Security sector reform and the challenge of vertical integration

ABSTRACT

The poor performance of conventional security sector reform (SSR) programming, especially in fragile and conflict-affected states, has led to growing calls for the development of a new generation of reform strategies capable of transcending the state-centrism of earlier approaches and delivering sustainable security dividends to insecure populations. This paper reflects on the challenges of second-generation SSR, with a particular emphasis on the imperatives of reconciling different understandings of ownership, of rendering SSR processes more inclusive, and of acknowledging the realities of non-state security provision. The paper suggests that at its core, SSR is about strengthening state-society relations, and that second-generation SSR will ultimately be judged on how effectively it comes to terms with the argument that genuine and sustainable change can only emerge through an endogenous process of relationship transformation, in which insiders, not outsiders, are the primary agents of change.

KEYWORDS:

• security sector reform
• local ownership
• vertical integration
• second-generation SSR
• state-building

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Timothy Donais is an associate professor in the Department of Global Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Canada). His research focuses on peacebuilding, security sector governance, and peace operations.

Notes

1 This point was brought home forcefully to me at a 2012 meeting with community organizers in the Haitian slum of Cité Soleil; in response to a query about whether they could imagine the police being seen by the public – or seeing themselves – as public servants, the entire room erupted in laughter.

2 Portions of this section are drawn from Donais (2015).

3 For more on the New Deal, see the website of the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (http://www.pbsbdialogue.org/en/).

4 For a broader sense of this dialectic, see Burt (2011).

5 As noted by Lawrence (2012, 16), it is also the case that the line between state and non-state actors is often blurred, as some actors – former Afghan warlord-turned-governor Mohammed Atta Noor being one example – occupy official positions while presiding over extensive non-state networks.

6 This paragraph draws from comments made by R. Ricigliano at a workshop entitled Towards Vertically-Integrated Peacebuilding: Bridging Top-down and Bottom-up Approaches at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada, 17 October 2013. For the full workshop report, see Donais (2013).