Description
Since the late 1990s, security sector reform has been an important cornerstone of peacebuilding and statebuilding efforts worldwide. The design and implementation in particular of so called first-generation SSR were characterised by state-centred and Western-dominated concept with inflexible, set templates. In the last decade, concepts and implementation of SSR have further developed: critiques of state-centred models have prompted a change in thinking amongst policy makers. The normative critique in the SSR literature can be linked to a wider debate on challenges in statebuilding and peacebuilding that calls for a better inclusion and recognition of the agency and security needs of local populations in post-war peacebuilding endeavours. But how is this received at an international level? How are norms and practices around SSR from the Global South adapted or adopted at an international level? This paper explores these questions by analysing debates on SSR norms and practices at different UN forums. It traces these debates according to power dynamics and power structures, and assesses the role of actors of change within the international system.
