English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The Remake of a Statequite a bit of confusion between DDR and SSR. Some treat DDR and SSRas two completely separate disciplines while some take the completionof DDR as a precondition for initiating the SSR agenda. For countriesemerging from conflict, integration of ex-combatants into society andsecurity forces is a challenging task for the nation, political parties, civilsociety and ex-combatants themselves. Internationally, many countriesinitiated DDR after peace agreements while only a few considered SSR.There have been a number of successful cases of integration betweenarmed groups and state security forces.Third is the disharmony between post-conflict state building against postconflictadministration and stabilisation. Knaus and Cox (2005) presentthe case of the Bosnia and Kosovo interventions where a post-conflictsituation is dominated by undemocratic leaders, parties and movements,and by overriding ethnic or political divisions among them. A transitionaladministration must be strong enough to control, contain and face downundemocratic elements, especially if they are armed and violent, andyet flexible enough to allow and indeed cultivate the emergence of localinitiative and control, the development of democratic self-governance.This may not be an impossible combination, but in the fragile post-conflictsituations, it is a difficult one.Fourth is the tension between two competing visions of post-conflictstabilisation, one deeper, longer-termed and costlier, the other easierto secure but far more vulnerable to failure. There is a temptation in acountry that has been torn by war to reach for a false sense of peacebecause it is quicker and easier to obtain—to defer indefinitely the hardchallenge of SSR and management and integration of arms and armies.This happened with the first false start at peace in Sierra Leone, Angolaand Iraq, which led to the resumption of civil war and subsequent risinglevels of violence.Fifth is the concern arisen from negotiations and political bargaining amongthe UN and domestic political elites (Barma 2005). These interactionsare constrained by the macro-structural context determined by thehistorical path of each country’s political and institutional development.The preceding conflict is the most proximate event in such a path, since itdetermines the distribution of power and other political resources (suchas money, militia control, and ethnic/interest group support) amongdomestic elites. Other explanatory variables take shape further back inthe historical trajectories of the countries examined, including pre-existingpolitical institutions and the historical antecedents to and nature of the291