Selena Tasić: Who guards the guardians?

Historically speaking, the institutions of the security sector, as the main bearers of the force in society, are characterized by rigidity and tightness of the system, complex procedure in the implementation of reforms, concealment from public and the slow adaptation to the new conditions that are required by social transition and transformation. The reason for this is partly to be found in the fundamental and traditional role of the security sector, which aims to ensure national security. In order to fulfill this role in full and because of their need to sustain the omnipresent role in the society, institutions of the security sector can sometimes through their actions cause endangerment or violation of certain human rights and freedoms. International law also recognizes the right of a state to violate certain human rights in the process of protecting national security and public order (Caparini 2006: 5). Bearing this in mind, the role of civil society in the process of reforming the security sector is gaining importance. The civil society has a role to try to establish that thin line between protecting national security and protecting human rights of every individual.

Benefits of Participation of Civil Society in SSR

In societies in which post-conflict and post-authoritarian context prevails, the security sector is in the most cases characterized by the power beyond the law, closed-offsystem, lack of transparency, non- representativeness and lack or total absence of civilian control over the work of actors that make up the security sector.

Security sector reform requires a transformation of this system into a "system that provides security to the citizens in an efficient and effective manner, within the democratic and civilian control," (Edmunds, 2007: 20). The key words in this definition of security sector reform, regarding this work, are democratic and civilian control. The unreformed, politicized, traditional security sector does not recognize the democratization as a positive process of change for the better. On the contrary, it may hinder and obstruct this process, because it perceives democratization as a process that undermines its authority and the power of force that it has within the society. The power and authority of the bearers of force are the biggest potential threats to the democratic values ​​of the society. Even Plato in The Republic asked the question "Who guards the guardians?" Juvenal asked the same question in the time of ancient Rome (Plato, according to Hadzic, 2000; p.5). Again, civilian control ensures for those who are using force to stay outside the realm of politics, and in the framework of their authority. But history also offers examples in which the civilian leadership used the security sector to implement political goals[1], and 
because of this representativeness - i.e. participation of citizens in decision-making - is also very important in the security sector. The famous Hungarian writer Gyorgy Konrad uttered a thought of great importance for this topic in his book Antipolitics: "Society with a strategy is stronger than an armed state" (Konrad, according to Pavlovic, 2004: 267). According to his sentence, society without a strategy is society that has no real politics. Likewise, politics without clear visions for strategy of social development is failed politics.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are among the non-state actors who do not use violence. Established by a group of citizens who share common interests and goals, they are characterized by the motivation to be active in solving a specific social problem. The motive for their establishment is not to make profits, but to provide funds for their activities. CSOs are mediators in the space between the private, economic and political spheres (Caparini, 2010: 247).

Civil or civic society is important for the reform of the security sector for several reasons. First, it provides an alternative source of information to decision-makers in the political leadership, but also to the public – through dialogue with the media, civic associations, academia, international organizations and other non-state actors involved in SSR. It is also important to emphasize the educational role of CSOs in a society. The implementation of project activities for the most of the CSOs always aims to raise awareness of targeted groups of citizens or institutions about the social issue that needs to be solved. Opening to the public and starting a two-way communication between the government and the citizens results in increased confidence in government, and in shared responsibility for the decisions that have been made.

Second, civil society is an open space for public debate and discussion that involves citizens, which in turn should help the legislature to recognize trends in the process of providing security for the society.

Third, civil society is a very important actor in the oversight of the institutions participating in the work of the security sector. Civil society also controls the behavior of civilian control component in security institutions. It is able to recognize and familiarize the public with any bad practices, corruption, unprofessional management of the reform process, but also to take concrete steps and call upon the accountability of institutions in a judicial process. In short, civic society should be a counterweight to the state’s power, therefore it should control state’s work and hold it accountable (Caparini, 2010: 246). Recent example of this was action of civic associations in the USA; they pressured the Obama administration into investigating the misuse of the "War on Terrorism."[2]
Another example that stands out is the impact of Dick Marty’s 2010 report on trafficking human organs in Kosovo, which was preceded by initiatives of the influential NGO Human Rights Watch.[3] In the Balkan countries there are countless examples of the laws adopted, institutions established, and investigations started with the initiative of civil society. Furthermore, the interest of civil society is to have access to the information about the resources which security sector uses for its needs. This control mechanism is the preferred activity of all civil society institutions (Matic,2000: 81).

