almanac on security sector oversight in the Western Balkans

of seven CSOs from the Western Balkans, 215 each of whom made assessments of their
respective national SSR contexts. The results of these assessments have, among other
products, resulted in the country case studies available in this volume. The larger aim
of the regional project was to develop a research and advocacy tool for civil society
organisations interested in holistically overseeing the security sector in their respective
countries. Therefore, the benchmarks for assessing progress in SSR were chosen in accordance
with the oversight role of civil society. The methodology was built to reflect
key challenges of SSR in countries transitioning to democracy.
In this chapter I present a brief background of the development of the methodology,
followed by a discussion of the originality of the methodology, key challenges and
consequences of its use, discussion of the data collected, and some examples of the
measurement framework. I end by presenting some concluding remarks on lessons
learned and ideas for future research.
2 . Background: An Overview of the Index
The pilot version of the methodology (Stojanovic in Hadzic et al. 2009, pp. 67-100)
was created and tested in a case study of the Serbian security sector from 2006-2008,
conducted by BCSP. The results of the first monitoring phase of SSR in Serbia were
presented in the Yearbook of SSR in Serbia, 2008 (Hadzic, Milosavljevic, Stojanovic and
Ejdus, 2009). As a point of departure, Hänggi’s definition of an ideal type of reformed
security sector ‘essentially aimed at the efficient and effective provision of state and
human security within a framework of democratic governance,’ (Bryden and Hänggi,
2004, p.1), was used to identify three aggregate dimensions of SSR: 1) democratic
governance; 2) efficient security provision, and; 3) effective provision of human and
national security. The Yearbook contains analyses of publicly available data on security
sector reform progress along these three dimensions. Each of the three dimensions
was further disaggregated into criteria and sub-criteria (see Table 1).
The dominant unit of analysis at that time were individual actors or components of
the security sector. Each key actor was given a grade. Data was collected and analysed
so that grades were given to the following actors: the military, police, intelligence
services, institutions with some policing competencies (customs administration, tax
police and the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering), prisons, private
security companies, and state and independent bodies in charge of monitoring
and control of the aforementioned actors (including the National Assembly, judiciary,
and civil society organisations). For results of the first cycle of research, see Table 2.
215 The partners the project “Civil Society Capacity Building to Map and Monitor SSR in the Western
Balkans” 2009-2011 include: Analytica, Skopje; BCSP, Belgrade; the Centre for Security Studies (CSS),
Sarajevo; the Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM), Podgorica; the Kosovar Centre for Security
Studies (KCSS), Pristina; the Institute for International Relations (IMO), Zagreb; and the Institute
for Democracy and Mediation (IDM), Tirana. Additionally, the project was supported by the Geneva
Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
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