1.1 Empirical Context and Argument
Over of the last 15 years, scholars and donors working on Security Sector Reform (SSR) have extensively analysed the policy interventions designed and implemented by the United Kingdom (UK) during and after the Sierra Leone civil conflict (Albrecht 2009, 2010; Albrecht and Jackson 2009, 2014; Albrecht and Malan 2006; Baker 2006; Ball 1998; Denney 2011; Department for International Development (DFID ) 1998, 2000a; Ebo 2006; Ero 2000; Fitz-Gerald 2004; Gbla 2007; Horn et al. 2006; Jackson and Albrecht 2010, 2011; Kondeh 2008; Malan et al. 2003; Short 1999). British-led SSR policy in Sierra Leone consisted of a series of programmes, projects, and activities that started in the late 1990s and targeted the police , military , justice, intelligence, and governance structures of the country. These externally-led initiatives represented for the British government the first attempt to reform and overhaul the entire security architecture of a conflict-affected state. The novelty of this type of intervention , as well as the achievements of the country in the field of security over the course of the last two decades, demonstrated the importance of the Sierra Leone case study in the whole body of SSR literature. As a result, British-led SSR policy in conflict-affected Sierra Leone is still studied and referred to by scholars and practitioners working on SSR.
Most of the narratives of the Sierra Leone case study have described and analysed the policies implemented in the West African state (Albrecht 2010; Albrecht and Jackson 2009, 2014; Albrecht and Malan 2006; Denney 2011; Gbla 2007; Horn et al. 2006; Jackson and Albrecht 2010, 2011; Kondeh 2008; Malan et al. 2003), focusing on the lessons learned from the SSR intervention (Ebo 2006; Ero 2000; Fitz-Gerald 2004) and providing possible recommendations for future British and international SSR engagements in other fragile, conflict-affected environments (Albrecht 2009; Ball 1998; DFID 1998, 2000a; Short 1999). A few studies have described the policy process that brought British policy-makers in London and street-level bureaucrats in the country to take and implement such allegedly successful policy decisions (Albrecht and Jackson 2009, 2014; Horn et al. 2006; Jackson and Albrecht 2010, 2011). 1 Furthermore, no previous study has tried to investigate whether and how research has played a role in designing and shaping these policies. Nonetheless, the international SSR policy and research agenda has grown exponentially over the last decade (Ball and Hendrickson 2006; Bryden and Keane 2010; DFID 2002a, b; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) 2005, 2007; Sugden 2006), and the quest for evidence-based policy has increasingly become an important aspect for British and international decision-makers working in fragile, conflict-affected countries (DFID 2004, 2008, 2009, p. 1; 2010). An analysis of the role played by research in the design and implementation of British-led SSR policy in Sierra Leone would therefore shed light on the dynamics characterising the policy process in such contexts, potentially improving the uptake and utilisation of research in current and future state building and SSR interventions worldwide.
This book seeks to understand the extent to which research has influenced and interacted with British-led SSR policy in conflict-affected Sierra Leone from the late 1990s—the years when the UK started to play an important role in reforming the security sector of Sierra Leone—to 2013—the year when the International Military Advisory Training Team (IMATT) ended its mission in the country.. The manuscript explores the problems, the dynamics, and the narratives of research utilisation characterising the Sierra Leone case study, investigating the ways in which research and researchers have interacted with the SSR policy process in the country and, by extension, with British policies in the West African state. This manuscript thus represents an empirically-driven study on the role and utilisation of research in a specific, internationally-led policy such as SSR and in a dynamic and insecure context such as conflict -affected Sierra Leone. Through an extensive analysis of the use of research and knowledge in this particular and allegedly successful case study, the book aims to better understand the complexities of the SSR policy process in fragile, conflict-affected environments , deriving from the Sierra Leone example useful recommendations on how to improve the utilisation of research in policy.
With that goal at its centre, the book also aims at describing the ways in which the network of researchers and policy actors working on SSR in conflict-affected Sierra Leone has evolved during the conflict and post-conflict years. It analyses the main contextual factors that hindered or promoted the uptake of research into British-led SSR policy in Sierra Leone. It seeks to understand the applicability of the literature on the research-policy nexus to the fast-paced, cross-governmental , institution-oriented, and internationalised challenge of state building and SSR in fragile, conflict-affected environments . Finally, the book proposes some measures that could favour and increase the influence of research upon state building and SSR policies in fragile, conflict-affected environments.
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The book uses the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) definition of research as ‘any form of disciplined inquiry that aims to contribute to a body of knowledge or theory’ (ESRC 2005, p. 7). Research involves gathering and analysing information in a structured, methodical, and scientific way, and can be divided into at least two categories that are relevant to this study. Academic research is more likely to involve a broader (often comparative) focus, to be deeper in nature, and to have a strong empirical basis as a result. Because academic studies take longer to conduct, this kind of research tends not to be commissioned as much by donors working on SSR, who require quick solutions to the challenges they face. Policy-driven research , on the other hand, is often commissioned by donors in response to a particular problem they want to address (quite urgently) and is hence more likely to be narrowly focused (on a specific country or theme), shorter-term in nature, and therefore have a weaker empirical basis. Knowledge simply refers to what people know, or what is already known about a particular subject. The book adopts a wide definition of research , encompassing different studies and research outputs, from academic books to analyses and evaluations. It looks at the influence of different types of research on the decisions of policy-makers working in the headquarters of UK governmental departments and on the activities of street-level bureaucrats implementing policy decisions in conflict-affected Sierra Leone. It examines the extent to which British street-level bureaucrats sought to harness relevant ‘local’ knowledge of the context in which they were working or to draw upon research produced by outside experts to assist them in implementing the UK’s SSR programme.
The book accepts the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of influence as ‘the capacity to have an effect on the character, development , or behaviour of someone or something’ (Stevenson 2010). 2 In line with the literature on research utilisation (Hanney et al. 2003; Weiss 1979), this study recognises that research can influence and interact with the policy process in different ways. Research can have a direct, straightforward, instrumental impact on policy-making and implementation, or it can have a more articulated interaction with policy, influencing the activities, choices, and thoughts of policy-makers and street-level bureaucrats in an indirect and conceptual fashion (Coleman 1991; Garrett and Islam 1998; Mulgan 2005; Neilson 2001; Nutley et al. 2002). The book therefore understands ‘influence’ as a dynamic and multifaceted process through which the concepts, notions, and ideas that emerge from research directly or indirectly shape and model the activities, thoughts, choices, strategies, and policy approaches of policy-makers and street-level bureaucrats. Research utilisation in policy can thus follow knowledge-driven, problem-solving, interactive, political, tactical, and enlightenment models, and research can be seen as part of the intellectual enterprise of a society eventually interacting with policy and with the larger fashion of social thought (Weiss 1979).
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The principal argument of the book is that research has increasingly influenced and interacted with policy decisions and activities of British SSR personnel working in conflict-affected Sierra Leone. In particular, two main variables contributed to this incremental interaction and influence of research. These two variables are an increasing stability of the country context of Sierra Leone, and the progressive evolution of SSR as Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) policy and a related research agenda.
With reference to the stability of the country context, the first UK SSR activities in Sierra Leone started in a period of open conflict and represented a series of so-called ‘fire-fighting’ solutions aimed at re-establishing and bolstering t...