Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:29:11.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Restoring Confidence in Post-Conflict Security Sectors: Survey Evidence from Liberia on Female Ratio Balancing Reforms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2017

Sabrina Karim
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Civilian confidence in domestic institutions, particularly in the security sector, is important for stability and state consolidation in post-conflict countries, where third-party peacekeepers have helped maintain peace and security after a conflict. While other scholars have suggested that a strong security sector is necessary for mitigating the credible commitment problem, this article provides two alternative criteria for assessing security sector reforms’ effect on confidence in the security sector: restraint and inclusiveness. Female ratio balancing in the security sector meets these two criteria, suggesting that it has the potential to help enhance confidence in the security sector and thereby create the right conditions for the peacekeeping transition. The argument is tested using original surveys conducted in post-conflict, ex-combatant communities in Liberia. The expectations received empirical support. The findings indicate that restraining and inclusive reforms could improve trust in the state’s security sector. They also demonstrate the importance of considering gender in theories related to post-conflict peace building and international relations more broadly.

Keywords

security sector reformpeacekeepinggenderex-combatantsstate buildingLiberia
Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 799 - 821
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Government Department, Cornell University (email: smk349@cornell.edu). I would like to thank the enumerators from the Center for Applied Research and Training, especially Kou Gbaintor-Johnson. I would also like to thank Rufus Zerlee and Nelly Cooper for giving us permission to work in the communities. I would like to thank Kyle Beardsley, Dan Reiter, Pamela Scully, Laura Sjoberg, Amelia Hoover-Green, Rose McDermott, Monica Toft, Brandon Prins, Ismene Gizelis, and Louise Olsson, and members of the Folke Bernadotte Academy UNSC 1325 Working Group for their useful comments on drafts of the article. Support for this research was provided by the British Research Council through a grant with Ismene Gizelis. Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: doi:10.7910/DVN/R3DJI6 and online appendices are available at https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0007123417000035.

