Military Politics And Democratization In Southern Africa

This book explores multiple challenges faced by democratization in Southern Africa. Applying a wider lens to the concept of political transition and employing a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, the contributions gathered here explore residual political cultural practices that hinder democratic consolidation in Southern Africa. Presenting various case studies, the book tackles themes such as the military-political nexus, leadership renewal, constitutionalism, electoral politics, election violence, marginalization of women, civil society and political transition, media framing and transitional justice. Written from a multidisciplinary perspective and drawing on empirical data from multiple sources, this edited volume challenges orthodox conceptualizations of political transition. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, African studies, and related fields, as well as policy-makers and professionals interested in the latest political developments in Southern Africa.

The impact of the concept(s) of armed struggle for the notion(s) of democracy in South(ern) Africa is the focus of this paper. Originally submitted to a conference on (Re-) Conceptualising Democracy and Liberation in Southern Africa, held in Windhoek, Namibia during July 2002, it argues from the point of departure of the personal involvement of the author in the issues raised.The author was part of a group which criticised the strategy of armed struggle in the ANC. With this paper he inspires a debate, which can claim relevance for current issues of democracy in South Africa and the Southern African region more generally. Given the degree of personal involvement of its author, this analysis is contemporary history based on personal insights, and provides arguments for a necessary discussion.

Southern Africa has embarked on one of the world's most ambitious security co-operation initiatives, seeking to roll out the principles of the United Nations at regional levels. This book examines the triangular relationship between democratisation, the character of democracy and its deficits, and national security practices and perceptions of eleven southern African states. It explores what impact these processes and practices have had on the collaborative security project in the region. Based on national studies conducted by African academics and security practitioners over three years, it includes an examination of the way security is conceived and managed, as well as a comparative analysis of regional security co-operation in the developing world.

In October 1994, the Strategic Studies Institute sponsored a roundtable on democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa. Particular attention was paid to the role the U.S. military and Department of Defense played in democracy support. This study developed from a paper presented at the roundtable. Dr. Butts and Dr. Metz reject the notion that the political culture of African states allows or even encourages military intervention in politics. Drawing on case studies from Nigeria and South Africa, they contend that if the fragile democracies in Sub- Saharan Africa are to be sustained, African militaries must be extricated from politics and take decisive steps toward the type of military professionalism seen in stable democracies around the world. U.S. national interests in Sub-Saharan Africa are so limited that the region will receive only a very small proportion of the human, political, military, and economic resources devoted to American national security strategy. This makes efficiency imperative. Dr. Butts and Dr. Metz argue that if U.S. strategic resources are used wisely in Africa, they can have the desired effect. In particular, the U.S. military can play an important part in helping African militaries professionalize. They close with concrete proposals through which the U.S. Department of Defense and the Army could more effectively support African democratization.

Looking at how armies supportive of democracy are built, this title argues that the military is the important institution that states maintain, for without military elites who support democratic governance, democracy cannot be consolidated. It demonstrates that building democratic armies is the quintessential task of democratizing regimes.

The relationship between civil society and the armed forces is an essential part of any polity, democratic or otherwise, because a military force is after all a universal feature of social systems. Despite significant progress moving towards democracy among some African countries in the past decade, all too many African militaries have yet to accept core democratic principles regulating civilian authority over the military. This book explores the theory of civil-military relations and moves on to review the intrusion of the armed forces in African politics by looking first into the organization and role of the army in pre-colonial and colonial eras, before examining contemporary armies and their impact on society. Furthermore it revisits the various explanations of military takeovers in Africa and disentangles the notion of the military as the modernizing force. Whether as a revolutionary force, as a stabilizing force, or as a modernizing force, the military has often been perceived as the only organized and disciplined group with the necessary skills to uplift newly independent nations. The performance of Africa's military governments since independence, however, has soundly disproven this thesis. As such, this study conveys the necessity of new civil-military relations in Africa and calls not just for civilian control of the military but rather a democratic oversight of the security forces in Africa.

Unlike other publications on the military and politics in Africa which focus on one or two aspects of the involvement of the military in African politics, this text provides a comprehensive evaluation of the various aspects of military intervention. Such a collection provides useful insights into the military's role in African politics from initial intervention to the performance of military regimes, as well as to disengagement, reengagement, consolidation and finally, the offering of ways to control the problem of intervention.