Issue

Vol. 42 No. 3 (2017): Africa Development: Special Issue on Security Regimes in Africa – Prospects and Challenges

1 - The Liberal Peace Security Regimen: A Gramscian Critique of its Application in Africa

https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v42i3.754
Ian Taylor

Corresponding Author(s) : Ian Taylor

ict@st.andrews.ac.uk

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

Liberal Peace Security Regiment Africa
[1]
Taylor, I. 2017. 1 - The Liberal Peace Security Regimen: A Gramscian Critique of its Application in Africa. Africa Development. 42, 3 (Mar. 2017). DOI:https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v42i3.754.
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Author Biography

Ian Taylor

Professor, University of St. Andrews (UK), Professor Extraordinary, University of Stellenbosch, and Professor, Institute of Peace and Security Studies, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Email: ict@st.andrews.ac.uk

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