1 - The Liberal Peace Security Regimen: A Gramscian Critique of its Application in Africa
Corresponding Author(s) : Ian Taylor
Africa Development,
Vol. 42 No. 3 (2017): Africa Development: Special Issue on Security Regimes in Africa – Prospects and Challenges
Abstract
Current security regimens are grounded in the advancement of liberal peace. All inter-governmental organizations, most states and most donor agencies more or less accept as common sense the self-evident virtuosity and truth of the liberal peace project. However, there is a profound contradiction within this project in Africa in that while this security regimen might reflect the impulses of a neoliberal hegemony, the very basic foundations of a domestic hegemonic project are in the main wholly absent. Equally, the nature of underdevelopment and dependency in the continent continues to undermine even basic autonomous state formation. These disjunctures mean that there is a distinct contradiction in promoting the current dominant security regimen in post-conflict scenarios in Africa. Instead, the liberal peace needs to be understood as a transnational project aimed at opening up African spaces for continued foreign penetration and exploitation.
Keywords
Download Citation
Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)BibTeX
- Abrahamsen, R., 2000, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa, London: Zed Books.
- Ake, C., 1981, A Political Economy of Africa, Lagos: Longman Nigeria.
- Amadi, L., 2012, ‘Africa: Beyond the “New” Dependency: A Political Economy’, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 6 (8): 191–203.
- Amin, S., 2005, The Liberal Virus: Permanent war and the Americanization of the World, New Delhi: Aakar Books.
- Amin, S., 2002, ‘Africa: Living on the Fringe’, New Agenda 7.
- Annan, K., 1997, ‘Secretary-General, in Address to World Economic Forum, Stresses Strengthened Partnership between United Nations, Private Sector’, Press Release SG/ SM/6153.
- Austen, R., 1987, Africa in Economic History, Oxford: James Currey.
- Bates, T., 1975, ‘Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony’, Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (2): 351–66.
- Bayart, J.-F., 1993, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, London: Longman. Bratton, M. and Van de Walle, N., 1994, ‘Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa’, World Politics 46 (4): 453–89.
- Bratton, M. and Van de Walle, N., 1997, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Bukovansky, M., 2007, ‘Liberal States, International Order, and Legitimacy: An Appeal for Persuasion over Prescription’, International Politics 44 (2–3): 175–93.
- Callaghy, T., 1984, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective, New York: Columbia University Press.
- Callaghy, T., 1987, ‘The State as Lame Leviathan: The Patrimonial Administrative State in Africa’ in Ergas, Z., ed., The African State in Transition, London: Macmillan.
- Cammack, P., 2006, ‘UN Imperialism: Unleashing Entrepreneurship in the Developing World’ in Mooers, C., ed., The New Imperialists: Ideologies of Empire, Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
- Chabal, P., 1994, Power in Africa: An Essay in Political Interpretation, New York: St.Martin’s Press.
- Chabal, P. and Daloz, J.-P., 1999, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument, Oxford: James Currey.
- Cox, R., 1979, ‘Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: Reflections on Some Recent Literature’, International Organization 33 (2): 257–302.
- Crook, R., 1989, ‘Patrimonialism, Administrative Effectiveness and Economic Development in Côte d’Ivoire’, African Affairs 88 (351): 205–28.
- Dahl, R., 1971, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Fatton, R., 1988, ‘Bringing the Ruling Class Back In: Class, State, and Hegemony in Africa’, Comparative Politics 20 (3): 253–64.
- Fatton, R., 1999, ‘Civil Society Revisited: Africa in the New Millennium’, West Africa Review 1 (1).
- Friedman, M., 1962, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Friedman, S., 1987, Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions, 1970–1984, Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
- Friedmann, H. and Wayne, J., 1977, ‘Dependency Theory: A Critique’, Canadian Journal of Sociology 2 (4): 399–416.
- Galtung, J., 1975, ‘Three Approaches to Peace: Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding’ in Peace, War, and Defence – Essays in Peace Research Vol. 2, Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers.
- Gamble, A., 1988, The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism, London: Macmillan.
- Gill, S., 1990, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gill, S., 1998, ‘New Constitutionalism, Democratisation and Global Political Economy’, Pacifica Review 10 (1): 23–38.
