Post War Security Transitions

This book explores the conditions under which non-state armed groups (NSAGs) participate in post-war security and political governance. The text offers a comprehensive approach to post-war security transition processes based on five years of participatory research with local experts and representatives of former non-state armed groups. It analyses the successes and limits of peace negotiations, demobilisation, arms management, political or security sector integration, socio-economic reintegration and state reform from the direct point of view of conflict stakeholders who have been central participants in ongoing and past peacebuilding processes. Challenging common perceptions of ex-combatants as "spoilers" or "passive recipients of aid", the various contributors examine the post-war transitions of these individuals from state challengers to peacebuilding agents. The book concludes on a cross-country comparative analysis of the main research findings and the ways in which they may facilitate a participatory, inclusive and gender-sensitive peacebuilding strategy. Post-War Security Transitions will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, security governance, war and conflict studies, political violence and IR in general.

Participatory Peacebuilding after Asymmetric Conflicts.

This monograph addresses the challenging topic of transition in post-conflict stability operations and is intended for a wide audience that includes military and civilian policymakers, international development experts, and scholars in academe. It is a primer, systematic review, and comprehensive assessment of the fields of research and practice. It presents and appraises the major lenses (process, authority transfer, phasing, and end state), categories (war-to-peace, power, societal, political-democratic, security, and economic), approaches, and tools under which post-conflict transitions are conceived. It lays the groundwork for both future research and greater collaboration among diverse international and local actors who operate in post-conflict environments, to develop a comprehensive definition of transition and adequate tools to address all facets of the concept. It provides recommendations for future research and improved transition policy, which include: cross-institutional (political, security, economic) and multi-level (local, regional, national) studies that explore the interdependencies between simultaneous transitions ; underlying assumptions of current transition tools and indicators ; relationships between transition and institutional resilience ; and, thresholds and tipping points between transition phases.

This book asks how, and under what conditions, external-domestic interactions impact on peacebuilding outcomes during transitions to peace and democracy. Why do so many peacebuilding interventions in post-war states result in stalled transitions despite heavy international support? This book suggests a new interaction-based explanation for this puzzle and proposes an ‘analytical framework of peacebuilding interactions’. Based on eight cases of peacebuilding interactions, it demonstrates that the limited rationality of the actors involved in external-domestic interactions influenced the post-war transition results in Kosovo. Drawing on interviews and focus groups, the insights build on the process tracing of peacebuilding reforms in the area of Local Governance and Police Reform, with a specific focus at the local level. Through an in-depth analysis of peacebuilding negotiations, this book shows how peacebuilders’ use of ad hoc interaction tactics – intended as heuristics to simplify decision-making in overly complex post-war environments – have the unintended effect of offering domestic actors additional leeway to prioritise their domestic agenda, often at the expense of achieving full democratisation. The resulting consequences of these actions mean that, even in highly resourced interventions, such as those implemented in Kosovo, stalled transitions become one of the most likely outcome of the peacebuilding process. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, war and conflict studies, European politics, security studies and IR in general.

What are the main drivers of political transition and regime change? And to what extent do these apparently seismic political changes result in real change? These questions are the focus of this comparative study written by a mix of scholars and practitioners. This state-of-the-art volume identifies patterns in political transitions, but is largely unconvinced that these transitions bring about real change to the underlying structures of society. Patriarchy, land tenure, and economic systems often remain immune to change, despite the headlines.

The scope of Security and International Affairs research has expanded tremendously since the end of the Cold War to include topics beyond the realm of war studies or military statecraft. The field—once devoted solely to the study of conventional military and nuclear security issues—has diversified to include foci often considered nontraditional, including peace and conflict, political, economic, environmental, and human security. In this exciting new volume, McGann has undertaken a quantitative and qualitative study of SIA think tanks, looking at global and regional trends in their research. He argues that the end of the Cold War marked a fundamental shift within the field of defense and security studies among think tanks and academics. Tracking the evolution of security as understood by researchers and policymakers is vital as the world follows the path of the Four Mores: more issues, more actors, more competition, and more conflict. As we move forward into a world of rapid change and ubiquitous uncertainty, think tanks will only become more prominent and influential. The volume concludes with an assessment of the future of Security and International Affairs studies and raises the possibility of a return to a traditional security focus driven by recent events in Europe and the Middle East. This will be an important resource for students and scholars of security studies, global governance, and think tanks.

While disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and security sector reform (SSR) have become integral statebuilding tools in post-conflict states, the existing empirical literature examining their relationship has focused on supply-side considerations related to the programming of both processes. In practice, though, DDR and SSR are implemented in the wider context of war-to-peace transitions where the state is attempting to establish a monopoly over the use of force and legitimize itself in the eyes of domestic and international communities. This paper therefore assumes that to identify opportunities and constraints for establishing closer practical linkages between DDR and SSR it is important to take the local politics into consideration. It examines two past externally driven peacebuilding interventions in West Africa, namely Liberia and Sierra Leone, featuring cases in which the central state had essentially fragmented or collapsed. Through this comparative analysis, the paper aims to provide a stepping-stone for future studies examining demand-side considerations of DDR and SSR in post-conflict contexts.