Fourth, civic society is able to secure the voting rights for marginalized groups in society, which is of great importance for the security sector if position of women and minorities is observed with particular attention. This is very important in countries that are traditionally patriarchal or have a history of abuse of human rights. Women's rights became popular and significant on the political agenda only in the last few decades, thanks to the long and effective struggle of women’s organizations of civil society. Actors in the security sector are often not sufficiently aware of the aspects of human rights and representativeness, where civil society plays an important role of mediator, reminder, consultant, while it often offers expert opinion and proposes good practice.

Also, civil sector is an example of the most democratically organized system, which is the ultimate goal of all societies that are determined to implement democratic reform of the security sector. This is supported by the fact that the dynamics of civic society activities and the existence of free media are the parameters for evaluating the success of the reform.

According to the liberal-democratic concept, the state and civil society are in a natural partnership. The state, as the institutionalized system with the obligation to make and enforce the laws, and civil society, which operates under those laws and recognizes the legitimately elected government. According to this view, civil society has taken certain services for the citizens from the state, and this kind of cooperation is characterized by dialogue and partnership.

Society with an active civil sector and a developed culture of civic participation is a democratically developed society.

It is important to distinguish between different forms of organizing citizens in the formal or informal type of organization. In developed societies, independent research centers ("think-tank" organizations) are more active and more numerous, as they are the sources of knowledge and they provide concrete suggestions and potential solutions for specific topics. Therefore, they often cooperate with governments that recognize their expertise in a particular area. However, in developing societies the non-governmental organizations are more active and their mission is to identify issues and areas which are of interest to the public, but which are not items on the political agenda. Their goal is to have these issues openly discussed in public and to impose on decision makers a necessity to find a solution or to establish the institutional and legal framework for cooperation between government and non-government sector[4]. Historically, organized youth movements such as Otpor, or EXIT, have been of great importance to Serbia[5].

Barriers to active participation of civil society in SSR

In reality, however, civil society remains marginalized actor in the governance of the security sector. (Caparini, 2010: 244). On the European continent this is particularly the case for the post-communist countries where civil society was considered to be anti-politics. After the collapse of the communist regime, very few organizations had knowledge, interest and motivation to deal with the issues of security and service reform (Howard: 2003). Reasons for a similar position of civil society twenty years later are numerous and vary from the assumptions and prejudices, through the usual bad practices to objective, evidence-based causes. The usual bad practices include the attitude of political structures that the reform should be carried out from top to bottom, their preoccupation with institution building and technical aspects of the reform, but also narrow conception of the role of civil society in the process of transformation. It is also a widespread view of actors in the security sector that the civilian sector does not possess adequate knowledge to deal with the reform of these institutions. This frequent claim, which is true to some extent, is a consequence caused by long-time isolation of security sector from any form of democratic civilian control and by justifying this practice with the protection of national security. In authoritarian regimes there are numerous examples in which the "state secret" was often a cover for illegal activities within the security sector.

Although security sector reform is a process encouraged by the donor community, it is very often preoccupied by establishing a legal and institutional framework and by maintaining stability (Caparini 2006: 8). External experts lack regional perspective and the course of reform tailored for the context of the country. Therefore, most of their efforts are sometimes concentrated on state institutions in the security sector, and not on the civil society whose importance in the reform process is ignored, or put aside.

Examples of good practice

Of course, there are numerous examples of good practice of cooperation between security sector and civic society (Caparini, 2010: 249). White Book of Defense from 1996 in post-apartheid South Africa was an example of an inclusive process of consultation with the public and parliamentary sector. Its creation involved numerous experts of the non-government sector, non-government organizations, religious organizations, former military officers and members of civil society. This process has helped a national consensus on defense; it has enhanced public confidence in the security sector and contributed to the legitimacy of the armed forces. On the other hand, the creation of a legal framework was accompanied by numerous scandals and problems, namely because of the lack of expertise of civil society.

