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Security sector reform

Security sector reform in the Arab region: challenges to developing an indigenous agenda

Meaningful security sector reform in the Arab world should address the political context



Authors: Y. Sayigh
Publisher: The Arab Reform Initiative, 2007

Full text of document

Argues that Western practitioners developing and promoting security sector reform (SSR) in the Arab world tend to emphasise its ‘technical aspects’, in the hope that de-politicisation will make it more acceptable to both Western donor governments and Arab recipient countries. However, the authors argue, the security sector is closely bound to ruling elites and power structures, so meaningful reform will inevitably be political and potentially threatening to the established domestic order. They therefore ask if reform can be achieved without radical change and upheaval?

Key reform aims would include:

  • achieve the disengagement of security agencies from politics and from other non-security roles (especially economic) 
  • redefine and differentiate the roles of various security branches (especially separating military or external defence from internal security, and setting clear substantive and procedural rules for the deployment of armed forces for internal security in extraordinary circumstances)
  • reinforce the civilian policy-making role, re-professionalise the security services (in terms of skills, systems and ethos) 
  • restructure the security sector in post-conflict cases (Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and arguably Yemen) 
  • strengthen regional frameworks for cooperation 
  • manage relations with external providers of security-related assistance

Achieving these aims requires: 

  • strengthening of civilian oversight institutions 
  • institutionalisation of mechanisms to develop security policy and identify security needs 
  • training civil servants in control and accounting systems for budgets and expenditure planning 
  • enhancing the capacity of civil society to monitor and assess reforms

How these aims are achieved, and in what order, will obviously vary from one Arab country to another, depending on the historical legacy, cultural value systems and the political context.