Adapting Security Sector Reform to Ground-Level Realities: The Transition to a Second-Generation Model

The security sector reform (SSR) model has entered a period of uncertainty and change. Despite being mainstreamed in international development and security policy, SSR has had a meagre record of achievement. SSR analysts, practitioners and policymakers are increasingly speaking of the need to move to a second-generation SSR model. There is a growing belief that SSR in its current form is too utopian, technocratic, state-centric, and donor-driven to succeed. While there is no universally accepted blueprint for second-generation SSR, a number of characteristics have emerged that have begun to define the contours of this alternative vision: less overtly liberal; willing to engage non-state actors, norms and structures; more modest in is objectives and time frames; attuned to the political nature of the process; and bottom-up in its orientation.