References

Alpert, Geoffrey P. 2004. Understanding Police Use of Force: Officers, Suspects, and Reciprocity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Anderlini, Sanam, and Conway, Camille. 2002. Security Sector Reform. International Alert. Available from http://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/library/TKSecuritySectorReform.pdf, accessed 20 August 2015.Google Scholar
Anderlini, Sanam Naraghi, and Conaway, Camille Pampell. 2004. Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action ‘Security Sector Reform’, 35. http://www.cbtf-southsudan.org/sites/default/files/security_sector_reform.pdf (2 December 2014).Google Scholar
Bacon, Laura. 2012. ‘Building an Inclusive, Responsive National Police Service: Gender Sensitive Reforms in Liberia 2005–2011’, Innovations for Successful Society, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Ball, Nicole, and Brzoska, Michael. 2002. Voice and Accountability in the Security Sector, BICC, http://www.opengrey.eu/item/display/10068/219089 (18 November 2014).Google Scholar
Bastick, Megan. 2008. Integrating Gender in Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform. Policy Paper No. 29. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces.Google Scholar
BBC. 2008. Top Afghan policewoman shot dead. BBC, 28 September. Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7640263.stm, accessed 14 November 2016.Google Scholar
Boyce, Lisa A., and Herd, Ann M.. 2003. The Relationship Between Gender Role Stereotypes and Requisite Military Leadership Characteristics. Sex Roles 49 (7–8):365–378.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, Helen, and Brewer, Neil. 1998. Differences in the Conflict Resolution Tactics of Male and Female Police Patrol Officers. International Journal of Police Science & Management 1 (3):276–287.Google Scholar
Brandl, Steven G., Stroshine, Meghan S., and Frank, James. 2001. Who Are the Complaint-Prone Officers?: An Examination of the Relationship between Police Officers’ Attributes, Arrest Activity, Assignment, and Citizens’ Complaints about Excessive Force. Journal of Criminal Justice 29 (6):521–529.Google Scholar
Bridges, D., and Horsfall, D.. 2009. Increasing Operational Effectiveness in UN Peacekeeping. Armed Forces & Society 36 (1):120–130.Google Scholar
Brzoska, Michael. 2006. Introduction: Criteria for Evaluating Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Security Sector Reform in Peace Support Operations. International Peacekeeping 13 (1):1–13.Google Scholar
Brzoska, Michael, and Law, David. 2007. Security Sector Reconstruction and Reform in Peace Support Operations. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brzoska, Michael, and Law, David, eds. 2013. Security Sector Reconstruction and Reform in Peace Support Operations. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bush, Sarah Sunn. 2011. International Politics and the Spread of Quotas for Women in Legislatures. International Organization 65 (1):103–137.Google Scholar
Carpenter, R. Charli. 2003. ‘Women and Children First’: Gender, Norms, and Humanitarian Evacuation in the Balkans 1991–95. International Organization 57 (4):661–694.Google Scholar
Carpenter, R. Charli. 2005. ‘Women, Children and Other Vulnerable Groups’: Gender, Strategic Frames and the Protection of Civilians as a Transnational Issue. International Studies Quarterly 49 (2):295–334.Google Scholar
Carreiras, Helena. 2006. Gender and the Military: Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carson, Barbara. 1993. Women in Law Enforcement. In Women and the Use of Military Force, edited by Ruth H. Howes and Michael R. Stevenson, 67–77. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Cohen, Dara Kay, and Nordås, Ragnhild. 2014. Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict Introducing the SVAC Dataset, 1989–2009. Journal of Peace Research 51 (3):418–428.Google Scholar
Cohen, Dara Kay, and Nordås, Ragnhild. 2015. Do States Delegate Shameful Violence to Militias? Patterns of Sexual Violence in Recent Armed Conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (5):877–898.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6):1241–1299.Google Scholar
DeGroot, Gerard J. 2001. A Few Good Women: Gender Stereotypes, the Military and Peacekeeping. International Peacekeeping 8 (2):23–38.Google Scholar
DCAF. 2011. Gender and Security Sector Reform: Examples from the Group. Available from http://www.dcaf.ch/Publications/Gender-and-Security-Sector-Reform-Examples-from-the-Ground, accessed 22 September 2012.Google Scholar
Eagly, Alice H., and Karau, Steven. 2002. Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice toward Female Leaders. Psychological Review 109 (3):573–598.Google Scholar
Eck, Kristine, and Hultman, Lisa. 2007. One-Sided Violence Against Civilians in War Insights from New Fatality Data. Journal of Peace Research 44 (2):233–246.Google Scholar
Fortna, Virginia Page. 2008. Does Peacekeeping Work?: Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Jonathan. 2011. Building a Civilian Police Capacity Post-Conflict Liberia 2003–2011. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.Google Scholar
Gizelis, Theodora-Ismene. 2009. Gender Empowerment and United Nations Peacebuilding. Journal of Peace Research 46 (4):505–523.Google Scholar
Gizelis, Theodora-Ismene. 2011. A Country of Their Own: Women and Peacebuilding. Conflict Management and Peace Science 28 (5):522–542.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Andrew. 2005. Police Reform and the Problem of Trust. Theoretical Criminology 9 (4):443–470.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Joshua S. 2003. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hancock, Ange-Marie. 2007. When Multiplication Doesn’t Equal Quick Addition: Examining Intersectionality as a Research Paradigm. Perspectives on Politics 5 (1):63–79.Google Scholar
Hasisi, Badi, and Weitzer, Ronald. 2007. Police Relations with Arabs and Jews in Israel. British Journal of Criminology 47 (5):728–745.Google Scholar
Homant, Robert J., and Kennedy, Daniel B.. 1985. Police Perceptions of Spouse Abuse: A Comparison of Male and Female Officers. Journal of Criminal Justice 13 (1):29–47.Google Scholar
Htun, M., and Weldon, S. L.. 2012. The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating Violence against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005. American Political Science Review 1 (1):1–22.Google Scholar
Huber, Laura, and Karim, Sabrina. 2017. The Internationalization of Security Sector Gender Reforms in Post-Conflict Countries. Conflict Management and Peace Science (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Karim, Sabrina. 2011. Madame Officer, Americas Quarterly, 5 (3).Google Scholar
Karim, Sabrina. 2016. Finding the Right Security Sector Strategy: The Goldilocks Problem in Post-Conflict States, PhD Dissertation. Atlanta, GA: Emory University.Google Scholar
