Afr.j. polit. sci. (1998), Vol. 3 No. 1,20-41 
Towards the Creation of an African 
Civil-Military Relations Tradition 
Rocky Williams* 
Abstract 
This paper seeks first to underscore the limitations of Western models of civil 
control which African countries employ to create stable civil-military relations. 
Second, it uses the recent experience of Southern African civil-military relations 
to illustrate the extent to which effective civil control over the military has been 
secured through a combination of objective and subjective mecahnisms. And 
finally, it suggests some revisions in the conceptual architecture of late modern 
civil-military relations theory so as to ensure that discipline is more consistent with 
the exigencies of the African political landscape. 
Introduction 
The influence of Western intellectual and political traditions over both the political 
and intellectual traditions of the developing countries of the periphery has been 
well chronicled by a range of scholars and political analysts alike. The economic 
dependence of African countries on their former colonial masters was replicated 
in the introduction of various political, educational and intellectual systems that 
were markedly similar in both form and content to those of the departing Western 
colonisers. Both the armed forces of African countries and the patterns of civilmilitary 
relations which began to emerge during the post-colonial period mirrored 
this close ascriptive relationship between coloniser and colonised. Although the 
ethnic and racial composition of the armed forces of the newly independent 
countries changed significantly in the first decade following independence, their 
culture, traditions and corporate identity remained strongly influenced by the 
discourses and ideological themes of the Western armed forces. 
The emerging patterns of post-independence civil-military relations were also 
marked, at the level of institutions and mechanisms, by a strong similarity between 
1027-0353 © 199a African Association of Political Science
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 21 
the formal mechanisms and institutions of civil control found in the metropole and 
those introduced in the newly independent countries. Virtually all African countries 
possess, on paper at least, the battery of formal mechanisms via which, it is 
claimed, civil control over the armed forces is ensured - although the form of these 
mechanisms may vary depending on the country concerned and the politicojuridical 
system which they have inherited and subsequently adapted. Countries 
possessing a stronger legislative tradition tend to emphasise the role of the 
legislative mechanisms entrusted with the task of civil oversight - parliamentary 
committees, ombudsman systems and approval of the budget for example. Other 
countries with a stronger executive culture may rely more extensively on the 
regulatory role of civil servants, finance ministries and presidential control to 
ensure the subordination of the armed forces to civil control. 
An analysis of the political institutions of most African countries therefore 
reveals a range of formal mechanisms designed to ensure the maintenance of stable 
civil-military relations. Typically these include constitutional provisions regulating 
the functions of the armed forces, parliamentary defence committees, public 
accounts committees, audit and exchequer acts, internal audits and service regulations. 
In some countries, fully-fledged Ministries of Defence and Military 
Ombudsman systems exist, whilst in others creative and varied forms of civilian 
oversight over the armed forces have been instituted. 
Notwithstanding this range of formal mechanisms, the reality underpinning 
African civil-military relations (and indeed the civil-military relations of most 
developing countries) is the fact that in most countries the subordination of the 
armed forces to civil control, when this has occurred, has been achieved by a 
complex system of processes and interfaces of a non-institutional nature. In 
virtually all these countries where the armed forces remain subordinate to the civil 
authorities (regardless of whether the latter are democratically elected or not), real 
control over the armed forces is wielded via a range of subjective interfaces and 
partnerships of which the formal mechanisms are either a component or are, 
alternatively, merely the formal expression of these power relations. 
