years after the DAC adopted its SSR guidelines, Louise Andersen (2006, p. 9) presciently suggested that their ‘results … will fall somewhat short of the stated objectives’. Our focused comparison of police and broader SSR in three fragile states validates and adds nuances to Andersen's prediction as well as to the theoretical notions introduced at the outset. It confirms Wulf's idea that the prospects for development-oriented SSR, as codified in the DAC guidelines, are greater in societies like Burundi that have gone through negotiated transitions from war and/or authoritarianism to peace and/or more democratic politics than they are in societies like Southern Sudan, where transitions are still deeply constrained by protracted conflicts. Our analysis also confirms our hypothesis that the prospects for SSR and peacebuilding are much better in societies like these and Haiti that are on the margins of the War on Terror, compared to societies like Afghanistan and Iraq that are at the centre of that enduring conflict.

Yet the comparison also validates the hypothesis that, despite the greater policy space for SSR in societies that are no longer at war, several factors converge to limit deeper, substantive reforms in those contexts. For example, a constructivist lens helps us understand how in Burundi the views and power of mostly male political and security elites have impeded the application of reforms like a full vetting of personnel responsible for grave crimes or the inclusion of women as key agents of police reform, and how those tendencies are sustained by patrimonialism and patriarchy as well as by Burundi's marginal political economy. Yet, by helping us see the role that senior police officials have played in championing certain reforms, the support they have received from liberal donors like the Netherlands and the UN, as well as the growing importance of women's organisations in pushing for change from within, social constructivism also illuminates the possibilities for developmental SSR that are emerging in places like Burundi.

In Burundi and elsewhere, a constructivist analysis may help guard against naïve optimism/voluntarism or excessive pessimism/essentialism about the contemporary prospects for SSR. It may be almost impossible to apply the DAC model of SSR in contexts like war-torn Afghanistan, yet that does not mean that it is out of reach in contexts where war does not trump democratic, developmental approaches. A constructivist lens enables us identify the actors that could bring a semblance of the DAC vision to fruition in such contexts, beyond the usual focus on donors and state elites. It opens the door to more fine-grained understandings of the interplay between traditional actors and other agents – from national women's organisations to the media – that could converge to move this agenda forward in more promising contexts. A constructivist analysis also reminds us of the obstacles ahead even in relatively enabling contexts, and how these obstacles are rooted both in cultural constructs as well as in material conditions such as gendered power relations, conflict dynamics and related political economic structures.

Of course, this analysis also has many limitations. Any focused comparison sacrifices historical details. The case studies in this section and the rich literatures to which they refer should compensate for this shortcoming. The ability to generalise conclusions from a small sample of cases is also limited. This article has attempted to compensate for this limit by occasionally comparing police reform in these lower-profile cases with the same phenomenon in the higher-profile cases of Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet the result could be enriched by updated and more careful comparisons to those cases, as well as by enlarging the sample of cases examined through constructivist lenses. Finally, it is worth stressing that there are many possible constructivist perspectives on SSR and numerous other theoretical perspectives that could be brought to bear on these experiences. If this collection inspires (or provokes) others to take up the challenge of moving beyond policy analysis to theorise contemporary SSR processes in a more creative manner, it will have accomplished one of its purposes in a modest way.

Acknowledgements

A draft of this paper was presented at the conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) in Montreal, Canada on 1 June 2010. The authors thank Anil Varughese for his comments on that occasion, as well as three anonymous reviewers for their comments on the revised manuscript. We are grateful to colleagues who discussed the paper at the Research Network on Fragile States meeting at the University of Ottawa on 2 December 2010. Special thanks to Rita Abrahamsen for her thoughtful comments at that meeting. Finally, we appreciate the many suggestions made by the colleagues who anonymously reviewed the three case studies for CJDS and earlier in our research process. The usual caveat about our ultimate responsibility also applies in this instance.

Notes

These partnerships and the research that flowed from them were supported by the International Development Research Centre, as well as the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Research was conducted between 2006 and 2010 during various periods in each case. For details on methods and timing, see the appropriate case study in this volume.

These surveys and local validation exercises are innovative because, as noted by Andersen: ‘Rarely, if ever, have security-related development interventions in fragile or failed states been guided by comprehensive surveys of how the affected people in question perceive their own security situation’ (Andersen, 2006, p. 13). The household surveys carried out by Small Arms Survey in the same three societies are another exception to the tendency flagged by Andersen. As such, they provide complementary insights into public opinions in these contexts (Pézard and de Tessières, 2009, Kolbe, et al., 2010, McEvoy and LeBrun, 2010).

Collinson, Elhawary and Muggah (2010) have published a complementary synthesis of the tensions between stabilisation and humanitarian action agendas in fragile states that are not on the front lines of the War on Terror.

In 2007, the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy project ranked Sudan (including the North and Darfur) as the most fragile state in the world, Burundi as the 4th and Haiti as the 8th. This ranking was based on indicators reflecting central attributes of statehood – namely authority, legitimacy and service delivery capacity – and other indicators of fragility like low GDP per capita (CIFP, 2010).

Estimates vary. Recently, a high-ranking SSPS officer claimed that the police had reached their target of 33,000 active members (interview, May 2010).

Both the US and UK governments are reportedly making significant investments in policing and the rule of law over the next few years (interview, May 2010).