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Security Sector Reform and British Counterinsurgency: The Immediate- and Medium-Term Impacts of Prioritising Security in the Malayan Emergency (1948-60), the Kenyan Emergency (1952-60) and the Sierra Leone Military Intervention (2... / Chris Morris
Swansea University Author: Chris Morris
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Copyright: The Author, Christopher J.B. Morris, 2025.
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DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.69801
Abstract
This thesis critically examines British counterinsurgency and security sector reform practices through a comparative analysis of three cases: the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the Kenyan Emergency (1952–1960), and the British-led military intervention in Sierra Leone (2000–2002). It explores how Br...
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Swansea, Wales, UK
2025
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| Institution: | Swansea University |
| Degree level: | Doctoral |
| Degree name: | Ph.D |
| Supervisor: | Peters, Krijn |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69801 |
| Abstract: |
This thesis critically examines British counterinsurgency and security sector reform practices through a comparative analysis of three cases: the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the Kenyan Emergency (1952–1960), and the British-led military intervention in Sierra Leone (2000–2002). It explores how British interventions have consistently prioritised security sector stabilisation as a means of restoring order, and how this approach has shaped the trajectory of post-conflict governance, institutional reform, and peacebuilding outcomes. Employing a comparative methodology, the study draws on original archival research in the UK National Archives and fieldwork in Sierra Leone, including interviews with political, security, and civil society actors. It engages critically with both counterinsurgency doctrine and normative security sector reform (SSR) frameworks, particularly those emphasising accountability, local ownership, and positive peace, to assess how British practices align with or diverge from these principles in theory and implementation. The thesis finds that while British interventions have often succeeded in restoring state authority and suppressing insurgency, they have also embedded securitised governance structures that constrain democratic development. Across the three cases, SSR was frequently subordinated to the imperative of short-term stability, limiting the prospects for inclusive political settlements and sustainable institutional transformation. This dynamic is conceptualised as a security–democratic governance nexus, through which security provision both enables and restricts the development of accountable governance. By bridging archival and field-based research, this thesis provides original insight into the continuity of British interventionist logics from the colonial to the post-colonial era. This thesis challenges liberal peacebuilding assumptions about linear transitions from order to reform and calls for greater alignment between stabilisation efforts and the principles of democratic security governance from the outset of intervention. |
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| Keywords: |
Conflict, Development, Counterinsurgency, Security Sector Reform, Security Sector Stabilisation, Policing Reform, Military Reform, Sierra Leone, Malayan Emergency, Kenyan Emergency, Post-Conflict Reconstruction |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |