{"title":"The Promise and Pitfalls of Security Sector Interventions: Examining the Medium-Term Impact of Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone","authors":"E. Roberts","doi":"10.1080/21520844.2020.1843303","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Development practitioners and scholars have touted security sector reform (SSR) in Sierra Leone as a model for intervention. Twenty years after such reforms began, the West African country presents one with the opportunity to study the medium-term impact of SSR. This article argues that specialists should consider this SSR along five dimensions: security institution building, military reform and integration, internal security reform, professionalization, and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. This study further explores the impact these factors have had on security performance and legitimacy in the two decades since their implementation. Finally, this work concludes with an analysis of the current state of the security sector as well as a consideration of the lessons to be learned from the Sierra Leonean experience.","PeriodicalId":37893,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Middle East and Africa","volume":"11 1","pages":"393 - 412"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2020-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/21520844.2020.1843303","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the Middle East and Africa","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2020.1843303","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Development practitioners and scholars have touted security sector reform (SSR) in Sierra Leone as a model for intervention. Twenty years after such reforms began, the West African country presents one with the opportunity to study the medium-term impact of SSR. This article argues that specialists should consider this SSR along five dimensions: security institution building, military reform and integration, internal security reform, professionalization, and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. This study further explores the impact these factors have had on security performance and legitimacy in the two decades since their implementation. Finally, this work concludes with an analysis of the current state of the security sector as well as a consideration of the lessons to be learned from the Sierra Leonean experience.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, the flagship publication of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), is the first peer-reviewed academic journal to include both the entire continent of Africa and the Middle East within its purview—exploring the historic social, economic, and political links between these two regions, as well as the modern challenges they face. Interdisciplinary in its nature, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa approaches the regions from the perspectives of Middle Eastern and African studies as well as anthropology, economics, history, international law, political science, religion, security studies, women''s studies, and other disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. It seeks to promote new research to understand better the past and chart more clearly the future of scholarship on the regions. The histories, cultures, and peoples of the Middle East and Africa long have shared important commonalities. The traces of these linkages in current events as well as contemporary scholarly and popular discourse reminds us of how these two geopolitical spaces historically have been—and remain—very much connected to each other and central to world history. Now more than ever, there is an acute need for quality scholarship and a deeper understanding of the Middle East and Africa, both historically and as contemporary realities. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa seeks to provide such understanding and stimulate further intellectual debate about them for the betterment of all.