Selman Almohamad

Bringing Regional Politics to the Study of Security Sector Reform: Army Reform in Sierra Leone and Iraq

GIGA Working Papers | 2019


  • Research Programmes

    Series

    GIGA Working Papers

    Series Number

    319

    Number of Pages

    36

    Publisher

    German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

    Location

    Hamburg

    Abstract

    This paper argues that the scholarship on security sector reform (SSR) tends to neglect regional politics in the formulation of its concepts and policies, and that this neglect deprives the study of SSR of a valuable analytical level. It therefore uses comparative historical analysis and the model of regional conflict formations (RCFs) to examine army reforms in Sierra Leone and Iraq from a regional angle, thereby illustrating the explanatory potential that regional politics could bring to the study of SSR and its implementation. The paper also distinguishes between convergent and divergent regional formations, whereby the relationship between SSR outcomes and regional politics is conceived of as constitutive, entangled, and holistic.

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