Violation of principles? how donors undermine SSR assistance: lessons from South Sudan

Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Security sector reform (SSR) has become a cornerstone of internationally supported peacebuilding in countries recovering from war. However, despite extensive support, its success has been limited. Scholarship on aid effectiveness attributes this to a lack of aid coordination, which arises from the politics of aid and donor proliferation. This paper argues that the coordination challenge in SSR also stems from operational practices within this field. Drawing on collective action theory and critiques of the development-security nexus, and using empirical evidence from South Sudan, the analysis demonstrates how coordination drivers in the new aid effectiveness framework under the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness: donor proliferation, shared understanding of coordination objectives, the demand for coordination, and credible commitment to coordination instruments, are undermined by operational practices and embedded incentive structures within the SSR assistance field. Delivering holistic SSR requires engaging an extended range of diverse actors, but on the ground dynamics: inter-agency competition, organizational mandates, and entrenched delivery networks, counter coordination efforts. By emphasizing donor-side operational practices, the paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of coordination failures in SSR assistance beyond the politics of aid and donor proliferation argument. It illustrates how operational-level practices create structural conditions in which coordination mechanisms break down and openings for aid misuse by aid recipients emerge.

Keywords: hybrid warfare; societal resilience; Western Balkans; deterrence; action collective; coordination de l'aide; aid coordination; nexo entre seguridad y desarrollo; South Sudan; collective action; Soudan du Sud; coordinación de ayuda; liens entre sécurité et développement; Sudán del Sur; acción colectiva; Ayuda a las reformas en el sector de la seguridad; SSR assistance; security-development nexus; aide RSS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2026-03-18
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Published in Journal of Global Security Studies, 18, March, 2026, 11(1). ISSN: 2057-3170

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