Leiden University Student Repository

Aacken, P.P.C.P. van (2014)

Hybrid Security Governance in Post-Conflict States: Explaining the dangers of state security-orientated SSR in areas of limited statehood

Master thesis | Political Science (MSc)

External support to security sector reform (SSR) has emerged as a crucial instrument in international peacebuilding and state-building operations and is widely considered as the sine qua non of contemporary post-conflict reconstruction efforts in post-conflict or fragile states. Although SSR is considered as a core instrument of state-building and as a precondition for achieving peace and development, its record of achievement is quite limited. This thesis seeks to explain how the conventional SSR focus on state security undermines post-conflict transition and fails to enable an environment for sustainable peace and development. Based on the transition processes in Afghanistan and Timor Leste, this thesis argues that a state-centric approach to SSR is likely to be less effective in hybrid states and can even destabilise state recovery by protecting state institutions that are not embedded within society.

SSR

Civil war

Fragile states

Hybrid Security Governance

Armed non-state actors

Hybrid States

Author

Aacken, P.P.C.P. van

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Political Science

Supervisors

Chalmers, A.W.
Duijvesteijn, I.G.B.M.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en