Policing, Security Sector Reform and the Rule of Law: More State, More Security?

Policing in peace operations occupies an interesting position at the intersection of Rule of Law (RoL) and Security Sector Reform (SSR). On the one hand, policing is seen as a part of continuum that includes courts and prisons. On the other, it is associated with broader efforts to reform the state’s coercive arm, including the military, away from practices associated with authoritarianism and repression. While RoL and SSR efforts share concerns about effectiveness and accountability, and are supposed to operate in tune, their emphases and ways of approaching peacebuilding and statebuilding are not exactly the same. The RoL and SSR angles provide for contrasting ways of conceptualizing the main challenges of transforming policing in the wake of conflict. Should the driving concern be the state’s monopoly on the use of force, democratic control of the state’s coercive arm, or everyday security? To what extent do these objectives align? Policing thus provides an interesting viewpoint from which to examine the tensions and contradictions that traverse the contemporary project of keeping and building peace, which is illustrated by the three books examined here. These books differ in scope, authorship and audience. Ansorg and Gordon’s edited volume, Co-operation, Contestation and Complexity in Peacebuilding: