Robin Luckham

The international community and state reconstruction in war‐torn societies

There is some hubris in the idea that the international community (and in particular the major donors and international bodies) can assist the reconstruction of entire states and national societies after war and state collapse. Yet in recent years this is precisely what it has been attempting in country after country, including Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia and (even more problematically) in Iraq. War and political violence in the developing world have been endemic since World War II. There has been a gradual long-term increase in the number of conflicts in progress at any one time, but largely because more conflicts have been started than have ended. Many of the most virulent conflicts—notably those in Afghanistan, Angola, Burma, Colombia, the DRC, Indonesia, Kashmir, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Sudan—have roots that extend back two to five decades. An immediate upsurge in conflicts after the end of the Cold War was followed by a decline starting in the mid-1990s (Fearon and Laitin, 2003), reflecting the success of conflict resolution efforts, for instance in Central America. Even so, the tendency for conflicts to become self-perpetuating or to reignite over the long term underscores the priority of peace building and reconstruction. Even if the number of wars has not dramatically increased, their nature and impact has. ‘New’, ‘post-modern’ or ‘network’ wars have challenged political authority, governance, and the entire social fabric of conflict-torn states more directly than did earlier wars (Kaldor, 1999; Kaldor and Luckham, 2001; Duffield, 2001). These wars have also

French militarism in Africa

In the annals of foreign military intervention in independent Africa, it has been French forces that have been involved far more often than any other outside power. At least eighteen times in the last twenty‐five years French troops have invaded African soil. But equally significant, and indeed providing the platform for the more dramatic interventions, are the extensive networks of regular military co‐operation. Several single explanations of Frances militarism in Africa are explored: that it preserves French capitals interests; that it protects multinational, especially US, interests; that it promotes the interests of a military‐industrial complex; that it cements alliances with African states, but particularly with certain ruling classes and regimes. An effort is made to situate these perspectives in a more nuanced view of French imperialism and the French state. Finally, the new departures and the continuities of policy under the Socialist government are reviewed.

Hybrid security governance in Africa: rethinking the foundations of security, justice and legitimate public authority

Abstract This article asks whether the concept of ‘hybridity’ offers a more convincing account of security governance in Africa than the standard state-focused models. It seeks to clarify the complex intersections between formal and informal, state and non-state security actors, and the varied terrains on which hybridity is constructed, instrumentalised and recalibrated over time. Rather than romanticising informal or ‘traditional’ institutions, it suggests that they too embed their own power hierarchies, become sites of contestation, and do not work equally well for everyone, least of all for the weak, vulnerable and excluded. Thus the focus is placed upon the real governance of security in hybrid systems, and the patterns of inclusion and exclusion (including gender biases) they reinforce. Finally the paper considers how policy-makers and shapers can work with the grain of hybrid security arrangements to create more legitimate, broadly-based and effective African security governance.

Understanding security in the vernacular in hybrid political contexts: a critical survey

In this article we propose two alternative yet interrelated definitions of security, which jointly encapsulate its dual and contested nature. These definitions were constructed to guide a literature search designed to uncover evidence of how security looks ‘from below’ or ‘in the vernacular’, through the eyes of ‘end-users’ of security arrangements, and how it is determined in the power laden and multi-levelled contexts of contemporary violent conflicts. According to the first (or supply side) view: security is the creation and maintenance of authoritative social orders including, but not confined to, those we term states. According to the second (or demand side) view: security is a basic entitlement of those who are supposed to be protected by these social orders. We argue that these definitions make it easier to navigate the conceptual, moral and policy confusion which pervades discussion of security and development. This confusion stems from a deep duality in the theory and practice of security itself, which complicates the relationships between security and political power in the hybrid political orders of ‘fragile’ and conflict-torn states.

Democracy and the military: An epitaph for Frankenstein's monster?

