FRECUENCIA DE LAS OBSERVACIONES

As discussed above, the literature on the relation between the security sector actors and political developments both note the need to scrutinise and better understand the indigenous actors and their impacts on the wider socio-political process, i.e., state formation and peacebuilding. The study on the security sector actors and its relationship with the state formation has not fully developed an analytical framework to study the security sector actors. On the other hand, the aid community has developed a political economy analysis to examine external

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intervention efforts. This research applies the political economy analysis to the study on security sector change and security sector actors involved in the change process. This way, the research provides a closer look at the local security sector actors and their political roles in the overall socio-political process.

The examination of the relation between the security sector and political developments in Georgia in the following chapters takes the following analytical approaches. First, the research applies a wider scope of security sector actors. In the analysis of the security sector actors, the research employs examines not only the military as in the case of the civil-military relations studies, but also policing institutions and irregular armed forces, especially, paramilitaries, in addition to corresponding civilian oversights bodies. Second, for understanding local actor and their dynamics, the research locates the security sector change process in a wider political development process as in the studies on the security sector in authoritarian societies. In doing so, the focus is placed on political economic dynamics of the security sector actors and relevant actors involved in security sector change. This way, the research in this thesis examines security sector change as part of a wider political development process, such as transition from authoritarianism to democracy and from war to peace, rather than as a separate set of peacebuilding and/or SSR policies. In other words, the focus of the research is placed on the relation between the domestic political developments and the security sector actors, rather than the reform itself.

Based on these analytical approaches, this research conducts political economy analysis of security sector change in Georgia. Political economy analysis has been used in social science research. More recently, an increasing number of development assistance agencies have examined effectiveness of their interventions. Methods of political economy analysis have been developed, tailored and applied by a number of researchers and practitioners engaged in the development assistance field and beyond (Adam and Dercon, 2009; Rocha Menocal, 2014; Williams et al., 2007). While those materials provide varying perspectives in details and no conceptual framework exists, the OECD-DAC, cited in DFID’s Political economy analysis: how to note, provides a definition that shows a main feature of political economy analysis:

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“Political economy analysis is concerned with the interaction of political and economic processes in a society: the distribution of power and wealth between different groups and individuals, and the processes that create, sustain and transform these relations over time” (DFID, 2009, p. 4).

Being highly pragmatic, the method aims at understanding political and economic processes in society such as “the incentives, relationships, distribution and contestation of power between different groups and individuals” that impact on development outcomes (Mcloughlin, 2014, p. 2). Political economy analysis has an advantage in analysing local actors, as it focuses not only on formal but also informal institutions and cultural and social practices. This way, political economy analysis can delve into local dynamics and explain “why formal institutions do not work as intended” (Mcloughlin, 2014, p. 2), so that it cautions “against relying on technical fixes, and assuming that formal institutions can be made to work through the transfer of ‘international best practice’” (Williams et al., 2007). Political economy analysis allows the in-depth understanding of the political context in which the international donors provide assistance (Williams et al., 2007).

The method has not been systematically applied in the studies of the relation between security sector actors and political developments yet, but this research employs political economy analysis methods because of the usefulness in analysing and understanding local dynamics in the SSR context. The analytical framework in this research is largely based on the models used in other practical and academic research, but specifically developed and tailored for this research. This research adopts a framework of political economy analysis developed in the development assistance field, in particular, by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) (Harris, 2013).

The subsequent chapters examine the local dynamics of security sector change in Georgia (chapters 3, 4 and 6). In these chapters, political economy analyses the following elements: a) structural features in which security sector change took place; b) key institutions and individuals, their incentives and motivations for certain (or no) changes in the security sector and decision logics during the agenda-setting process; and c) dynamics between key institutions and individuals.

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In structural diagnosis, key structural features of the socio-political context in which the security sector change process takes place are closely examined from various dimensions. In particular, features relevant to the security sector change process including political dimension, socio-economic dimension, institutional dimension (i.e., the legislature, the executive, the judiciary, and security forces including non- and quasi-state armed forces) are key units of analysis in structural diagnosis. In agency (actor) diagnosis, key security sector actors and prominent individuals including the Presidents, paramilitary leaders, security sector institutions, civil societies and external actors are examined. Their incentives for and/or reasons for resistance against security sector change efforts are analysed so that their logic of decision making in the security sector change process can be distilled. Finally, dynamics between key actors, both institutions and individuals, are analysed and the types of relationships and power balance between those actors are identified.

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Chapter 3 Security sector change in the transition from the Soviet to