almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

1 . Introduction
Accountability of Statutory Security Actors in the Western Balkans
This chapter presents a comparative analysis of some key findings generated from
regional research on security sector reform (SSR) in the Western Balkans. Its aim is to
determine the level of progress in implementation of principles of democratic governance
of the security sector in the countries of the region. For this purpose, key indicators
are the existence and application of procedures which establish the accountability
of statutory actors in undertaking security-related tasks. These include procedures
used to make statutory actors accountable to legitimate state authorities and citizens
for their actions or inaction. The chapter focuses on findings related to the responsibility
of the military, police and intelligence services, including their civilian leadership,
which together constitute the statutory component of the security sector.
Part 1 offers a brief description of the main features of the SSR context in the Western
Balkans. It identifies potential similarities among these contexts and determines
whether the similarities in their contexts brought about similar traits in their respective
SSR processes. Research findings indicate that the trends of political democratisation
and the scope of SSR in the given countries have been and remain interconnected.
This is partly due to the fact that changes in the Western Balkans took place in
a post-authoritarian and post-conflict context (Hänggi, 2004).
In part 2, analysis of main trends and modes of formation and/or transformation of
state security forces in the region provides additional insight into the relationship
between the context and SSR.
In part 3, comparative findings on the regulation of procedures, competencies and
powers for democratic civilian control and oversight of security actors are considered.
The existence and implementation of these procedures are key pre-requisites for the
establishment of responsibility of security institutions. Evidence is analyzed concerning
implementation of control and oversight competencies.
For the purpose of this chapter, the case studies presented in this volume were subjected
to a qualitative content analysis. The case studies are used here as a primary
source of empirical data. The insights gathered from country context analyses 185 developed
earlier within the framework of the same project have also been used, including
analyses of national security policies (Hadžić, Timotić, Petrović, 2010). The data available
in the enclosed studies will not be elaborated in extenso in this text, and will be
used only to substantiate the main findings of the comparative analysis.
The authors of the case studies had to adhere to a set of instructions in order to make
the findings of their research easier to compare. They also had to select and summa-
185 Each consortium member published their own context analysis, all of which can be found in the
bibliography of this chapter.
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Almanac on Security Sector Oversight in the Western Balkans