"The security-development nexus in Africa"
 
Richard Cornwell, Senior research Fellow, ISS

Brussels, September 13, 2005

Richard Cornwell, Senior Research Fellow, African Security Analysis Programme, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria:

"I want, by way of preface, to begin with a few cautionary and general remarks about the extremely difficult field that this conference seeks to address.

First, the large number of detailed case studies now emerging about what are rather coyly referred to in international diplomatic circles as complex political emergencies make it plain that there are constraints on the generalisations we may safely make based upon historical studies, let alone on extant cases.

The variables we encounter are so many, so diffuse, complex and nuanced, changing unevenly and in a non-linear fashion through time and across space, that even were we able to lay claim to perfect knowledge, we would find our attempts to construct a predictive theory of complex emergencies either frustrated or dangerously misleading.

That being said, historical case studies and the analysis of contemporary phenomena are all we have to guide us as we struggle to come to terms with the challenges of an uncertain world.

A large degree of modesty is becoming, therefore, as we patch together “lessons learned” and “best practices” in peacemaking or conflict prevention.

 

African politics and security after the Cold War

Although the sudden end of the Cold War confirmed the diminution of the risk of a cataclysmic confrontation between the superpowers, it also reconfigured the global environment in a number of ways less favourable to human security as a whole. In part, this situation was created by the premature triumphalism of the neo-liberals, who could no longer imagine a future other than that offered by their blinkered gurus, let alone devise the means to cope with the human crises that would ensue.

The much-heralded peace dividend proved to be more modest than might have been expected, as many established militaries, eager to preserve their institutional integrity, perforce refocused on new threats to state security requiring the maintenance of high levels of readiness and expenditure. There was some reduction in force levels, though this had the unanticipated consequence of swelling the ranks of those offering for sale their skill at arms in a, largely unregulated, privatised market. It also resulted in the rapid proliferation of weapons, as redundant arsenals were sold off at bargain prices.

On a more positive note -- among those in academic and policy circles inclined to take a broader, more abstract, view of affairs, the end of the bipolar superpower rivalry opened the way for a welcome resumption of a more open debate on security issues, freed from the shackles of ideologically expressed bloc formation, and now able to attempt a definition of security far broader  than previously had seemed possible.

Thus, the early 1990s saw the re-emergence and deepening of a human rights debate that had characterised the years immediately following the end of World War II, and the foundation of the United Nations. Of course, in 1945 this discourse was rooted in the hopes entertained for this multinational body, and the acceptance, on paper at least, of universal rights and duties founded on a global network of effective states.

Where the later debate differed most markedly from that reflected in the UN charters of the 1940s was in the insistence of many of the participants that people and communities rather than states should be considered the essential reference point in any discussion of security. As might have been expected, this led to a degree of tension between the proponents of what came, misleadingly, to be known as “soft” and “hard” security.

That broad conceptions of human security and their traditional state-centred counterparts might not prove easily compatible was highlighted by global reactions to the tragic events of 11 September 2001. Although this response was almost unanimous in its condemnation of the attacks, the identification of the most efficacious long-term counter-measures and the philosophy underpinning these differed quite starkly.

In a search for clues to understanding a security environment that might assist the activities of international terrorists, the USA and many of its allies in the North drew attention to the growing number of weak and failing states that had emerged across the world in the 1990s. Some of these states comprised the southern belt of ex-Soviet Republics or dependencies; others were the jettisoned remnants of informal aid-based empires, now largely thrown back upon their own inadequate resources for survival. The proliferation of weak or even failed states, unable effectively to police their territories seemed to present opportunities for those enemies of the "new world order" in the shape both of vulnerable foreign targets and base and recruitment areas.

