This publication has a simple goal: to bring research on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) closer to practitioners. Much scholarly work on the topic is not always accessible or targeted at practitioners and others who engage with issues related to DDR. We want to promote the insights from a range of studies on DDR to a wider audience.
Our experience is that there is relatively little dialogue between researchers and practitioners. This lack of debate and exchange can lead to gaps in information and entry-points for practitioners and academics to advance both theory and practice. Could improving the information flow help improve practical programming as well as social science research?
Deeper exchange between the two groups has considerable potential. Assessments undertaken by project staff, such as monitoring and evaluation, will necessarily adopt a short-term approach. By contrast, scholars are in a position to take a longerterm perspective and can ask different questions than those involved in project evaluations. Might these differing perspectives help trigger creative thinking and innovations in project design?
To promote more active exchange between the research and practice communities, we have selected a sample of scholarly contributions on DDR. While far from constituting a comprehensive survey of the literature, the review can provide a sense of the direction in DDR studies. In several places, we also refer to relevant sections of the Integrated Standards on DDR. We hope this brief note can be a useful reading supplement to the IDDRS.
This publication forms part of a research project on DDR administered by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) at the University of Tromsø. It was funded by the Norwegian Council of Research. The organizers have benefitted from partnering with a number of other researchers and institutions, including the Small Arms Survey in Geneva.
The NUPI/CPS research project assessed how social, political or economic contextual factors shape DDR processes, arguing that attention to the historical and political economy context of a post-war country is central when developing DDR programmes. The future plan of this research initiative is to generate in-depth and comparative insights on processes of social, political and economic reintegration.