This article contends that the relationship between the military and democracy is inherently problematic, even in advanced democracies, but more so in developing countries, including those where transitions to democracy have recently taken place. These transitions have usually been speeded by the fracturing of authoritarian regimes and their military and security structures (which are seldom completely monolithic). An analytical model illustrates the differing circumstances in which this fracturing produces democratization, rather than intensified repression, armed conflict or state collapse. The article goes on to argue that democracies will remain at risk so long as the manifold legacies of authoritarian rule are not confronted, including privileged, non‐accountable military and security bureaucracies. The dangers of authoritarian rule within a formally democratic shell may be as great as, and more difficult to detect than, those of direct military reintervention.

The discordant voices of 'security'

This article examines the links between development and ‘security’, situating these concepts within their philosophical and political contexts, particularly in relation to contemporary wars, including the ‘war on terror’, and the so-called ‘securitisation’ of development. The security of states does not necessarily ensure the security of their citizens, and the very concept of security is both complex and contested. The author provides a succinct summary of various interpretations of security – of states, collectivities, and individuals – showing how each is double-edged or ambivalent.

Security and disarmament in Africa

The article begins by noting that the evolution of the earlier term ‘defence’, through a brief life as ‘collective security’ (coinciding with the life of the League of Nations), into ‘security’ is not merely a semantic variation; it signifies a qualitative change in the connotation of the term. It traces how, born in the aftermath of World War II and most commonly used in the cold war, security has come to mean, in this age of American imperialism, not just the defence of the United States against aggression, but also a wide variety of other things: security of US allies and camp followers; security of the ‘West’; security of the ‘free world’ (so called in obvious avoidance of the use of ‘capitalist international order’); security of the control of this order over resources, no matter where located (through whatever means, including the use of naked force); security for pliant regimes, security of the ruling elites against their own peoples and, in countries outside the orbit of US hegemony, destabilization, even over-throw (through covert operations or armed intervention), of governments—in short, security of the existing political and economic global system under US safe-keeping. The only thing ‘security’ excludes from its ambit is the security of the people against war, against hunger and disease, against institutional oppression, and against structural exploitation. The article goes on to spell out the implications and consequences of the application of this concept of ‘security’ in Africa and discusses ways of operationalizing the other concept of security in which the safety and well-being of the people takes the first place, which points to the need for eventual disarmament, however unrealistic it may seem today for a variety of reasons, the most important of them being the colonial bequest of conflicts and causes of conflict, and the vested interest of the international capitalist system in perpetuating African dependency and underdevelopment.

Whose violence, whose security? Can violence reduction and security work for poor, excluded and vulnerable people?

Abstract This paper probes behind the assumptions underpinning the violence reduction agendas of the UN and the World Bank: that all forms of violence are commensurate and fit neatly into causal models; that violence is ‘development in reverse’ and inseparable from state fragility; and that security is a self-evident public good. It presents a framework to classify global, state and non-state or local violences and the interactions amongst them. It suggests that the starting point for any evaluation of security as well as violence reduction should be the vernacular understandings and day-to-day experience of poor, excluded and vulnerable people, including those living at insurgent margins.

Foreign powers and militarism in the horn of Africa: part I

A central argument of this paper is that the conflicts in the Horn can be understood as a collision of geographical cycles: those established by the working out of local historical processes in the Horn; and those by the working out of historical processes at the global level, including crises in the international economy and the new Cold War. Weapons have been one of the crucial links between these cycles. They have also been central in the emergence of hegemonic cycles at the global level. Major powers aquire interests in global territory, airspace and oceans both to protect their own access to resources and to valorise their accumulation of arms and military power.

Armaments, Underdevelopment and Demilitarisation in Africa

The process of militarization in Africa includes not only the actual acquisition of weapons, but also the extension of military values into political and social structures. This has contributed to an expansion in the size and power of the military establishment, to a reliance on repression by authoritarian regimes, to the continuance of internal and external war, and to an ideology that equates national sovereignty with military power. The background of this militarization lies in the domination of Africa by Western imperial interests. As such, Western proposals for disarmament generate suspicion; they are viewed as simply one more means to keep Africa subordinate. The continued militarization of the continent, however, can only help sustain this dependence and deepen the contradictions in African societies.