Introduction Africa - Rethinking Security.pdfVIP

Afr.j.polit. sci. (1998), Vol. 3 No. 1, 1-19 Introduction: Africa - Rethinking Security Eboe Hutchful* Abstract Following independence a number of African states were content to seek protec- tion under the security umbrella of an external power. The end of the cold war has called this clientelism sharply into question, facilitating a variety of challenges to the political hegemony of the state and the emergence at the same time of new and diffuse forms of force, wielded by private as well as official entrepreneurs of violence. Liberalisation and state weakness have encouraged a growing private market in security, making possible novel ways of articulating political, commer- cial, and military agendas. The resulting crisis of security is forcing both state and non-state, domestic and external actors to rethink security concepts and architectures, in cooperation as well as competition with each other. Introduction Security has become the big issue in Africa in the 1990s; because during the last decade, Africans have been subjected to an extraordinary variety of sources and forms of violence: civil wars, ethnic pogroms, religious conflict, political repres- sion, forced migrations, and the upheaval associated with structural adjustment. As well, the end of the Cold War has brought a remarkable wave of peace to some of the continents most durable armed conflicts, but at the same time has sharply undermined existing security paradigms and practices, intensifying the security predicament (Ayoob 1995) of some African states, and giving rise in the process to complex new forms and permutations of force, within and beyond the state. In response to these developments, African states and civil society, as well as foreign donors and powers, are seeking to reconfigure (in collaboration as well as competition) security concepts and architectures. One may also note some paradox in the way