The aim of this article in relation to the above is threefold. Firstly, it seeks to 
outline the limitations of the Western intellectual traditions in providing models of 
civil control which African countries can utilise in creating stable civil-military 
relations. The importance of reconstructing the central concepts of modern civilmilitary 
relations theory and the manner in which they are applied to developing 
countries has already been referred to in recent literature. A number of analysts 
have succinctly outlined the weaknesses of current modern civil-military relations 
theory particularly its historically and culturally-bound nature (Schiff 1996 and 
1995: 17). Secondly, to concretise the theoretical observations proffered above, 
this article examines the recent tradition of Southern African civil-military 
relations and illustrates the extent to which effective civil control over the activities
22 Rocky Williams 
ofthearmedforceshasbeensecuredbyarobustcombinationofbothobjectiveand 
subjecreforms of control. It highlights the centrality of subject, ve P-esses and 
partnerships in ensuring stable African civil-military relations regardless of toe 
S e a l culture of the country concerned. Finally, it suggests some revisions to the 
conceptual architecture and scaffolding of late modem civ.l-m.l.tary relat.ons 
Z " o as to ensure that this discipline is more consistent w.th the exigences o 
African political processes. The creation of such a theoretical architecture ,s of 
course, an ambitious project and will require time and ongomg research to develop 
but it does have very practical consequences. Any limitations or mcons.stencies 
within our civil-military relations theory can result in the introduction of models 
of civil-military relations entirely inappropriate to and ineffective w.thm African 
countries. It is for this reason that a rigorous and radical critique of many of the key 
assumptions of modern civil-military relations theory is required. 
The Limitations of Formal Mechanisms of Civil Control: 
Key Features of the Western Civil-Military Relations Tradition 
Inanumberofrecentcritiques,somecivil-military relations theorists havereferred 
to the pervasive influence of the USA experience of civil-military relations over 
Western military sociology and have illustrated how this tradition has become 
universalised and absolutised within both the theory of civil-military relations and 
in its practice. Much of this tradition can be traced back to the earlier writings of 
Samuel Huntington who emphasised the subordination of the armed forces to a 
diversity of more "traditional" western-styled checks and balances emanating 
from regulations, military procedures, military command and control patterns, and 
legislative oversight for instance (Huntington 1957). However, recent critics, 
among the most eloquent being Rebecca Schiff, have challenged this tradition: 
A major conclusion of currentcivil-military relations theory is that militaries 
should remain physically and ideologically separated from the political 
institutions. By contrast, the alternative theory argues that three partners - 
the military, the political elites and the citizenry - should aim for a cooperative 
relationship that may or may not involve separation but does not 
require it (Schiff 1996: 278). 
Schiff s Theory of Concordance possesses direct relevance for both the study 
of civil-military relations and its practical application in the developing world. In 
her own words: 
Concordance theory considers the importance of context in studying the 
military and society. Some of the indicators, such as military style and the
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 23 
inclusion of the citizenry as a partner, deal with the norms, customs, and 
values of particular nations. Concordance theory explains which major 
aspects of a nation should be in agreement in order to prevent domestic 
military intervention. How a particular society achieves such an agreement 
is largely dependent upon the nature of that society, its institutions, and its 
culture. That is what makes concordance theory unique: it causally predicts 
conditions for domestic military intervention without superimposing a 
particular historical or cultural context upon a nation (Ibid.: 278). 
She has argued, quite cogentlyand rightly so that the effective subordination of 
the armed forces to civil control is not a necessary outcome of the institutional 
separation of the armed forces from the civil authorities. Effective civil-military 
relations are achieved, in her opinion, via the extent to which political, military and 
civil actors find agreement, and accommodate one another, in the definition of the 
values and objectives of the armed forces. Within this equation disruptions of 
stable civil-military relations are, more often than not, caused not by the failure of 
formal institutional mechanisms but by a breakdown in trust and its attendant 
consequences: According to (Metz and Johnson 1995: 5), 
Civil-military relations tend to be placid when both sides understand and 
accept the distribution of responsibility for specific issues and functions. 
Three things can upset this: a perception by one side that the other is unable 
or unwilling to fulfill its responsibilities; deliberate encroachment by one 
party on an issue or function considered the prerogative of the other; or, the 
emergence of new issues or functions not yet allocated to one party or the 
other (italics mine). 
The key areas of agreement that need to be secured between the armed forces 
and the political elite in order to ensure stable civil-military relations include 
agreement as to the involvement of the armed forces in the political decisionmaking 
process regardless of the political culture within which this political 
decision-making process occurs; agreement as to the composition of the officer 
corps in terms of its social and national representiveness and its functional 
capabilities; agreement as to the method of recruitment into the armed forces 
(conscript or voluntary systems), agreement as to the military style and corporate 
ethos of the armed forces "what it looks like, what ethos drives it, and what people 
think about it" (Schiff 1995: 23). 
