ABSTRACT
Security sector reform (SSR) in Sierra Leone represented a vision of resurrecting a collapsed state by establishing a set of centrally governed intelligence, military and police institutions that would be managed from Freetown and be accountable to the public. In the context of Sierra Leone and SSR, a person is not simply a police officer or a member of the local community policing group who represents the state directly or by proxy, nor a traditional leader who belongs to a non-state – or traditional – realm. The transition in 1961 from a colony to an independent state was an elite affair in Sierra Leone, but the new rulers took an uncommon approach in their treatment of traditional leaders, who were considered by other post-colonial governments to be “repressive collaborators of the colonial masters”. This chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the book.
