NATO Integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina: The pursuit o F local ownership in externally-led state building

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (71) ◽  
pp. 71-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sead Turčalo ◽  
Damir Kapidžić
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
State Building ◽  
Security Sector Reform ◽  
Local Ownership ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Technical Issues

Abstract The NATO integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is closely tied to a strong surge in externally led state building following the conflict of the 1990s Informed by the ideals of liberal peace, one of the key components of state building was security sector reform and a restructuring of the armed forces. A shifting approach by the international community, varying between imposing decisions and insisting on local ownership, managed to establish the joint BiH Armed Forces, but allowed for the appropriation of the NATO integration process by local ethnic party elites. As a result, NATO integration in BiH regressed into an exercise in institutional reform, pursued in disarray and primarily addressing technical issues. Even if successfully brought to fruition, NATO integration will have failed to achieve the objectives of fostering substantive peace in BiH.

Criminalizing Resistance: The Cases of Balata and Jenin Refugee Camps

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alaa Tartir
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
State Building ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Palestinian Authority ◽  
Security Sector Reform ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Building Project

The Palestinian Authority (PA) adopted donor-driven security sector reform (SSR) as the linchpin to its post-2007 state-building project. As SSR proceeded, the occupied West Bank became a securitized space and the theater for PA security campaigns whose ostensible purpose was to establish law and order. This article tackles the consequences of the PA's security campaigns in Balata and Jenin refugee camps from the people's perspective through a bottom-up ethnographic methodological approach. These voices from below problematize and examine the security campaigns, illustrating how and why resistance against Israel has been criminalized. The article concludes by arguing that conducting security reform to ensure stability within the context of colonial occupation and without addressing the imbalances of power can only ever have two outcomes: “better” collaboration with the occupying power and a violation of Palestinians' security and national rights by their own security forces.

Security sector reform, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of militias: the challenges for state building in Libya

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Mohammad Sawani
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
State Building ◽  
Security Sector Reform ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Institutional Control ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
National Reconciliation

Even though the rebels, later turned ‘revolutionaries’, actually had an insignificant role as combatants in the violent downfall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, they became involved in acts of war in many parts of the country in what came to resemble a civil war. Their militias flourished thanks to the lucrative financial handouts that governments paid to them. To complicate matters, additional militias sprang up in the absence of any sort of viable state/institutional control on the part of the nascent ‘state’ or an inability to restrict and monopolize the use of force. Therefore, disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and security sector reform have not been possible, and the Libyan case demonstrates the failure to emulate international best practices, thus hindering any state-building. This paper seeks to analyse the Libyan case and provide an approach and framework for dealing with the genuine causes of the current situation in order help put the appropriate disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and security sector reform (SSR) policy in place, while simultaneously not ignoring other major, contributing factors. This study suggests that the case of Libya is unique and likely to prove challenging to both established and evolving theoretical approaches to both DDR and SSR. Experiments in the country that have ignored the holistic security sector reform will be examined and its programmes analysed to ascertain whether these have produced any effective state-run structures and mechanisms, norms and procedures, or whether they have only served to reinforce the de facto roles of militias. The article argues that unless the state-building approach is revitalized and national reconciliation made a top priority, Libya’s current debacle and instability is most likely to continue.

scholarly journals Inclusion or Exclusion? Local Ownership and Security Sector Reform

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Donais
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Security Sector Reform ◽  
Local Ownership ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Ownership Strategy ◽  
State Actors

This paper explores the dynamics of security sector reform (SSR), a term used to refer to efforts made to reform the security structures of states emerging from conflict or authoritarianism. While "local ownership" is increasingly viewed as a necessary element of any sustainable SSR strategy, there remains a significant gap between international policy and practice in this area. In practice, the SSR agenda continues to be driven largely by international actors, with minimal input, let alone ownership, on the part of either governments or civil society within reforming states. Indeed, the notion of local ownership has come to serve as much as a disciplining mechanism as a tool to overcome exclusion in the making and execution of security policy, and the effectiveness and sustainability of SSR programming have suffered as a result. In light of this, the paper will explore both the potential for, and the limits of, rehabilitating the notion of local ownership to enable more participatory forms of SSR, and argues that any practical local ownership strategy requires a dual policy of negotiating with state actors and engaging with non-state actors.

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