- Gills, B., Rocamora, J. and Wilson, R., 1993, Low Intensity Democracy: Political Power in the New World Order, London: Pluto Press.
- Graf, W., 1996, ‘Democratisation “For” the Third World: Critique of a Hegemonic Project’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Special Issue.
- Gramsci, A., 1971, Selections From the Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
- Gramsci, A., 1988, A Gramsci Reader, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
- Harrod, J., 1997, ‘Social Forces and International Political Economy: Joining the Two IRs’ in Gill, S. and Mittelman, J., eds, Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Harkness, K., 2015, ‘US Security Assistance in Africa: The Case for More’, Parameters 45 (2): 13–24.
- Hearn, J., 2007, ‘African NGOs: The New Compradors?’, Development and Change 38(6): 1095–110.
- Hobsbawm, E., 2007, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, London: Little, Brown. Hyden, G., 1997, ‘Foreign Aid and Democratisation in Africa’, Africa Insight 27 (4).
- Jackson, R. and Rosberg, C., 1982, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant, Los Angeles: University of California Press.
- Klein, N., 2007, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, London: Allen Lane.
- Koelble, T., 1999, The Global Economy and Democracy in South Africa, New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.
- LeVine, V., 1980, ‘African Patrimonial Regimes in Comparative Perspective’, Journal of Modern African Studies 18 (4): 657–73.
- Mafeje, A., 1992, In Search of Alternatives: A Collection of Essays on Revolutionary Theory, Harare: SAPES.
- Markovitz, I., ed., 1987, Studies in Power and Class in Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Marx, K. and Engels, F. (2004) [1888], The Communist Manifesto, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
- Medard, J., 1982, ‘The Underdeveloped State in Tropical Africa: Political Clientelism or Neo-patrimonialism’ in Clapham, C., ed., Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in Modern States, London: Pinter.
- Mittelman, J., 1997, ‘Rethinking Innovation in Internal Relations: Global Transformation at the Turn of the Millennium’ in Gill, S. and Mittelman, J., eds, Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Mittelman, J. and Pasha, M., 1997, Out From Underdevelopment Revisited: Changing Global Structures and the Remaking of World Order, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
- Moore, D., 1996, ‘Reading Americans on Democracy in Africa: From the CIA to “Good Governance”’, European Journal of Development Research 8 (1): 123–48.
- Moore, D., 1999, ‘Sail on, O Ship of State: Neo-Liberalism, Globalisation and the Governance of Africa’, Journal of Peasant Studies 27 (1): 1–20.
- Murphy, C., 1994, International Organization and Industrial Change, Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Nabudere, D., 2011, Archie Mafeje: Scholar, Activist and Thinker, Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa.
- Ndikumana, L. and Boyce, J., 2011, Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent, London: Zed Books.
- Neufeld, M., 1999, ‘Globalization: Five Theses’, paper presented at the conference ‘Globalization and Problems of Development’, Havana, Cuba, January.
- Nkrumah, K., 1965, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, New York: International Publishers.
- Okowa, W., 1996, How the Tropics Underdeveloped the Negro, Port Harcourt, Nigeria: Paragraphics.
- Paris, R., 1997, ‘Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism’, International Security 22 (2): 54–89.
- Ramsbotham, O., 2000, ‘Reflections on Post-Settlement Peace-building’, International Peacekeeping 7 (1): 169–89.
- Reno, W., 1998, Warlord Politics and African States, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner. Richmond, O., 2005, The Transformation of Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
- Robinson, W., 1996, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalisation, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Rodney, W., 2012 [1972], How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Oxford: Pambazuka Press.
- Sandbrook, R., 1985, The Politics of Africa’s Economic Stagnation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Sekhri, S., 2009, ‘Dependency Approach: Chances of Survival in the 21st Century’, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 3 (5): 242–52.
- Shaw, T., 1985, Towards a Political Economy for Africa: The Dialectics of Dependence, London: Macmillan.
- Shivji, I., 1980, ‘The State in the Dominated Social Formations of Africa: Some Theoretical Issues’, International Social Science Journal 32 (4): 730–42.
