The Impact of Security Forces’ Behavior on Levels of Organized Violence after Security Sector Reform : A qualitative study of rural provinces in Burundi

Abstract: The thesis explores the understudied subject of provincial variations in outcomes after Security Sector Reform, by examining how security forces’ behavior affect organized violence provincially. By contributing to research on organized violence and peacebuilding focusing on SSR with a regional focus, the thesis seeks an answer to why there is organized violence in some provincial areas but not others, after the initiation of a SSR program? Based on theories of state repression, it is hypothesized that security forces’ abusive behavior leads to higher levels of organized violence. Further, based in counterinsurgency literature, I theoretically develop that security forces’ participation in post-conflict reconstruction decreases levels of organized violence. The study tests these hypotheses by employing structured focus comparisons and process tracing of four provinces in Burundi during 2004- 2014. The study finds partial support for both hypotheses. In some cases abusive behavior have escalated organized violence, and in some cases reconciling behavior decrease organized violence. The causal path suggests, beyond the level of trust and distrusts in society and towards security forces, other factors to correlate and perhaps condition the relationships.