Community of Insecurity


Book Description

Exploring the formation, evolution and effectiveness of the regional security arrangements of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Nathan examines a number of vital and troubling questions: ∗ why has SADC struggled to establish a viable security regime? ∗ why has it been unable to engage in successful peacemaking?, and ∗ why has it defied the optimistic prognosis in the early 1990s that it would build a security community in Southern Africa? He argues that the answers to these questions lie in the absence of common values among member states, the weakness of these states and their unwillingness to surrender sovereignty to the regional organization. Paradoxically, the challenge of building a co-operative security regime lies more at the national level than at the regional level. The author's perspective is based on a unique mix of insider access, analytical rigour and accessible theory.




Community of Insecurity


Book Description

Exploring the formation, evolution and effectiveness of the regional security arrangements of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Nathan examines a number of vital and troubling questions: * why has SADC struggled to establish a viable security regime? * why has it been unable to engage in successful peacemaking?, and * why has it defied the optimistic prognosis in the early 1990s that it would build a security community in Southern Africa? He argues that the answers to these questions lie in the absence of common values among member states, the weakness of these states and their unwillingness to surrender sovereignty to the regional organization. Paradoxically, the challenge of building a co-operative security regime lies more at the national level than at the regional level. The author's perspective is based on a unique mix of insider access, analytical rigour and accessible theory.




SADC - The Southern Arrested Development Community?


Book Description

Southern Africa is likely to experience more social unrest in the foreseeable future. That is one of the conclusions in this policy dialogue, which provides an overview of political and economic developments relevant to regional peace and security in Southern Africa. While the region continues to experience isolated armed conflicts, and while developmental backlogs present a major risk to regional stability in the long run, currently the most acute source of instability stems from governance deficits, which in the past decade have prompted crises in many of the member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). SADC's institutional framework for regional peace and security has proven ineffective because SADC leaders have prioritised national sovereignty over the enforcement of democratic principles. The institutions have little capacity as they lack material and political support. The governance deficits and SADC's lacklustre conflict management may in the long run arrest development in Southern Africa.




Implementing Peace and Security Architecture (II)


Book Description

The last part of Africa to be decolonised, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, remains one of the most peaceful. Yet, despite comprehensive protocols and agreements, SADC faces acute challenges characterised by tensions between member states, resource deficits, citizens' exclusion, social discontent and limited internal and external coordination. Regional security cooperation requires adept infrastructures underwritten by political commitment; but the organisation's Secretariat appears powerless to ensure policy implementation. It must develop an effective common security policy framework, improve coordination with international partners, harmonise and clarify its role with other SADC structures, broaden engagement with civil society, ensure member-state commitment to African Union (AU) efforts on human and people's rights and build capacity for evaluation and monitoring. As long as national sovereignty prevails over regional interests, however, the success of SADC mechanisms, notably in conflict resolution, will remain limited.




Towards a Common Defence and Security Policy in the Southern African Development Community


Book Description

From a historical, post-apartheid perspective, this book argues that 'apartheid destabilisation' in the Southern African sub-region, resulted in a particular form of regionalisation which favoured state security over human security, stressed solidarity, and regarded external intervention as inimical to its own interests. It argues that this stance was fundamentally anti-democratic, and that its legacy haunts the organs, SADC and the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security as the premier vehicles for security cooperation in the region. The book argues that a further legacy of apartheid destabilisation was to foster national sovereignties at the expense of a collective regional identity; the present challenge being for SADC to decide how best to move to considerations of regional security. It then addresses issues such as the need to develop a common military doctrine, command, training, and control. The book is divided into three parts. The first provides historical background to the current developments, outlining the challenges facing the region's policymakers and citizens. The second part focuses on the nuts and bolts of defence cooperation among the SADC states. The final part addresses the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security, its institutional problems, and outlines possible mechanisms for correcting them. The contributors are mostly connected with the Africa Institute of South Africa and the University of Pretoria.




The Southern African Development Community


Book Description

This book, published in July 2006, significantly complements the burgeoning literature on regional integration in Africa. It is the most up-to-date guide to SADC's history and institutions, its policies and programmes, legal underpinnings and position in unfolding continental and global affairs. It offers a frank analysis of SADC's shortcomings, achievements and prospects and reviews its extensive restructuring.




State and Societal Challenges in the Horn of Africa


Book Description

This book brings to fruition the research done during the CEA-ISCTE project ‘’Monitoring Conflicts in the Horn of Africa’’, reference PTDC/AFR/100460/2008. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) provided funding for this project. The chapters are based on first-hand data collected through fieldwork in the region’s countries between 4 January 2010 and 3 June 2013. The project’s team members and consultants debated their final research findings in a one-day Conference at ISCTE-IUL on 29 April 2013. The following authors contributed to the project’s final publication: Alexandra M. Dias, Alexandre de Sousa Carvalho, Aleksi Ylönen, Ana Elisa Cascão, Elsa González Aimé, Manuel João Ramos, Patrick Ferras, Pedro Barge Cunha and Ricardo Real P. Sousa.




From State Security to Human Security in Southern Africa


Book Description

The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has integrated the human security approach into its constructions of, and policy frameworks, for peace and security. Southern Africa, a region defined by its anti-colonial and civil wars, is indoubtedly enjoying an unprecedented measure of peace and stability, despite continued tensions in certain countries. Peace agreements in Mozambique, South Africa, Angola and the DRC created an enabling environment for demcratisation and development to take root. However, the 'peace dividend' has yet to materialise for the vast majority of citizens in Southern Africa.




People, States and Regions


Book Description

This book assesses the achievements of Southern African security integration in a comparative perspective. Edited by Dr Anne Hammerstad, it highlights some of the main challenges facing SADC and suggests some potential ways they could be overcome by learning from other regional initiatives. It argues that, of the regional organisations reviewed, SADC could – in particular – benefit from emulating some of the practical policies developed by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe to build and strengthen democratic governance and the rule of law in member states. SADC would also do well to take a closer look at ECOWAS’s border approach to dealing proactively with political crises in the West African region. The book compares the vision of the SADC’s regional security integration scheme, set out in various regional agreements, with its reality. Then it places SADC’s security integration efforts within the greater picture of the transformation of Africa’s security architecture. Lastly, it reviews SADC’s efforts in a global comparative perspective by looking at the efforts of other regional organisations such as the OSCE and the ASEAN. -- Publisher description.