Security Assistance in a Post-interventionist Era: The Impact on Limited Statehood in Lebanon and Tunisia

Post-interventionist security assistance is premised on non-normative security
understandings and flexible arrangements between external and local actors. In
hybrid political regimes or areas of limited statehood, these forms of assistance,
while strengthening specific aspects of a country’s security context, reinforce
some domestic actors vis-à-vis others thanks to processes of selective borrowing
by local political elites. This paper demonstrates how such processes contribute
to the proliferation of hybrid elements in the country’s security sector. In two
contrasting case studies, we illustrate how security assistance packages in Lebanon
and Tunisia have diluted emerging democratic reforms, producing more coercive
manifestation of state power.