From State-centric to State-society focused Security: The case of the Eastern DRC

The last decade of UN intervention in post-conflict countries have emphasized the importance of re-building and/or reforming the security state apparatus. The security sector reform (SSR) approaches have been viewed as a part solution to the insecurity that prevails in so-called weak and conflict-ridden states. In this article, I will discuss some of the challenges with the state-centric approach and stress the case of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC/MONUSCO). One challenge that will be discussed is the general preference for working with states and institutions in areas where none of these exists in the form familiar to the Western political experience. The lack of functioning institutions, widespread corruption and a partial approach to SSR by the international community in the DRC further deepened the daily insecurity. The empirical data is based on previous visits to and a recent fieldwork (March-April 2012) in the eastern provincial capital of South Kivu, Bukavu.