This month, RESOLVE highlights recommended readings from the RESOLVE Policy Note, "Transforming Community-Based Armed Groups into Community Security Providers." In this note, Moritz Schuberth discusses the possibility of CBAGs as an option for justice and security provision in the short term. He provides recommendations for intervening actors to reinforce the constructive potential of CBAGs and limit their destructive potential. The author suggested further readings to offer a more in-depth look at community-based armed groups and security sector reform.  

On Community-based Armed Groups

Felbab-Brown, Vanda, Harold Trinkunas, and Shadi Hamid. Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/book/militants-criminals-and-warlords/.

Internatonal Crisis Group. Double-edged Sword: Vigilantes in African Counter-insurgencies. Brussels: Internatonal Crisis Group, 2017. htps://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/251-double-edgedsword.pdf.

Internatonal Crisis Group. Watchmen of Lake Chad: Vigilante Groups Fightng Boko Haram. Brussels: Internatonal Crisis Group, 2017. htps://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/244-watchmen-of-lakechad-vigilante-groups-fghtng-boko-haram.pdf.

Nagarajan, Chitra. To Defend or Harm? Community Militas in Borno State, Nigeria. Washington, DC: Center for Civilians in Confict, 2020. htps://civiliansinconfict.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ CommunityMilitasFINALLores_430.pdf.

On Security Sector Reform

Ansorg, Nadine, and Eleanor Gordon. “Co-operaton, Contestaton and Complexity in Post-Confict Security Sector Reform.” Journal of Interventon and Statebuilding 13, no. 1 (2019): 2-24. htps://doi.org/1 0.1080/17502977.2018.1516392.

Jackson, Paul. “Introducton: Second-Generaton Security Sector Reform.” Journal of Interventon and Statebuilding 12, no. 1 (2018): 1-10. htps://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2018.1426384.

Luckham, Robin. “Whose Violence, Whose Security? Can Violence Reducton and Security Work for Poor, Excluded and Vulnerable People?”. Peacebuilding 5, no. 2 (2017): 99-117. htps://doi.org/10.1080 /21647259.2016.1277009.

Ansorg, Nadine. “Security Sector Reform in Africa: Donor Approaches versus Local Needs.” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 1 (2017): 129-44. htps://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2016.1278343.