Justificación del trabajo de investigación

While security sector reform literature recognises the various contexts upon which SSR occur, security sector reform in transitional and post-conflict settings seem to be more dominant. This, in our view, is informed by the trajectory of SSR discourse evolving to a large extent from donor assistance to countries emerging from conflict. Subsequently, there has been a huge corpus of literature on SSR in post-conflict settings.²⁷

The complexities of post-conflict settings reflect on the various terminologies for the activities relating to the reconfiguration of the security architecture popularly known as SSR. Hänggi (2004) refers to security sector reform in post-conflict settings as security sector reconstruction. ‘Reconstruction’ of the security sector here pertains to the necessity of rebuilding domestic public security institutions, and particularly to re-establish a legitimate monopoly of violence. The term reconstruction is necessary where security forces are dysfunctional, either because they were de facto dissolved, too small, or suffered from a loss of credibility (Brzoska and Heinemann-Grüder, 2004).

Cooper and Pugh (2002) on the other hand prefer to use the term transformation, to reflect the view that there is a substantial deficit in current security-sector governance in post-conflict societies that necessitates going beyond reformism. Concerned more with few success stories in SSR in Africa, pieces in Bryden and Olonisakin (2010) edited volume elaborate on transformation and emphasise reconceptualization of security sector engagement and approach to implementation (Zyck, 2011). Sedra (2010) takes a futuristic approach outlining preferences for future reform priorities, with more focus on people-centred approaches, which is also considered as a priority by Luckham and Kirk (2013).

27 See the extensive bibliography covering various aspects of SSR in post-conflict settings at: http://www.gsdrc.org/go/topic-guides/security-sector-reform/introduction-to-security-sector-reform

Though diverse, language use in security sector engagement in the cited studies seem to find convergence with OECD DAC (2007). None of the studies fundamentally challenges the principles and approaches outlined in in OECD-DAC Handbook on Security System Reform (Zyck, 2011).

The post-conflict situation is often complex for security sector reform. It is characterised by weak local governance, completely dysfunctional police institutions, widespread corruption, impunity and lack of oversight mechanisms (Loh, 2010). The security sector in such situations is often characterised by politicisation, ethnicisation, and corruption of the security services, excessive military spending, lack of professionalism, poor oversight and inefficient allocation of resources (Brzoska and Heinemann-Grüder, 2004). This nature and character of post-conflict settings present both challenges and opportunities for reforming the security sector of the countries involved. Transitional and post-conflict settings are therefore a major focus in this thesis owing to opportunities and challenges that the settings present in reforming the security sectors, notably the police and justice sectors.

While acknowledging the difficulty in attempting to generalise on the nature and the required steps of security sector reform, Wulf (2004) argues that the context in which the security sector is to be reformed is vital, particularly in post-conflict situations where there can be strong incentives to reform on the part of various relevant partners, as opposed to situations of war and violent conflicts that lack broad-based will for reform. Call and Stanley (2001) share the same sentiments noting that post-conflict situations offer a chance to break the tenacity of police institutions to change by reducing institutional inertia and creating space for domestic and international actors to place major reforms on the agenda. Van de Goor and Van Veen (2010) on the other hand argue that regular developing countries stand a better chance of SSR as their political systems offer opportunity for political dialogue on security sector

challenges than do post-conflict countries.²⁸ Kibaki’s first term in office in this context offered the best chance to stimulate police reform in Kenya.

Reflecting on the diametrically opposed arguments between Wulf (2004) and Van de Goor and Van Veen (2010), it is worth noting that Wulf’s scale of potential for security sector reform²⁹ suggests that SSR in different contexts can be measured on a scale, which indeed is to oversimplify the contexts for SSR. Additionally, while there is a possibility for real dialogue on security sector reform challenges in regular developing countries (Van de Goor and Van Veen, 2010), experience indicates that some ‘regular’

’countries are reluctant to reform their security systems.

The difference in perspectives on opportunities for SSR maintained by Call and Stanley (2001) and (Wulf, 2004) on the one hand, and Van de Goor and Van Veen (2010) on the other is indicative of the process transformation in the field of SSR. The former reflect early generation SSR literature involving lots of generalisations, while the latter reflects a furtherance of the debate by questioning these generalisations.

Though not typically post-conflict, our location of Kenya’s police reform within transitional and post-conflict contexts is inspired by two reasons.

First, there are similarities in terms of benign factors that stimulate reforms, whether in transitional or post-conflict contexts. These include factors such as societal crisis, conflict or even willingness of the political leadership and acceptance of reform amongst the public may stimulate reform.³⁰ These factors influence Kenya’s police reform process in varying proportions. Secondly, the ubiquitous literature on post-conflict security sector reform provides a rich secondary source of data that directly links to Kenya. To ignore these sources would do injustice to the analysis of police reform process in Kenya. A detailed discussion of security sector

28 In their arguments, regular developing countries are those that have not experienced conflicts that threaten their existence. These are countries that focus more on development priorities, for example Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya before the outbreak of postelection violence, with little focus on the problems related to the security sector.

29 See Wulf (2004, p.6).

30 See for instance, Van de Goor & Van Veen (2010).

reform in transitional and post-conflict countries is presented in Section 2.5 of this chapter.