ABSTRACT
This chapter proceeds by reviewing how Security Sector Reform (SSR) emerged as a policy offshoot of the security-development nexus. It serves as an entry point for examining the particular governmental rationality that is at work in SSR frameworks. The chapter explores how efforts to operationalize SSR in a manner that is meant to learn from failed interventions in the past have taken the form of local ownership. It describes the case that local ownership captures key elements of SSR's police-security project. At the same time; however, the concept of local ownership leads to a fundamental impasse when paired with international assistance. The chapter outlines the particular form of governmental rationality that is generated by the police-security project of SSR. SSR's police-security project operates at the intersection of the security-development nexus and the human-centred approaches to security that underpins local ownership.
