Security Sector Reform and Development Assistance: Explaining the Diffusion of Policy Priorities among Donor Agencies

This paper employs a world society theoretical framework to examine the recent trend among foreign aid donors to focus on
security sector reform as an aid priority. Through a comparative qualitative case study based on interview data collected
from aid officials and development workers in Canada, Sweden, and the United States (n = 41) in 2006–2007, this paper finds that the extent to which the security sector reform agenda is integrated into donor
policy and programs is mediated by catalytic policy processes linked to intergovernmental organizations and the degree of
donor agency autonomy from the rest of government. These findings are used to illustrate how common processes of globalization
in world society shape similar approaches to foreign aid among donor agencies despite disparate domestic contexts. These processes
lead to convergence of donor policy around security issues and at the same time can account for decoupling of practice from
world society policy models.