On this analysis, it followed that the way to counter "asymmetric war" was either to reinforce the security apparatus of weak states or to support the agendas of local political forces willing to do so. The West’s public policy obsession with democratic transitions and political accountability in Africa and Asia faded somewhat, to be replaced by policing considerations, with less concern for the extent to which these might circumscribe human rights or attenuate fragile democratic freedoms. In effect the official security agenda had moved back to a position resembling that prevailing during the Cold War, even to the degree that democratic freedoms in the “model democracies” of the West were no longer publicly regarded as sacrosanct.

Certain other analysts, using a non-government perspective, drew different conclusions, and sought to use the events of 9/11 to draw attention to the glaring inequities of a global order moving apparently inexorably towards the marginalisation of the majority of people, especially in the South. For these analysts the events of 11 September offered different lessons, and served as a reminder of the need to focus increasingly on human rather than national security, which could so easily transform itself into State, and eventually elite, security.

 

What are the implications of this continuing debate for Africa?

There seems a danger that, in their official policy positions, the rich countries of the North will continue to concentrate on global policing and, by extension, State security, with human security being regarded as merely concomitant. On this view the developing world, including Africa, comes to be regarded as an operational zone, rather than as a set of communities deserving of the world’s attention on their own terms. The expressed concern about the importance of local ownership of security solutions also helps us very little in this regard, in that the owners are very often identified with local elites whose own activities and interests themselves constitute part of the problem.

Human security is, in any case, an idea with which many of the wealthier countries are less comfortable, since it suggests that they address certain systemic sources of growing global inequity.

Yet an emphasis on people-centred security as a conscious adjunct to that of State security is essential if peace and development are to be secured by Africa's masses. In what we are assured is a globalising world, security is indivisible, and cannot be reduced to the operations of police and other security agencies; neither are stability and security by any means synonymous, for security cannot be equated with the maintenance of an inequitable status quo, except by the cynical beneficiaries of this arrangement.

Looked at from a slightly different vantage point, many more people are currently exposed to non-traditional threats to their security than to death either directly or indirectly as a consequence of armed conflict or terrorism. Famine, HIV/AIDS, disease, and the other manifestations of maldevelopment all constitute endemic threats to the livelihoods and lives of Africans. Of course, some of these non-military threats do contribute or lead to armed conflict; they also complicate the construction of some kind of post-conflict society.

 

Africa in the world: Inequality and inequity as sources of insecurity

The current popular debate about African security is informed by a number of unspoken assumptions. From an internal continental perspective the most important of these have to do with the role of the State in providing security to African societies, and the relationship of the State to its security apparatus. Many of the normative models we apply in these discussions are drawn from the historical experience of a handful of strong, capable and effective nation states, occupying a dominant position in the global economy.

To what extent is this model applicable to what we see in Africa today, especially given the continent's tenuous position on the global margins?

This is an important consideration, because it points to the need to consider Africa's position in the world as an essential part of the debate about the security of its people. Attempts to focus the security debate more sharply on issues related to violent international conflict, its avoidance and amelioration define the compass of security far too narrowly to be useful in the African context or, indeed, across much of the world. But focussing on inter-state competition or other open conflict as the principal sources of security threats also diverts attention from a phenomenon long identified in the social science literature: structural violence.

Structural violence may manifest itself in a multitude of ways and at various levels of interaction; the level at issue here is that of structural violence at the international level, which consists in the deliberate maintenance of a global system based on fundamental and self-reinforcing inequity. We know that structural violence within countries and communities, even families, may lead eventually to actual, physical, violence, yet too many people persist in the belief that structural violence on a global scale will have no such consequences. They also assume that people’s livelihoods are threatened far more by physical than structural violence, which is by no means universally true.

Of course, systemic structural violence is often causally linked to violent conflict, and the increasing polarisation of haves and have-nots and the marginalisation of ever increasing portions of mankind, would seem to be a necessary component of any comprehensive explanation of many conflicts, including those in Africa.

In a “globalising world” both structural and physical violence, though they may appear local in nature, also have global linkages to essential “external” actors. In terms of structural violence, one has to see the local manifestations as part of a continuum, linking particular instances to the place allotted them in the international scheme of things.

