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Demilitarisation, Non-State Actors and Public Security in Africa: a Preliminary Survey of the Literature

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Demilitarisation, Non-State Actors and Public Security in Africa: a Preliminary Survey of the Literature Published by Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform University of Cranfield Shrivenham, UK ISSN 1740-2425 Volume 2 Number 4 – December 2004 Demilitarisation, Non-State Actors and Public Security in Africa: A Preliminary Survey of the Literature Jeffrey Isima http://www.jofssm.org/issues/jofssm_0204_isima.doc Jeffrey Isima / Demilitarisation, Non-State Actors and Public Security in Africa: A Preliminary Survey of the Literature Introduction The search for security has been one of the most crucial concerns of nation-states since Westphalia, which conferred on the state the obligation of securing and developing its citizens. The logic of external state sovereignty requires that states, with their divergent and often conflicting interests, take into their own hands the responsibility of maintaining their respective survival in the absence of an external guarantor. This is in spite of the (unrealistic) optimism and dreams of the new peace and greater security in the new world order with the cessation of super power confrontation at the end of the 1980s.1 The costly preoccupation of states with security concerns appeared to have yielded relief as the spectre of a nuclear threat was replaced by the hope of greater international cooperation and an unprecedented pace of globalisation.2 However, rather than ushering in an era of global peace and security, the end of the Cold War and aspects of globalisation have exposed the declining capacity of the state to fulfil its key traditional role as the provider of security (here the use of the word "security" means the protection of citizens from physical violence). The universal acceptance of this role received the greatest inspiration from the works of modern political thoughts, which regard to security as a public good, with the most influential of this thinking coming from Max Weber (1964). He argues for state monopoly over the instruments of legitimate violence as the most fundamental characteristic of statehood 3. The growing inability of the state to fulfil this function had become evident even before the end of the Cold War. The state’s monopoly of legitimate violence is being boldly confronted by actors other than the state, which have emerged on the scene to share in the use of organised violence; thus forcing the state to falter in its responsibility to protect the lives and properties of citizens. In Africa, the loss of this monopoly is 1 Optimists of the post-Cold War peace and cooperation include Steven van Evera, ‘Primed for Peace: Europe after the Cold War’, International Security, 15: 3, Winter 1990-1991, pp. 7-57; Carl Kaysen, ‘Is War Obsolete?’ International Security, 14: 4, Spring 1990, pp. 42-64; and Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. 2 Many writers have condemned as premature the euphoria of global peace that the end of the Cold War generated. See Richard H. Schultz, Jr., Roy Godson and George H. Quester, ‘Introduction’, in Richard H. Schultz, Jr., Roy Godson and George H. Quester (eds), Security Studies for the 21st Century (Washington: Brassey’s Inc., 1997). 3 This argument is based on the assumption that the state is an impartial bureaucratic entity that exercises this monopoly to protect the entire population without discrimination and that it is accountable to those it claims to protect. See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, translated by T. M. Knox (Oxford: 1952; originally published in 1821), pp. 188f; and Max Weber, Economy and Society, edited by G. Roth and C. Wittiche (New York: 1976; originally published in 1923), pp.48ff. 2 December 2004 - Journal of Security Sector Management © GFN-SSR, 2004 Jeffrey Isima / Demilitarisation, Non-State Actors and Public Security in Africa: A Preliminary Survey of the Literature most evident in the unchecked proliferation of a broad range of private security forces, including armed drug lords, war lords, trans-border violent criminals, gangs, militias, vigilante groups and private military and security providers (Taulbee 2002: 2-3; Hutchful 2000: 219-222). Most of these forces, already in existence, were unleashed by the sudden abdication of super power commitments to maintain regimes that lacked a broad domestic legitimacy base for upholding the ‘right’ ideology (Taulbee 2002: 3). This global strategic change also coincided with a drastic reduction of the political influence of the military and security agencies of the state (demilitarisation)4 as part of the broader agenda of democratisation in the region. Demilitarisation is seen as a prerequisite for democratic consolidation (Luckham 1998: 589), since it is the military and security forces of the state that had mostly, directly or indirectly, dominated the political space to keep undemocratic regimes in power. Demilitarisation in Africa has thus required the altering of civil-military relations to create a political context in which the military become democratically accountable to the civil society through elected representatives