Transformation in the South African Military: A Study of the Gender-Representivity Component in the South African Navy

In 1994 the newly elected ANC government embarked on an ambitious project of transformation, of which gender equality is a critical principle. The South African Navy is required to implement this principle of gender equality as part of its transformation. Our assessment starts with the Navy’s policies regarding Gender Transformation, proceeding to an examination of the numbers of women serving in the Navy, their rank distribution, the situation compared to 1999 and the situation compared to men in the Navy. The growth in the number of women and their current number is strikingly good. Yet they may not indicate any success in transforming the SAN because the number of women in temporary positions is high and because temporary employees usually do not leave their mark on an organisation

South Africa's Strategic Arms Package: A critical Analysis

The South African government's Strategic Arms Package (SAP), has been the largest public controversy of the post-Apartheid era. We synthesise the debates about two dimensions of the SAP, military necessity and affordability, in order to get a better understanding of civil-military relations in democratic South Africa. Our synthesis shows that the economic enthusiasm about the SAP is both naïve and an opportunity for government and dominant business and industry to wed their interests in a way that is not that different from the Apartheid era. In military terms, the SAP has equipped the South African Air Force (SAAF) and South African Navy (SAN) for the most improbable of primary missions. The equipment is also not very relevant to secondary missions. The way that the SAP decisions were reached suggests that civil-military relations are marked by the continuing impact of past compromises, corruption and the centralisation of power in the executive branch

Securitisation: The Case of Post-9/11 United States Africa Policy

In the wake of 9/11, Africa was securitised in a new way by the United States (US): weak states were believed to pose an existential threat to the US. American aid to Africa consequently more than tripled in the years following 9/11. Using the Copenhagen School's securitisation theory, we investigate the interaction between the executive branch as claimant and the US Congress as legitimiser. The factors of political agency and context are accentuated in our use of securitisation theory. Yet, the evidence also points to structural forces, especially the unequal relationship between executive and legislature

Democratic Civil-Military Relations: A Framework for Analysis

Political thought has long nurtured three fears about armed forces: that the people will make war on each other; that the government will make war on the people; and that the soldiers will make war on government. The democratic tradition has typical responses to these fears, among others by commercialising society; limiting and weakening the state empowering the legislature; encouraging professionalism; and punishing partisanship. When viewed from a behavioural or practical angle, many of these responses are deeply flawed

South Africa's National Security Management System, 1972-90

Analyses of the South African state during the 1970s and 1980s all tried to come to grips with the role of the security forces. Research justifiably ran in different directions, but the National Security Management System soon became an essential part of recent work, albeit remaining very much of a mystery. Since we need to know how it originated, developed, and operated in practice, as well as its legacy, this article attempts to describe the N.S.M.S. and offers avenues of interpretation

Managing Spoilers in a Hybrid War: The Democratic Republic of Congo (1996-2010)

Scholarship on the management of spoilers in a hybrid type of conflict is almost non-existent. Through an examination of the recent Congolese wars and peace efforts (1996–2010), we develop an understanding of how spoilers are managed in a conflict characterised by both interstate and intrastate dynamics. Certainly, more strategies of dealing with spoiler behaviours in this type of conflict are likely to emerge as similar cases are investigated, but our discussion recommends these non-related, but strongly interacting principles: the practice of inclusivity, usually preferred in the management of spoilers, is more complex, and in fact ineffective, particularly when concerned groups’ internal politics and supportive alliances are unconventional. Because holding elections is often deemed indispensable in peacemaking efforts, it is vital that total spoilers be prevented from winning or disrupting them. The toughest challenge is the protection of civilians, especially when the state lacks a monopoly on the use of violence and governance remains partitioned across the country

The new security in democratic South Africa: A cautionary tale

The broadened and deepened notion of security has been evolving in two dimensions, one primarily intellectual and the other concerned more with political practice and policy. This paper briefly describes these dimensions, and then critically examines the acceptance of the new notion of security in the form a security- is-development thesis in South African security policy. This case shows how the security-is-development thesis affects the functions of security agencies and legitimates their anti-democratic behaviour. The case serves as a cautionary tale about how an intellectual construct, movement and school, originally intended to be a critique of state behaviour, can become a tool of state power at the expense of democracy