Andy Aitchison, lecturer in social policy at the University of Edinburgh, talks about his book, 'Making the Transition: International Intervention, State-Building and Criminal Justice Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina', which was published in early 2011.
Here he discusses some of the key issues explored in the book, which include the role of the criminal justice system in state building, and the role of international agencies in both re-building but also changing criminal justice. Regarding international agencies Andy talks about how there is an ordering of priorities with a high priority placed on security, followed by the rule of law, leaving prisons as a relatively low priority.
There's also a high degree of self interest amongst international actors, for insance, directing their energy towards preventing crime that can spill over borders. In the future Andy plans to explore some of the same issues around changing the criminal justice system which he explored in this book but now looking at these issues in a very different country, Scotland. He specifically plans to look at criminal justice and the dynamics between the central and sub state levels of governance.
Recorded April 2011.