In the light of SchifFs critique, and from an appraisal of the current Western 
literature on civil-military relations, three key characteristics of the institutional 
separation model can be discerned: 
a. The key feature of this tradition is its emphasis on the institutional dimension
24 Rocky Williams 
of civil-military relations - the assertion that militaries should remain 
physically and ideologically separated from political institutions. This approach 
is referred to as the institutional-separation model in this article. 
b. This approach emphasises, in accordance with the institutional-separation 
model referred to above, the importance of formal institutional mechanisms 
in ensuring the subordination of the armed forces to civil control. This 
approach downplays the role which non-institutional forms of civil control 
and the role which civil society and culture can play in determining the 
parameters of a country's civil-military relations (what is referred to in this 
article as the collaborative-partnership model of civil-military relations). 
c. The corporate identity of the armed forces in this tradition is defined as being 
that of the professional, apolitical soldier, loyal to the government of the day 
and possessing its own value framework. The armed forces eschew politics 
and concentrate their energies on developing and applying their functional 
military expertise. 
Not all writings on civil-military relations by Western scholars have corroborated 
the current dominant institutional-separation paradigm. A number of influential 
Western civil-military relations scholars such as Finer and Janowitz have 
written extensively on the role which societal factors and non-institutional factors 
play in ensuring the armed forces' adherence to the principle of civil supremacy. 
Notwithstanding these arguments, however, Western civil-military relations theory 
has been dominated in the second half of the 20th century by a focus on the 
institutional (and hence formal, legal and constitutional) dimension underpinning 
civil-military relations and the importance of securing the ideological and political 
separation of the armed forces from the body-politic. 
Whilst it is important not to dismiss elements of the Western tradition, it is 
equally important to avoid reifying this tradition to the detriment of other 
traditions, and to reclaim as well as reintroduce into the contemporary African 
debate on civil-military relations those elements of the collaborative-partnership 
approach that argues for the introduction of a creative range of additional measures 
whereby the subordination of the military to civil control can be ensured. For this 
reason it is important to differentiate between objective and subjective forms of 
control over the armed forces. 
The Distinction Between Objective and Subjective Forms of Civil Control 
For the purposes of clarity it is also necessary to explain the distinction made 
between the terms "objective" and "subjective" as used throughout this article. 
Typically, civil-military relations, and the stresses and contradictions contained 
therein, can be classified and ultimately explained according to a range of 
"objective" and "subjective" conditions. 
Objective forms of control include those mechanisms of a formal, constitutional
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 25 
and legalistic nature operating externally to the military establishment and embodying 
the political and constitutional pact entered into between the state and the 
armed forces in most liberal democracies. It is significant to note that the efficacy 
of these formal mechanisms is neither inherent in their structure nor pre-given in 
their logic but depends, critically, on the balance of power within and between 
different social classes, state actors, and individuals within a given social formation, 
and the extent to which this power relationship articulates itself within the 
political culture and traditions of the country in question. 
Objective factors refer to the level and legitimacy of political culture within the 
country concerned, the level of formal political and civil organisation within 
society, the role of parliament and its various committees and mechanisms in 
ensuring civil oversight over both the state in general and the armed forces in 
particular, the existence of formal control mechanisms within government designed 
to ensure the acquiescence of the armed forces (the role of the judiciary, 
ombudsman systems, financial mechanisms, etc.), the role of legislation in 
determining the roles and responsibilities of the armed forces, and the existence of 
other control mechanisms (be they of a civil or administrative nature) whereby the 
activities of the armed forces are monitored. 
