Global Approach to CAS Series I: Postwar Security Sector Reform: Research Strategy and Case Selection

This course presents a research strategy for the selection of comparative cases from different regions in the field of postwar security sector reform (SSR). Key elements are the demilitarization, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, reforms in the structure, mandate, accountability, and oversight of the armed forces and the police, as well as in some cases reforms in the justice sector (transitional justice, judiciary). SSR forms part of the standard procedures of international peace-building strategies as formulated in the OECD Handbook on Security Sector Reform. However, on the ground these reforms are not only shaped and influenced by external support but also by the interaction with local conditions such as existing power relations and prior institutional designs.  This course introduces to the research strategy we developed starting with three inductive case studies from three regions of the world (El Salvador, Uganda, Nepal) and a quantitative data collection on judiciary reforms for a broader set of postwar countries. The course will introduce into and discuss the challenges of case study selection and data collection. 

About the lecturer  

Dr Sabine Kurtenbach is Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Latin American Studies.