In Guatemala, the peace negotiations in 1996 ended the 36-year long internal armed conflict. "The War-Torn Societies Project" (since then called Interpeace) has developed a participatory action research project on civil-military cooperation and opportunities for control and reform of the armed forces. The project has placed particular emphasis on cooperation with civil society and academic institutions through constant dialogue, joint meetings and inclusive reform.

In Sierra Leone the reform of the police in cooperation with civil society has achieved considerable success, while it failed when it came to the reform of the armed forces because the state-centric apparatus did not include civil society in the reform process. However, after 2006 significant advances have been made when it comes to participatory SSR and, as a result of the success of the reform, an increase of citizens’ trust in the military has been noted, while the feeling of fear started to diminish. (Jackson and Albrecht, according to Caparini, 2010: 250).

When talking about the role of civil society in the social reform at all levels in the Western Balkans, we are talking primarily about the period after the year 2000, which is considered to be the initial phase of democratization in the post-conflict social context of this region. Back then, donors and the international community began the process of building a culture of modern civic society in the countries of former Yugoslavia through donations (civil society as a concept in the Central Europe). However, civil society as an engine for engaging citizenship in a positive democratic initiative in the post-authoritarian and post-conflict context becomes "scattered resource" in a situation where strategy for social development and reform of the structure is not clear enough. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the resources that the society has, insufficient involvement of civic society in the process of reform from post-authoritarian to a democratic context leads to slowing and diminishing of quality of a comprehensive reform of the system into the democratically established, transparent, efficient and effective system that acts as a guarantor of security for all its citizens.

The concept of security sector reform is still new and as such is subject to transformation; involvement of civil society in it is still a challenging and difficult process, but the progress that is achieved by cooperation between state and non-state actors in this process is undoubted. In the end, it is important to note that the reform of institutions that remains only in the domain of state actors is not the way to achieve democratic and civilian control over the security sector. "Without open and balanced political communication, democratic institutions will become corrupted. Without the accurate economic data, markets will break down. Without the freedom of art, culture will perish." (Reljic, 2004: 2)

Recommendations

It is non-governmental, civil sector, with its expertise and in collaboration with other actors in the security sector, which can significantly contribute to the reform. This is primarily achieved by working on setting clear goals of the reforms, goals that are tailored for the security context in which this reform is carried out.

For the successful inclusion of CSOs in security sector reform, we need to work on increasing mutual cooperation and on establishing the trust between the government and non-governmental sector. State actors need to be more familiar with the positive influence of non-state actors in the decision-making process, as well as with the popularity of those decisions when once they have been implemented in practice. If citizens have influenced the process of creating the legislation, directly or indirectly, its implementation will therefore be more successful. Also, civil sector in developing countries needs to be professionally trained in specific areas. In this way, the level of "human capital" will increase, as practice shows that a society that has a competent and educated, socially conscious and responsible population overcomes the crisis easier. It is also necessary to establish the practice of "public debate" as a mean for communication, analysis and drawing conclusions about specific areas.

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Selena Tasic, MA in International Security, Programme Manager at Public Policy Institute

Literature:

1. Caparini, M. (2010); The future of Security Sector Reform. The Centre for International Governance Innovation.

2. Caparini, M., Fluri, P., Molnar F. (2006) Civil Society Actors in Defence and Security Affairs. Lit Verlag.

3. Edmunds, T. (2007); The Anthology of Texts from the School of Security Sector Reform. ISAC fund.

4. Hadžić, M. (2000); Civilian Control of the Military and Police. Centre for Civil-Military Relations.

5. Howard, M. (2003); The Weakness of Civil society in Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6. Matić, J. (2000); Civilian Control of the Military and Police. Centre for Civil-Military Relations.

7. Reljić, D. (2004) Who builds civil society? Civil society, mass media and democracy in post-communist countries. DCAF, Geneva.

8.Vujadinović D., Veljak L., Goati V., Pavićević V., (2004); Civil Society and Political Culture. Open Society Foundation.