In order to bolster robust civil-military relations, arange of additional subjective 
measures is often required via which both the political and civil authorities can 
ensure the ongoing obedience and compliance of the armed forces. These subjective 
mechanisms are neither formal nor constitutional-legalistic in nature and most 
often translate themselves into a series of relationships and partnerships entered 
into between the leadership of the armed forces and the leadership of the political 
and civil elite. These subjective mechanisms may not necessarily be premised on 
democratic civil-military relations and can include such arrangements as party 
penetration of the leadership echelons of the armed forces; ethnic manipulation of 
the composition of the officer corps to ensure loyalty; manipulation of the military 
mission to prevent its intrusion onto the party-political terrain; monitoring the 
activities of the armed forces via other non-military intelligence agencies; and the 
establishment of security "counter balances" to the influence of the armed forces 
in the form of police, intelligence or para-military agencies. However, they can also 
include progressive mechanisms entirely consistent with and supportive of democratic 
civil-military relations such as joint political-military management of 
defence policy and planning processes and the regular involvement of civilian 
society in the defence policy formulation process (Baynham 1992). 
Additional subjective factors within the military that affect their predisposition 
to intervene include their organisational features, the social and class composition 
of their personnel, the distribution of authority within the military hierarchy, their 
corporate identity (and the extent to which this is prepared to entertain and obstruct 
intervention), their skills patterns and operational experiences, the relationships
26 Rocky Williams 
between the different arms of the service, and the fissures and contradictions within 
the officer corps. The significance of these factors will vary according to the 
particularmilitary formation ormode of civil-military relations under scrutiny, and 
the inter-relationships between these various instances will change according to 
the developments within both the body politic and social fabric of the society 
concerned. 
Civil-Military Relations and The Limitations of Institutional 
Forms of Control 
Current civil-military relations theory places great store on the importance of 
external guarantees - a range of institutional checks and balances — to ensure 
healthy civil-military relations. It maintains that it is via formal mechanisms of 
control (parliamentary oversight, civilian control over the defence budgeting 
process, etc.) that military activities can be constrained and their involvement in the 
political process pre-empted. 
This system works to great effect in the industrialised democracies of Western 
Europe and is a model that is "exported" from Western countries to African 
countries via the military academies and defence colleges of the West as well as via 
the various mobile training teams on civil-military relations that work regularly 
throughout Africa (the International Military Education and Training Programme 
of the USA and the British Military Assistance Training Teams of the UK, for 
instance). Yet the arguments in defence of formal institutional mechanisms of 
control are problematic for a variety of inter-related reasons. 
• The first is the limited utility that this concept possesses in explaining the 
diverse forms of civil control that can be instituted over the armed forces 
which are not formal-legalistic in nature and which involve other social 
actors, processes and interfaces beyond those located in both the legislature 
and the executive. 
• The second is the inherent limitations of formal mechanisms of control "inthemselves". 
The institutional-separation model presumes the efficacy of 
formal mechanisms standing separate from and "above" the armed forces 
they seek to control. Yet the efficacy of the mechanisms depends on three 
critical variables (variables that are often absent in specific situations). These 
are: 
i. Formal-legalistic measures tend to operate retroactively and only 
address a small area of organisational behaviour. They are designed 
more to prevent the abuse of power than contain the security forces 
within a legitimate and mutually agreed sphere of activity. 
ii. Formal-legalistic measures are largely externally focused and do not 
address the behavioural patterns of military officers themselves, the 
way they view their mission and responsibilities, and the way their
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 27 
seniors view their role-orientation towards the political leaders of the 
day. 
iii. To be effective, political control mechanisms require the political will 
to make them work. Given the lack of familiarity displayed by many 
political leaders with the world of the military, and the fact that political 
leaders often depend on the support of sectors of the armed forces for 
their pol itical ambitions (particularly with regard to their organisational 
and intelligence capabilities) there is often a reluctance to fully utilise 
these formal mechanisms of control. This also explains the ability of 
the armed forces to intervene in African countries where such mechanisms 
have already existed - Zambia (1997), Nigeria (throughout the 
1970s and 1980s) and Lesotho (1985). 
