Multi-level governance and security: the security sector reform process in the Central African Republic

Abstract

This paper analyses how the security sector reform (SSR) process in the Central African Republic has been defined and then implemented, putting emphasis on the interactions between national and international actors. Therefore, it advocates an approach which consists of expanding the agenda of the traditional multi-level governance approach and which seeks to seize both the top-down and the bottom-up dynamics of decision-making processes. The first objective is to capture the sets of actors and procedures which drive the reform process, and to map out the various levels of government at which decisions are made. Secondly – and more fundamentally – is to capture the intermingling of domestic and international decision-making processes which increasingly overlap and interfere with each other in Southern countries.