Drawing Lessons from Turkey’s and Spain’s Security Sector Reforms for the Mediterranean

EuroMesCo Paper Octobre 2006 (52)

Security Sector Reform (henceforth SSR) and more specifically the Democratic Civilian Control of the Armed Forces (henceforth DCCAF) have become key issues in current debates on political reform. As SSR and DCCAF are emerging topics, intersecting both comparative politics and security studies fields of international relations, their theoretical frameworks are largely developed around comparative studies. This project attempts to contribute to the design of the EU’s policies on democracy and good governance promotion in the Mediterranean region by drawing lessons from Turkey’s and Spain’s DCCAF. The study will analyse to what extent the transformations in these two Mediterranean countries, which have led to different outcomes with respect to DCCAF, can be a source of inspiration for the Mediterranean partners as well as for the EU.