in government. Yet demilitarisation requires a further probe beyond democratic governance of the state’s armed security forces. This has become particularly urgent in the course of democratic transition in Africa, where physical security had become the pre-eminent concern of citizens as the state lost the capacity to provide what Hutchful (2000: 211) calls ‘the fundamental conditions for protection of life’. This paper seeks to inquire into the process of demilitarisation carried out by democratic governments in Africa and how it has impacted on the physical security of their citizens as individuals and communities, with the growth of non-state forces. This is attempted by considering the concepts and problems of demilitarisation and public security in Africa. It also undertakes a tentative exploration of the extant literature to unravel what is known so far and to highlight uncharted areas for further research. In this regard, rather than providing answers to a set of questions, this paper will attempt to generate more questions and provoke thought in the issues. Demilitarisation and Public Security The recession of authoritarianism and the consequent transition to democracy in sub-Sahara African countries, sparked off since the dawn of the 1990s, opened a window of opportunity for rapid improvement of human security by permitting the evolution of a supportive political and constitutional climate. In pursuit of the broad project of democratic 4 Various authors have defined demilitarisation differently. However, the common thread is that it is concerned with the reduction of military power, influence, resources and activities in the policy of a given government. It is used here to mean the reduction of the power and influence of armed forces in domestic politics. For an elaborate definition of the concept of demilitarisation, see UN Research Institute for Social Development (1995), p.209; Darryl Thomas and Ali Mazrui, ‘Africa’s Post-Cold War Demilitarisation: Domestic and Global Causes’, in Journal of International Affairs, Summer 1992, vol. 46, no. 1,pp157- 174; Guy Lamb, ‘Reflections on Demilitarisation: A Southern African Perspective’, in International Peacekeeping, vol. 7, no. 3, Autumn 2000; and Alex de Waal (ed), Demilitarising the Mind: African Agenda for Peace and Security, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press Inc., 2002. 3 December 2004 - Journal of Security Sector Management © GFN-SSR, 2004 Jeffrey Isima / Demilitarisation, Non-State Actors and Public Security in Africa: A Preliminary Survey of the Literature consolidation, some of the new democratic governments in the region, most notably South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana, have sought to demilitarise their societies. They have achieved this through the establishment of accountable democratic control over their armed forces (Cawthra 2003: 38; Fayemi 2003: 67; Hutchful 2003: 85-86) and to balance civil-military relations in favour of civilian supremacy through a host of institutional reforms, including the agenda of security sector reform (SSR)5. The assumption behind these initiatives is that democratic governance of stable, unified armed forces is necessary to put transitional countries (including Africa) back on the path of stability, security, economic growth and sustainable development (Cilliers 1996: 85; Hendrickson & Karkoszka 2002; DFID 2002). These initiatives are thus necessary to create the enabling environment for improved public security following democratic transition from the era of state coercion and the violent political crises generated as a result. While these measures have succeeded, to some extent, in putting the military back in the barracks and bringing it under a greater degree of democratic accountability and control they seem not to have improved the physical security of citizens in the public domain. What is observable is that new forms of insecurity emerging from within the civil society have accompanied the process of demilitarising the state, almost immediately. With a few exceptions, populations in most of SSA countries no longer fear the spectre of a military ‘comeback’ (now regarded as anachronistic)6 or any intention of the armed forces to return to defiance of the democratic order, as anywhere else in the post-Cold War global strategic environment (Luckham 2003: 10). Rather, a more important threat to the security of citizens in many African countries today comes from the phenomenal growth of armed violence precipitated by the activities of emerging non- state militant actors that challenge the position of the state as the sole security actor even in peacetime. 5 Security sector reform (SSR) became the popular term for promoting good governance within the security sector since 1998 when Nicole Ball developed a proposal for the UK government on the subject. See Nicole Ball, Spreading Good Practices in Security Sector Reform: Policy Options for the British Government, (London: Saferworld, December 1998). But it is the UK Department for International Development (DFID) that placed SSR on the international agenda as argued by Dylan Hendrickson in, A review of security sector reform, Working Paper 1, Centre for Defence Studies, University of London, 1999, p 9.
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