- Tangri, R., 1999, The Politics of Patronage in Africa: Parastatals, Privatization and Private Enterprise, Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.
- USAID, 2017, ‘Political Transition Initiatives’, https://www.usaid.gov/political-transition-initiatives.
- Williams, G., 1960, ‘The Concept of “Egemonia” in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation’, Journal of the History of Ideas 21 (4): 586–99.
- Williams, G., 1982, ‘Hegemony, War of Position and Political Intervention’ in Showstock Sassoon, A., ed., Approaches to Gramsci, London: Writers and Readers.
References
Abrahamsen, R., 2000, Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa, London: Zed Books.
Ake, C., 1981, A Political Economy of Africa, Lagos: Longman Nigeria.
Amadi, L., 2012, ‘Africa: Beyond the “New” Dependency: A Political Economy’, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 6 (8): 191–203.
Amin, S., 2005, The Liberal Virus: Permanent war and the Americanization of the World, New Delhi: Aakar Books.
Amin, S., 2002, ‘Africa: Living on the Fringe’, New Agenda 7.
Annan, K., 1997, ‘Secretary-General, in Address to World Economic Forum, Stresses Strengthened Partnership between United Nations, Private Sector’, Press Release SG/ SM/6153.
Austen, R., 1987, Africa in Economic History, Oxford: James Currey.
Bates, T., 1975, ‘Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony’, Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (2): 351–66.
Bayart, J.-F., 1993, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, London: Longman. Bratton, M. and Van de Walle, N., 1994, ‘Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa’, World Politics 46 (4): 453–89.
Bratton, M. and Van de Walle, N., 1997, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bukovansky, M., 2007, ‘Liberal States, International Order, and Legitimacy: An Appeal for Persuasion over Prescription’, International Politics 44 (2–3): 175–93.
Callaghy, T., 1984, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective, New York: Columbia University Press.
Callaghy, T., 1987, ‘The State as Lame Leviathan: The Patrimonial Administrative State in Africa’ in Ergas, Z., ed., The African State in Transition, London: Macmillan.
Cammack, P., 2006, ‘UN Imperialism: Unleashing Entrepreneurship in the Developing World’ in Mooers, C., ed., The New Imperialists: Ideologies of Empire, Oxford: Oneworld Publications.
Chabal, P., 1994, Power in Africa: An Essay in Political Interpretation, New York: St.Martin’s Press.
Chabal, P. and Daloz, J.-P., 1999, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument, Oxford: James Currey.
Cox, R., 1979, ‘Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: Reflections on Some Recent Literature’, International Organization 33 (2): 257–302.
Crook, R., 1989, ‘Patrimonialism, Administrative Effectiveness and Economic Development in Côte d’Ivoire’, African Affairs 88 (351): 205–28.
Dahl, R., 1971, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fatton, R., 1988, ‘Bringing the Ruling Class Back In: Class, State, and Hegemony in Africa’, Comparative Politics 20 (3): 253–64.
Fatton, R., 1999, ‘Civil Society Revisited: Africa in the New Millennium’, West Africa Review 1 (1).
Friedman, M., 1962, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Friedman, S., 1987, Building Tomorrow Today: African Workers in Trade Unions, 1970–1984, Johannesburg: Ravan Press.
Friedmann, H. and Wayne, J., 1977, ‘Dependency Theory: A Critique’, Canadian Journal of Sociology 2 (4): 399–416.
Galtung, J., 1975, ‘Three Approaches to Peace: Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding’ in Peace, War, and Defence – Essays in Peace Research Vol. 2, Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers.
Gamble, A., 1988, The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism, London: Macmillan.
Gill, S., 1990, American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gill, S., 1998, ‘New Constitutionalism, Democratisation and Global Political Economy’, Pacifica Review 10 (1): 23–38.
Gills, B., Rocamora, J. and Wilson, R., 1993, Low Intensity Democracy: Political Power in the New World Order, London: Pluto Press.
Graf, W., 1996, ‘Democratisation “For” the Third World: Critique of a Hegemonic Project’, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Special Issue.
