Revisiting the Civil-Military Conundrum in Africa

Abstract

The military is a central component of the state and society with implications for statehood and social stability. Since independence, Africa has grappled with contentious and contradictory roles of armed forces whether they be part of or against the state. Much of the early scholarship on the role of the military tended to paint a positive picture, presenting it as a critical pillar and an agent of modernisation for the newly independent states. This was to change drastically in the era of routine and rampant coups d'états and proliferation of organised rebel activities. But the continent has undergone significant changes since the end of the Cold War. This introduction highlights some of the major changes at the centre of transformations in relations between African militaries and civilian authorities and the public. The overall focus of the introduction, and the entire special issue, is to reposition the theoretical and conceptual aperture for analysing civil-military relations in Africa.

Surviving revolution and democratisation: the Sudan armed forces, state fragility and security competition

“…Securocrats play a major role in the attempted bolstering of internal and external sovereignty in some fractured African states; in such cases, ‘the close integration of armed forces in political decision-making and tasks of domestic governance’ reflects the imperative identified by political leaders and their military rivals-cum-partners that institutional cohesion is critical to extending durable order and that military organisation and means are better suited to the task than strictly civilian, liberal alternatives (Day et al . 2020: 167). This 21st century resurgence of ‘militarism’ in Africa seeks to buttress authority not only at home but also abroad through a securitisation of development (Fisher & Anderson 2015; Abrahamsen 2018).…”

Guinea-Bissau: 30 years of militarized democratization (1991–2021)

“…Studies on militarizing political disputes in Africa attest to the correlation between ethnic armed forces, authoritarianism, and violent political change in the continent (Harkness, 2017;Allen, 2019;Day et al, 2020). As an approach to addressing these threats to democratization in Africa, Harkness points to the ethnic diversity of the Senegalese armed forces as preventing them from being used for ethnic based political agendas.…”

Sudan’s Normalization with Israel: A Break with the Past or Another Phase of Extraversion?

“…In African authoritarian regimes, the cooperation of armies with foreign partners has played an important role in shaping civil-military relations. In strategically located countries, these relations increasingly reflect “the intersection of external security interests and internal political imperatives” (Day et al 2020:164). A similar impact has been noted with respect to armies that have dominated or shielded political regimes in the Middle East, where the military has often sought strong foreign relations to acquire new technologies and implement its vision of modernization to promote its legitimacy (Droz-Vincent 2007).…”