Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction

The optimism of the early post-Cold War period spurred on a renewed international commitment to UN-sponsored peace operations and reconstruction efforts -- including security-promoting interventions such as disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), and security-sector reform (SSR). This book provides a critical 'state of the art' examination of the changing discourse and practice of DDR and SSR. These interventions became widely regarded as mainstays of the development and security landscapes. But by the early twenty-first century, difficult questions were being asked about the outcomes of DDR, and there was widespread disagreement over its objectives, modus operandi, and definitions of success and failure. Despite the vast sums of overseas development assistance invested in disarming and demobilizing soldiers and reforming security sectors, there is comparatively little evidence that these activities are effective.This book aims to fill this evidentiary gap and issues a challenge to 'conventional' approaches to security promotion as currently conceived by military and peace-keeping forces, and features new statistical and qualitative evidence from DDR and SSR undertaken in 'fragile state' contexts, such as Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan. By challenging orthodox approaches to DDR, with their emphasis on linear programming and rational choice approaches, this volume charts out a more comprehensive agenda for taking DDR forward. It will expand the range of benchmarks typically associated with DDR and introduce a new evidence base to measure these outcomes. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, conflict resolution, conflict and development and security studies in general.