Gramsci, A., 1971, Selections From the Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Gramsci, A., 1988, A Gramsci Reader, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Harrod, J., 1997, ‘Social Forces and International Political Economy: Joining the Two IRs’ in Gill, S. and Mittelman, J., eds, Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harkness, K., 2015, ‘US Security Assistance in Africa: The Case for More’, Parameters 45 (2): 13–24.
Hearn, J., 2007, ‘African NGOs: The New Compradors?’, Development and Change 38(6): 1095–110.
Hobsbawm, E., 2007, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism, London: Little, Brown. Hyden, G., 1997, ‘Foreign Aid and Democratisation in Africa’, Africa Insight 27 (4).
Jackson, R. and Rosberg, C., 1982, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant, Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Klein, N., 2007, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, London: Allen Lane.
Koelble, T., 1999, The Global Economy and Democracy in South Africa, New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.
LeVine, V., 1980, ‘African Patrimonial Regimes in Comparative Perspective’, Journal of Modern African Studies 18 (4): 657–73.
Mafeje, A., 1992, In Search of Alternatives: A Collection of Essays on Revolutionary Theory, Harare: SAPES.
Markovitz, I., ed., 1987, Studies in Power and Class in Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (2004) [1888], The Communist Manifesto, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
Medard, J., 1982, ‘The Underdeveloped State in Tropical Africa: Political Clientelism or Neo-patrimonialism’ in Clapham, C., ed., Private Patronage and Public Power: Political Clientelism in Modern States, London: Pinter.
Mittelman, J., 1997, ‘Rethinking Innovation in Internal Relations: Global Transformation at the Turn of the Millennium’ in Gill, S. and Mittelman, J., eds, Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mittelman, J. and Pasha, M., 1997, Out From Underdevelopment Revisited: Changing Global Structures and the Remaking of World Order, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Moore, D., 1996, ‘Reading Americans on Democracy in Africa: From the CIA to “Good Governance”’, European Journal of Development Research 8 (1): 123–48.
Moore, D., 1999, ‘Sail on, O Ship of State: Neo-Liberalism, Globalisation and the Governance of Africa’, Journal of Peasant Studies 27 (1): 1–20.
Murphy, C., 1994, International Organization and Industrial Change, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Nabudere, D., 2011, Archie Mafeje: Scholar, Activist and Thinker, Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa.
Ndikumana, L. and Boyce, J., 2011, Africa’s Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent, London: Zed Books.
Neufeld, M., 1999, ‘Globalization: Five Theses’, paper presented at the conference ‘Globalization and Problems of Development’, Havana, Cuba, January.
Nkrumah, K., 1965, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, New York: International Publishers.
Okowa, W., 1996, How the Tropics Underdeveloped the Negro, Port Harcourt, Nigeria: Paragraphics.
Paris, R., 1997, ‘Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism’, International Security 22 (2): 54–89.
Ramsbotham, O., 2000, ‘Reflections on Post-Settlement Peace-building’, International Peacekeeping 7 (1): 169–89.
Reno, W., 1998, Warlord Politics and African States, Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner. Richmond, O., 2005, The Transformation of Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Robinson, W., 1996, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalisation, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rodney, W., 2012 [1972], How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Oxford: Pambazuka Press.
Sandbrook, R., 1985, The Politics of Africa’s Economic Stagnation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sekhri, S., 2009, ‘Dependency Approach: Chances of Survival in the 21st Century’, African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 3 (5): 242–52.
Shaw, T., 1985, Towards a Political Economy for Africa: The Dialectics of Dependence, London: Macmillan.
Shivji, I., 1980, ‘The State in the Dominated Social Formations of Africa: Some Theoretical Issues’, International Social Science Journal 32 (4): 730–42.
Tangri, R., 1999, The Politics of Patronage in Africa: Parastatals, Privatization and Private Enterprise, Trenton NJ: Africa World Press.
USAID, 2017, ‘Political Transition Initiatives’, https://www.usaid.gov/political-transition-initiatives.
Williams, G., 1960, ‘The Concept of “Egemonia” in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation’, Journal of the History of Ideas 21 (4): 586–99.
Williams, G., 1982, ‘Hegemony, War of Position and Political Intervention’ in Showstock Sassoon, A., ed., Approaches to Gramsci, London: Writers and Readers.