Those who seek to narrow the security debate to areas of traditional concern also limit their analysis and, sometimes unintentionally, provide an alibi for the wealthier, more globally influential countries, allowing them to ignore their own role in perpetuating this systemic imbalance. This is a welcome escape for politicians unwilling to take the long view or to persuade their electorates that their present discomfort is a precondition for global peace, and that equity, and self-interest, will demand that the citizens of the wealthy countries limit their claim to the bulk of the world's resources.  For Africa to gain equitable access to the global market, for instance, certainly requires that the dominant players forego some of the extremely unfair advantage they currently enjoy.

Recent publications emanating from the World Bank would suggest that some of these systemic imbalances are beginning to draw the attention of policymakers, though the nostrums advanced as a result fall somewhat short of wholesale transformation. Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa, though a welcome initiative, also noted the difficulty in finding answers to the continent’s problems sufficiently radical to have an impact, but not so radical as to be impossible of becoming policy adopted by the major powers. The argument is that the decisions that would need to be taken by the rich nations would carry an impossible political price tag domestically. In such a situation it is relatively easy to slip into a cynical frame of mind in which promises to the poor may be made by one leader of a prominent northern state in the almost certain knowledge that others will be seen to prevent him from delivering.

In this context we should, perhaps, consider the implications for Africa of the essentially neo-liberal assumptions underlying the New Partnership for Africa's Development and the rewards of globalisation so widely touted in the international media as “inevitable” for countries surrendering to its blandishments are in any real sense historically available.

 

Resources and conflict: Conflict and social transformation

Let us now focus on the role of economic resources in provoking, enabling and prolonging violent conflict, for this relates to the human agency so often neglected in early warning systems and conflict analysis. It is true that wars have sometimes been initiated in the hope of material gain. Indeed as the African continent sees an overlap between conflicts of an intrastate and interstate nature, itself a phenomenon predicated upon State weakness, neo-mercantilist wars seem to have re-emerged as a trend. In some of these we even see the deployment of national armies in defence of the private interests of political elites, which has led some authors to speculate on whether we are witnessing the privatisation of sovereignty itself. Whether international peacekeeping forces themselves can aloof from this kind of activity and other forms of private enrichment is also a question that needs to be borne in mind. The proliferation of private security companies and even "private military companies" is a further manifestation of the spread of the private sector into areas previously held to be the preserve of the State.

The question might be posed as to whether we are looking through the right end of the telescope. Is it that wars are sometimes fought, primarily or partially, for the financial and economic gain they offer? Or is it more accurate to say that war alters the environment in which economies have to continue, at all levels, and that they adjust accordingly. The political economy of disorder offers opportunities not always available in the "normal" circumstances of peacetime.

In this environment the violent entrepreneur may enjoy advantages denied to his more civil counterpart. This may even persuade businessmen who see themselves as otherwise quite orthodox and law-abiding engaging in enterprises with less reputable, though deniable, partners. The economic agendas of conflicts in which the business of war merges almost imperceptibly into criminal activity of an organised or opportunistic nature, have gained increasing currency.

It is widely assumed that international investors prefer transparent and predictable legal environments in which to operate, but political elites may choose to leave elements of the law deliberately vague, to allow them to promote their individual advantage in circumstances of dispute. In other words, equity and transparency are seldom in the short-term advantage of those with power and wealth. Failing or even collapsed states may offer many profitable opportunities to those ruthless and bold enough to venture into them.