Karim, Sabrina. 2017. Do Security Sector Reforms Improve State Building? Results from a Field Experiment with the Liberian National Police. Paper presented at University of Pennsylvania’s Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 19 May 2017.Google Scholar
Karim, Sabrina, and Beardsley, Kyle. 2017. Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping: Women, Peace, and Security in Post-Conflict States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Karim, Sabrina, and Gorman, Ryan. 2016. Building a More Competent Security Sector: The Case of the Liberian National Police. International Peacekeeping 23 (1):158–191.Google Scholar
Karim, Sabrina, 2017, Peace Island and West Point Survey 2015, doi:10.7910/DVN/R3DJI6, Harvard Dataverse, V1.Google Scholar
Keck, Margaret E. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kronsell, Annica. 2012. Gender, Sex and the Postnational Defense: Militarism and Peacekeeping. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lake, David. 2016. A Statebuilder’s Dilemma: Legitimacy, Loyalty, and the Limits of External Intervention. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) [Liberia], Ministry of Health and Social Welfare [Liberia], National AIDS Control Program [Liberia], and Macro International Inc. 2008. Liberia Demographic and Health Survey Report. Available from http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/fr201/fr201.pdf, accessed 27 May 2015.Google Scholar
Leger, Kristen. 1997. Public Perceptions of Female Police Officers on Patrol. American Journal of Criminal Justice 21 (2):231–249.Google Scholar
Leiby, Michele L. 2009. Wartime Sexual Violence in Guatemala and Peru. International Studies Quarterly 53 (2):445–468.Google Scholar
Mazurana, Dyan, Raven-Roberts, Angela, and Parpart, Jane, eds. 2005. Gender, Conflict, and Peacekeeping. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Meier, Kenneth J., and Nicholson-Crotty, Jill. 2006. Gender, Representative Bureaucracy, and Law Enforcement: The Case of Sexual Assault. Public Administration Review 66 (6):850–860.Google Scholar
Mobekk, Eirin. 2010. Gender, Women and Security Sector Reform. International Peacekeeping 17 (2):278–291.Google Scholar
Newman, Edward. 2011. A Human Security Peace-Building Agenda. Third World Quarterly 32 (10):1737–1756.Google Scholar
Ní Aoláin, Fionnuala, and Haynes, Dina Francesca. 2011. On the Frontlines: Gender, War, and the Post-Conflict Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1989. Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England. The Journal of Economic History 49 (4):803–832.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., Wallis, John Joseph, and Weingast, Barry R.. 2012. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olsson, Louise, and Truggestad, Torrun L., eds. 2001. Women and International Peacekeeping. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Paris, Roland. 2001. Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air? International Security 26 (2):87–102.Google Scholar
Paris, Roland. 2004. At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.Google Scholar
Porter, Elisabeth. 2008. Peacebuilding Women in International Perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rehn, E.,Johnson, , and Sirleaf, E.. 2002. Women, War and Peace, Progress of the World’s Women. New York: UNIFEM.Google Scholar
Sandefur, Justin, and Siddiqi, Bilal. 2013. Extending the Shadow of the Law: Theory and Experimental Evidence. Unpublished manuscript, 24 April. Available from https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=CSAE2013&paper_id=1014, accessed 30 September 2013.Google Scholar
Scully, Pamela. 2010. Expanding the Concept of Gender-Based Violence in Peacebuilding and Development. Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 5 (3):21–33.Google Scholar
Simić, Olivera. 2010. Does the Presence of Women Really Matter? Towards Combating Male Sexual Violence in Peacekeeping Operations. International Peacekeeping 17 (2):188–199.Google Scholar
Sjoberg, Laura, and Gentry, Caron E.. 2007. Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Skogan, Wesley G. 2006. Asymmetry in the Impact of Encounters with Police. Policing and Society 16 (2):99–126.Google Scholar
Strøm, K. W., Gates, S., Graham, B. A., and Strand, H.. 2017. Inclusion, Dispersion, and Constraint: Powersharing in the World’s States, 1975–2010. British Journal of Political Science 47 (1):165–185.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy. 2010. Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2015. Women and Power in Post-Conflict Africa. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2004. Enhancing Police Legitimacy. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 593 (1):84–99.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R.. 2005. Policing in Black and White: Ethnic Group Differences in Trust and Confidence in the Police. Police Quarterly 8 (3):322–342.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R.. 2006. Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation. Annual Review of Psychology 57 (1):375–400.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Huo, Yuen J.. 2002. Trust in the Law: Encouraging Public Cooperation with the Police and Courts. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Valentino, Benjamin, Huth, Paul, and Balch-Lindsay, Dylan. 2004. ‘Draining the Sea’: Mass Killing and Guerrilla Warfare. International Organization 58 (2):375–407.Google Scholar
Walsh, Shannon Drysdale. 2016. Advances and Limits of Policing and Human Security for Women: Nicaragua in Comparative Perspective. In Gender Violence in Peace and War: States of Complicity, edited by Victoria Sanford, Katerina Stefatos and Cecilia Salvi. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Walter, Barbara F. 2002. Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1994. [1919]. Weber: Political Writings , edited by Peter Lassman. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weitzer, Ronald, and Hasisi, Badi. 2008. Does Ethnic Composition Make a Difference? Citizens’ Assessments of Arab Police Officers in Israel. Policing and Society 18 (4):362–376.Google Scholar
Weitzer, Ronald John. 1995. Policing Under Fire: Ethnic Conflict and Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Whitworth, Sandra. 2007. Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.Google Scholar
Wood, Reed M., Kathman, Jacob D., and Gent, Stephen E.. 2012. Armed Intervention and Civilian Victimization in Intrastate Conflicts. Journal of Peace Research 49 (5):647–660.Google Scholar
Utas, Mats. 2005. Victimcy, Girlfriending, Soldiering: Tactic Agency in a Young Woman’s Social Navigation of the Liberian War Zone. Anthropological Quarterly 78 (2):403–430.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Karim supplementary material

Karim supplementary material 1

Download Karim supplementary material(File)
File 100.9 KB