3951. Security Sector Reform: A Case Study Approach to Transition and Capacity Building
- Author:
- Sarah Meharg and Aleisha Arnusch
- Publication Date:
- 01-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
- Abstract:
- Failing and failed states are not able to provide equitable safety, security, and justice to their people through the traditional state mechanisms of police, judiciary, courts, and penitentiaries. In such situations, state mechanisms are ineffective, predatory, or absent. Security sector reform, commonly referred to as SSR, emerged as an activity in the 1990s in recognition of the changing international security environment and the limitations of reform approaches among interveners working in failing and failed states. SSR is a relatively new discipline in the context of peace and stability operations, whether these operations are United Nations (UN)-led or otherwise managed and supported. The coherence of strategies is improving, but the 1990s and 2000s have been witness to unsustainable and inconsistent security sector reforms in places like Kosovo, Liberia, and Haiti, among others. As time passes, the meta-narratives of legitimacy, accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness influence SSR activities within the international community of states involved with such reforms.
- Topic:
- Security, International Security, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Kosovo, United Nations, and Liberia