                                   

Conflict alters not only the political but also the social landscape, placing a premium upon the ability to use, or threaten the use, of lethal force. Men-at-arms find themselves catapulted up the social ladder, often regardless of their lack of peacetime skills. Is it then surprising that some seek to take advantage of their newly elevated position to secure material wealth against the time when they find themselves once more unemployed or even unemployable? In the absence of a bank account an AK-47 may substitute effectively for a cheque-book. All this, of course, points to the increasingly blurred continuum from violent crime to violent conflict; indeed, there are times when the two are virtually indistinguishable and may easily coexist in time and space. It seems unlikely that those who benefit from violence, structural or physical, will easily be persuaded to abandon their positions of dominance.

The new security environment, which favours the activities of muscular private and semi-private entrepreneurs, is enabled by the ostensible retreat of global State actors from the margins. The end of bipolar superpower rivalry has robbed Africa of much of the political significance it had in global strategic terms. Certainly the USA and others retain an interest in those parts of Africa seen as susceptible to penetration by "terrorist networks". There is also a growing concern to secure permanent access to the burgeoning energy resources of the Gulf of Guinea. None of this, however, is likely to involve engagement of the type that might prove beneficial, or conducive, to the broader idea of human security in Africa.

The demands for Africa to liberalise and open its economies to external penetration have played no small part in weakening State structures in the continent and depriving them of their scant popular legitimacy. The absence of policy choices in ostensibly democratic systems -- "choiceless democracies" in the telling phrase of Thandika Mkandawire -- has meant that political competition may be stripped of ideas and reduced to a naked struggle for the fruits of office, a zero-sum game in which the end justifies any means, including most notably the militianisation of politics.

In certain instances, most notably, though not exclusively, in Africa, the State has to all intents and purposes collapsed as a functioning entity. Sometimes that collapse is only partial, in that the agencies of the State are still able to exercise some sporadic control over parts of the national territory. It is against this background that we have to consider the growing number of intrastate conflicts. A growing number of civilians, as opposed to armies and security forces, are becoming involved in this violence, often for no obvious or clearly articulated political reason.

These instances of turmoil are the local and particular manifestations of a common crisis of individual and group identity in the context of deepening social inequality and fragmentation. The combined effects of weakened State administrative and policy apparatuses, the current cessation of bipolar ideological competition and the accelerating and unaccountable processes known as globalisation have called into question some of the more fundamental and familiar premises upon which our lives and our sense of security are based. Prominent among these is the nation-state project. Globalisation and the expansion of economic scale has implications not only for State capacity and legitimacy but also for society at large as various groups and individuals seek to redefine themselves in a rapidly changing domestic and individual environment. Some analysts have gone so far as to suggest that many intrastate conflicts are manifestations of the disempowered’s attempts to come to terms with the adverse effects of globalization as experienced within marginalised societies.

In Africa, there are regional alliances forming between private actors, or leaders who appropriate the framework of the State to their own ends and in their own private interest. In this environment the UN and other intragovernmental agencies find themselves ill at ease, having to deal with individuals both as the source of power and wealth and as the origin of ambiguous signals in a rapidly changing environment.

The picture painted here is not one that would be recognised easily by the authors of the standard political science texts of twenty years ago. The world in which we find ourselves has changed immeasurably since then, and we have to adjust our thinking if we are to recognise and come to terms with the new challenges.

This will require that we begin to question commonly held assumptions about the links between conflict, security and development, and about what we mean when we use these apparently simple concepts. Almost before we know it, we find ourselves unpacking the nature of the State, and finding that it is a common term applied to a number of very different phenomena, though each variant is treated in international law as equivalent. Once we have done that, we find that subconsciously accepted theories of economic development come under scrutiny.

Is it even possible that the global development orthodoxy contributes to conflict and other complex emergencies?

If so, what are the implications for the attempts to use these neo-liberal orthodoxies to reconstruct post-conflict states?

In short then: is returning war-torn societies into the current mainstream of conventional development ultimately likely to promote peace and ensure their survival?

To end by quoting from Green and Ahmed: “Peacebuilding involves fundamental questions not only about what to reconstruct but also how to do so in order not to recreate the unsustainable institutions and structures that originally contributed to the conflict.”