African Security Governance: Emerging Issues

Africa faces a seemingly ever-increasing range of security challenges. The traditional threats of civil and border conflicts, crises of governance and military coups may have receded but they remain active. Meanwhile, other issues have risen to prominence, such as globalisation, security sector reform, terrorism, private security actors, peace-keeping and peace-building and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

This book is a result of research carried out over a number of years by the Southern African Defence and Security Management Network (SADSEM) on many of these new and emerging security issues, in co-operation with the Danish Institute for International Studies and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

The broad focus is on security governance – the role of state and a wide range of social actors in the areas of both human and state security. It deals with a range of sectors, themes and national case studies and makes an important contribution to debates on security sector reform.

The topics covered include policing transformation, intelligence governance, regulation of private security actors, challenges of nuclear proliferation, regional security, peace diplomacy and peace missions, the relationship between development and security and new challenges in governance of the military.

Written by scholars as well as practitioners, and African as well as international researchers, it brings a variety of insights to new as well as traditional security concerns.