African Armed Forces and Social Transformation

African Armed Forces and Social Transformation

The military is one of the most firmly established institutions within the post-colonial African state. Moreover, as an icon of independence and sovereignty, it serves as the chassis of the state in the African context. In the post-colonial period, African states have embraced a more critical, rather than a state-centric, approach to security. Although this approach still emphasises the centrality of the state in international relations, it highlights the need to link state security to other elements of security, such as human, systemic, environmental, group and non-governmental security. This linkage makes the contemporary definition of security to be more global in approach and hence more inclusive and accommodative in as far as problems of African political economy are concerned.

However, the difficulty is that there are different schools of thought on security, which hinder the processes towards the reorientation of the militaries in general to assimilate this new type of security thinking. The most effective typology of military politics in the African context is the one provided by Peter J. Schraeder, who places the degree of involvement of the armed forces in domestic politics into five categories (see the Ibrahim Traoré graphic above).

At one extreme is the civilian supremacy model, in which the armed forces are firmly under the control of civilian politicians who control decision making with respect to the issue of war and peace; the determination of the size and general shape of the military establishment; the basic methods of recruiting both officers and enlisted personnel; the allocation of major privileges and rewards within the service; and the allocation of government revenues for the funding of all military and paramilitary activities. Schraeder referred to Botswana as the most clear-cut example of the civilian supremacy model, as Africa’s “oldest democracy”, which created a national army ten years after independence.

Second in the continuum is the watchdog model, which represents a greater degree of military intervention within the domestic political system and its cornerstone being the armed forces’ strong support for the supremacy of civilian rule. However, according to this model, the officer corps perceives the armed forces as the ultimate guarantor of democracy, and as a result, military intervention in the domestic political arena, including the launching of a military coup, is considered acceptable if the country’s democratic principles are threatened.

A typical feature of this model is a short-term military intervention with a very specific objective in mind: that of ensuring that the victor in democratically held elections assumes office. What transpires from this model is the restoration of democratic principles that is followed by the military’s swift return to barracks. The overthrow of the Robert Mugabe administration through a controlled military coup in Zimbabwe in 2017 is a reflection of the watchdog model.

Thirdly, is the balance wheel model, in which the armed forces play a stronger role and actually constitute a civil-military coalition. Although the military élite under this model proclaim that full decision-making authority is vested in the armed forces, they leave the actual running of government ministries in the hands of civilian bureaucrats. As an example of the balance wheel model, the military government of Liberia, which was led by Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe from 1980 to 1986, is provided.

Fourthly, is the direct rule model of civil-military relations in which the military officers assume that the overthrown civilian leaders and the heads of individual bureaucracies are incapable of providing adequate leadership for the country. Accordingly, the new military élite announces the establishment of direct rule, in which they assume responsibility for the day-to-day functioning of the government, including individual bureaucracies and the various state agencies. Lt Col Yakabu Gowon’s military government in Nigeria in July 1966 is offered as an example of this model.

Finally, is the social transformation model, which is similar to that of direct rule, with the difference being that there is an even greater level of military involvement whereby the intentions of the new military élite are categorical in pursuing the complete transformation of their country’s socio-economic and political organisation. Within this model, the military élite is motivated by an ideology that differs from that of the displaced civilian élite, and consequently, the military coup becomes an instrument for the radical transformation of society, as interpreted according to the military’s new ideology.

A clear-cut example of the social transformation model was the emergence of a Marxist-inspired military regime in Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987, under the leadership of Captain Thomas Sankara, with the coup serving as the basis for a full-scale revolution from above, in which an ideologically driven military élite sought the complete transformation of Burkinabe society. What we are currently experiencing in the Sahel region, in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, are typical examples of a revolutionary social transformation model.

However, there is no deliberate effort towards putting the armed forces as part of the dynamic contingent for socio-economic transformation besides their role in political intervention along with the negative effects thereof. Veritably, the armed forces political involvement in domestic politics has to be contained as much as possible, as it is generally acknowledged that they pose a threat to democratic transformation and consolidation. Yet the focus of most of the literature on civil-military relations seems to lead to one conclusion: that of addressing the subjective factors (the ideal) for such involvement instead of dealing with the objective (concrete) conditions and metamorphosing the armed forces to become a solution to the problems of nation-building and socio-economic development.

(Full article available titled “African Armed Forces and Revolutionary Civil-Military Relations” reconstructed from a paper titled, “The Civil-Military Relations Equation in the African Security Context”, presented at the African Association of Political Studies (AAPS) Biennial General Conference #14 held in Durban, South Africa, on 26 – 28 June 2003).

Sources:
Peter J. Schraeder, “African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation”, Macmillan, 2000.
Kees Koonings and Dirk Kruijt (Eds.), “Political Armies: The Military and Nation Building in the Age of Democracy.” Zed, 2002.
Amos Perlmutter and Valerie Plave Bennett, “The Political Influence of the Military: A Comparative Reader”, Yale University, 1980.
D. Goldsworthy, “Civil Control of the Military in Black Africa”, African Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 318, 1981.

Castro Khwela
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