ABSTRACT

In 1991 a brutal conflict broke out that lasted for over a decade. Leading up to it, Sierra Leone’s post-war Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded, “[i]nstitutional collapse [had] reduced the vast majority of people into a state of deprivation. This chapter demonstrates that Sierra Leone never was the political entity envisaged through the lens of state-building. It looks at the history of Sierra Leone and how it has been presented, including in academic writing, as destined to fail and collapse into conflict following the country’s independence in 1961. The chapter explores the perceived state of dissolution and chaos that met external actors as they arrived in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s to embark on state-building in the form of security sector reform (SSR). It outlines the process of re-composing the security field as it occurred in the initial stages of state-building.