almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

control and oversee the work of executive actors. Statutory security actors are also
under their jurisdiction. 207 Bosnia and Herzegovina went even further to establish a
special institution of the ombudsman for the protection of human rights of local military
personnel.
The findings of the case studies in this volume indicate that the national military, police
and security intelligence elites in the region, as well as their subordinates, accept
all key norms and consequences of electoral democracy. They willingly subordinate
themselves to legal authorities and civilian leadership. In doing so, the elites seem to
have retired permanently from the public political scene, making the state security
institutions now formally depoliticised. It is also undeniable that civilian authorities in
these countries fully exercise their jurisdiction over the state security forces.
Nevertheless, for a definitive assessment of the Western Balkan countries’ progress in
SSR and in securing the accountability of statutory security actors, the role that the EU,
NATO and the USA played, and still play, in the region should be taken into account.
The first phase of their military and political involvement was ended with the prohibition
of war and the imposition of peace. The result was a changed local security context
and the establishment of conditions for a gradual transformation of the Western
Balkans from a conflict zone into a security regime. The second phase involved overall
support for the normalisation and stabilisation of these countries as well as their initial
democratisation. Support arrived in the form of advisory assistance and donations
for security sector reform, including reform of existing institutions. The efficacy and
efficiency of support was first secured, and later considerably enhanced, by the policy
of conditionality in those countries preparing for NATO or EU membership.
These endeavours brought many benefits – economic, political and security – to the
region. However, the countries’ ruling elites benefited most. The policy of conditionality,
however arbitrary it may have been, provided authorities with an alibi for making
risky changes in the security sector. The focus on meeting EU and/or NATO standards
resulted in hypocrisy by political and security elites. They dealt mostly with the reorganisation
and modernisation of their respective institutions, and much less with
radical reform. For this reason, they found it much more important to introduce new
rules and institutions than to consistently implement the adopted laws or to improve
the democratic capacities of the new institutions. It is therefore not surprising that occasionally
foreign models and solutions were simply copied, 208 as some authors of the
case studies observed. This is evident, for example, in the indiscriminate inclusion of
NATO and US discourse on terrorism in national security strategies. The result is that
terrorism is perceived as one of the major threats to national security in the majority
of Western Balkans countries. The author’s impression is that readiness for membership
in NATO – particularly if it is supported by sending the troops to Afghanistan
207 The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia (article 138) stipulates that the President of the Republic
is exempt from such control although he commands the army in war and peacetime.
208 This is illustrated by the uncritical adoption of the NATO concept of civil-military relations, which is
primarily intended for the execution of occupational power, given the fact that it was tailored to serve
the purposes of NATO mission in Afghanistan and Iraq under US leadership.
226