It is also instructive that the patterns of civil-military relations evident in the 
self-same European countries operated in a fundamentally different manner in the 
early 20th century and the centuries prior to it. Control over the armed forces of 
Western Europe during the Feudal, Absolutist and Early Industrial periods were 
maintained by a complex web of patronage, venality (purchasing of commissions 
by the landed classes), and reciprocal material benefits. Effective control over the 
British armed forces, for instance, was maintained well into the 20th century via 
the strong ascriptive ties (ancestral, social and educational) that existed between 
the dominant classes and the command echelons of the Navy, Army and Air Force. 
Control over the armed forces in Germany, Italy and Spain during the pre-Second 
World War period was maintained through the inter-penetration of the ruling party 
and the command echelons of the security forces and the establishment of security 
agencies to counter-balance the influence of a sometimes uncooperative military 
(the role of the SS and the SA in Germany for example). 
Equally problematic is the assertion prevalent in the institutional-separation 
model that the armed forces should not be involved in "politics" and should remain 
"apolitical". The corporate responsibility of the armed forces is, in this equation, 
to uphold the Constitution, remain loyal to the government of the day and to 
concentrate their energies on developing their functional military expertise. In 
reality, of course, the notion of the "apolitical" soldier is redolent with contradictions 
even within those Western countries where this model is applied. Both the 
institutional conservatism of the armed forces and the historical links that have 
bound them to the dominant classes have resulted in their command echelons both 
involving themselves in the political process and making pronouncements on 
matters of a political nature. Indeed, the decision-making processes of most 
modern democracies is such that the involvement of the armed forces in the 
political process (the Congressional Committee system in the USA for example) 
is a necessity rather than an option. 
A survey of Southern African civil-military relations illustrates the limited
28 Rocky Williams 
utility of the institutional-separation model in providing an all-embracing model 
upon which an effective African civil-military relations tradition can be established. 
This is analysed in more detail below. 
Objective and Subjective Control of the Armed Forces: 
The Southern African Experience 
The points made above and those elaborated in further detail below stress the need 
for a more integrated and flexible definition of those mechanisms which can be 
used to underpin healthy civil-military relations. The central tenets of this theory 
would envisage a range of objective and subjective mechanisms, processes and 
partnerships as constituting the heart of civil-military relations. The efficacy of 
these mechanisms, processes and partnerships would not be pre-given and neitheirf 
would they be applicable to all contexts but would depend, critically, on the balance 
of power within society, and among the political elite, the military elite and civil 
society itself. Given the fact that such relationships are continually changing, any 
shifts within this balance of power would obviously entail different formal and 
informal configurations upon which civil-military relations would be established. 
Early South African Civil-Military Relations: Ethnic Partnerships and 
Shared Visions 
South Africa possesses a rich and diverse military history and it is these traditions 
that underpin much of the nature of its present patterns of civil-military relations 
and much of the country's present military culture. The emergence of the modern 
South African state and its tradition of institutionalised armed forces is a relatively 
recent phenomenon. Prior to the formation of the Union Defence Force in 1912, 
South Africa possessed a variety of military structures and traditions including the 
Boer Commandos; the Zulu age regiments; the Colonial Volunteer regiments, and 
the Pandour tradition in the Cape Colony (Tylden 1982). 
Civil-military relations within these different scenarios were unproblematic. 
Civil-military relations within the Zulu Kingdoms during the 19th century were 
stable - notwithstanding the ongoing palace intrigues which characterised Zulu 
politics. Military service assumed the form of conscription, and political and 
economic privileges were dependent on all able-bodied Zulu males providing 
military service. The co-location of political office, royal standing and military 
seniority ensured the complete subordination of military capabilities to political 
dictates. 
