Security Sector Reform (SSR) is a central element in re-configuring state-society relations after conflict or authoritarian rule. While SSR as a peacebuilding and democratization instrument has started to include notions of human security beyond hard security, its core goal – creating a trustworthy, accountable security sector – remains grounded in liberal ideals of transparency.
In their working paper, Adrian Barchet and Sophia Birchinger examine how transparency is achieved and what remains hidden, using the Gambian SSR process after 2016 as a case study.
The working paper argues that the pursuit of transparency leads to two misunderstandings. On the one hand, the two researchers observe an increase in documents, actors involved, and activities that construct a “as if” vision of reform and stifle social debate about desirable goals. On the other hand, they point out that this “as if” imaginary frames reform as a linear, technical process, thereby de-politicizing the reform process and leaving its implementation to experts.
The paper concludes that the transparency described functions as lip service to an idealized future of security shaped by external security concepts. As a result, the SSR process appears hidden and unchallengeable to the general public.
About the co-author:
Adrian Barchet is a social scientist with an interdisciplinary background in African Studies and Governance and Public Policy research. His academic interests include critical development and growth studies, political economy, anthropological infrastructure research, and peace and conflict studies, with a theoretical emphasis on theories of the South. He is currently preparing a PhD project at Leipzig University focusing on an ethnographic study of hydropower infrastructures in Ethiopia.
The working paper is available for download (PDF, accessible).