Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone

The academic objective of the project is to study how authority is renegotiated when state institutions as providers of security and justice are reasserted in competition with non-state actors in rural Sierra Leone. Specifically, the project will focus on and develop theoretical and policy debates regarding Security Sector Reform (SSR) implementation in the context of competing statutory and non-state authorities. Emphasis will be on SSR as one way of establishing a system of governmentality and the relevance of distinguishing clearly between the public and the private in a context where state institution have always governed or provided security ‘by consensus’. The policy objective is to analyze what implementation of SSR at the local level looks like, and to be able to say something about what the implications of investing extensively at the national level are at the local level and to the ultimate beneficiaries, the population.

The project will study: 1. how SSR is constructed as a set of concepts and programmes internationally; 2. how this concept has evolved over time in the process of implementation by the Government and donor agencies in Sierra Leone; 3. how customary institutions and other non-state actors engage in this process; and 4. how security and justice providers are used by the local population.

From 1991-2002 Sierra Leone experienced devastating conflict, in which the country’s security forces and judicial system effectively collapsed. In the general absence of state institutions, chiefs and other non-state actors constituted the most readily recognizable, albeit contested form of local authority and were the de facto security and justice providers in rural Sierra Leone. Following the 1999 Lomé Peace Accords, a comprehensive UN peacekeeping mission was deployed, and the UK Government began their first comprehensive SSR programme, effectively in the midst of conflict.

In-depth analyses of the local level implications of rolling out SSR programmes as an approach to building peace and good governance are lacking. The project will contribute to fill this gap by exploring SSR implementation in Sierra Leone’s Kono District where customary institutions and other non-state actors have filled the vacuum left by the absence of state institutions.

The PhD project is funded by FFU and will run from 2008 until 2011.

DIIS researchers involved: Peter Albrecht.

Networks or partners involved: Copenhagen Business School.

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