Gender, Militarisation, and Informalisation: Uganda’s Post-Conflict Security Sector

This paper identifies militarisation and informalisation as two cross-cutting dynamics of the Ugandan Security Sector Reform (SSR) and argues that societal and military ideals of masculinity are in a mutually reinforcing relationship with these two dynamics. In the midst of the armed conflict between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and the Lord’s Resistance Army in the North of Uganda, the GoU initiated a donor-funded SSR process covering the justice, law and order and the defence sector. 15 years later, formal and informal actors are playing diverse and overlapping roles in Uganda’s security landscape with often non-explicit mandates and poor human rights records being only two of the several issues SSR failed to address or even aggravated. Using insights from critical military as well as gender studies, this study answers the question: Which role do gender relations play in the ongoing informalisation and militarisation of the Ugandan security sector? Following a theoretic background on gender in post-conflict societies, SSR, and masculinities, the study proceeds to provide an overview of the post-conflict development of the security sector, outlining the cross-cutting dynamics that can be identified: informalisation and militarisation. An analysis of societal and military ideals of masculinity shows their mutually reinforcing relationship with the identified dynamics as well as their impact on the practices, organisation, and performance of different actors in the security and defence sector.