The Security Sector Reform in Macedonia: An Externally Driven Process?

This article analyzes the conditions and challenges for security sector reform (ssr) in Macedonia since 2001. One of the main pressures which the Western community has been able to wield for reform and for post-conflict normalization in Macedonia has been the conditional offer of integration into key Western organizations – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (nato) and the European Union (eu). In the absence of a widespread domestic consensus, the sustainability of ssr relies on the leverage that nato and the eu can bring to bear. But, with no date to begin negotiations with the eu and with the Greek veto to Macedonia entrance to nato, what can happen to ssr in the country? Moreover, how can local ownership of ssr be cultivated in Macedonia where the international community has played the lead role in initiating reform? Addressing ssr developments in Macedonia, the article surveys the challenges in two key component areas of the country’s security sector – armed forces and police – arguing that, without clear perspectives of joining nato or the eu in the near future, ssr in Macedonia is seriously compromised.