A similar civic tradition prevailed in the Boer Republics. Very few regular units 
were maintained (the exception being certain standing infantry regiments in the 
Cape Colony, and the Staats Artillerie in the Transvaal), and the tradition of the 
"citizen-soldier" remained pronounced through the extensive reliance of all forces 
on reserves (the best examples being the "nation-in-arms" concept as reflected in
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 29 
both the Boer Commandos and the Zulu Regiments). As with the Zulu tradition, 
the unity of values, ideological beliefs and broad political systems between the 
Boers, their political representatives in the Volksraad (parliament) and their 
military commanders pre-empted the emergence of a praetorian military disposition 
akin to Argentina in the pre-1930 period.1 
The smashing of the Bambata Rebellion in 1906 was a turning point for 
organised African resistance to colonialism. It also marked the emergence of a 
specific form of civil-military relations within South Africa. Prior to the Bambata 
Rebellion, African resistance to colonialism had been mounted by the different 
kingdoms in existence within South Africa at the time. Much of it was highly 
organized and came from kingdoms and states that boasted an impressive military 
culture and capability - the Zulu, Basotho and Bapedi resistance for instance. The 
superior firepower of the colonisers and the fact that African resistance was 
fragmented along ethnic lines saw its ultimate dissipation in the wake of both Boer 
and British conquest (Roux 1978). 
The victory of the British during the Anglo-Boer war had seen the entrenchment 
of British capital (and particularly the hegemonic class fraction of mining capital) 
as the dominant economic player within South Africa. The Bambata Rebellion, a 
defeated and disaffected Boer population, and limited military resources compelled 
the British Government to seek a pact with the Boers to jointly establish 
political and administrative control over South Africa with the purpose of ensuring 
the subjugation of the African population to their respective industrial and 
agricultural needs. 
Early patterns of formal civil-military relations were thus characterised by both 
their racially exclusive nature and by the fact that it must in the mutual interest of 
both the Boer and British to ensure that the armed forces remain subordinate to the 
new Union Government established in 1910. The Act of Union in 1910 saw the 
establishment of forms of institutional control over the armed forces almost 
entirely modeled upon the Westminister system. Legislative control over the 
armed forces was vested in the parliament (which approved the budget), executive 
control resided in the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, and civil control was further 
enhanced by a civilian Ministry of Defence and a civilian Secretary for Defence. 
The existence of these mechanisms, however, proved incapable of preventing 
large sectors of the recently formed Union Defence Force (formed in 1912 as a 
result of the integration of former British and Boer military personnel into a unified 
national defence force) from going into open rebellion against the decision by the 
government to enter the First World War on the side of the British government. The 
1915 Rebellion and the subsequent mass mutinies of the armed forces during the 
1922 white mineworkers strike underscored the importance of developing robust 
partnerships with the command echelons of the armed forces. During this period 
it was only due to the Union Government's ability to establish partnerships with
30 Rocky Williams 
the more influential sectors of the armed forces (particularly with Generals Smuts, 
Botha and Lukin) that the prospects of secession and insurrection were avoided. 
Whilst the formal structures governing civil-military relations remained intact 
in the post-1948 period, the National Party proceeded to reshuffle the executive 
reaches of the armed forces on the basis of a largely ethnic agenda. To ensure that 
the armed forces remained loyal to the political project of the Afrikaner Nationalist 
Party, the new ruling party proceeded to purge elements within the senior 
command levels who were deemed to be either Smuts supporters or of a liberal 
political orientation. This de facto palace coup was determined largely, although 
not exclusively, along ethnic and linguistic lines and also involved an attempted 
"indigenisation" of the traditions of the armed forces themselves. An outcry from 
officers, ex-servicemen and white opposition parties, however, curtailed the 
National Party's proposed restructuring programme - but not before the political 
orientation of the senior officer corps had been substantially altered. 
The effect of this restructuring on South African civil-military relations was not 
insignificant. Although the Air Force and the Navy were left largely unscathed by 
this purge - a product, partially, of their smallness and, at that stage, relatively 
unimportant institutional profiles - the Army was drastically overhauled within the 
period of a decade. Henceforth its senior officer corps became more homogeneous 
in both its political and social orientation (white, male Afrikaans-speakers). The 
strong ascripti ve ties that developed between the S A Army and the National Party, 
was to create the basis for an alliance that was, later, to substantially empower the 
SADF and gradually erode political control over its actions (Williams 1994). 
Civil-Military relations within the South African state were to remain largely 
unproblematic from 1948 onwards until De Klerk's initiation of the negotiations 
process in 1990. This is significant given the fact that during this period the formal 
mechanisms of control were either abolished (as with the miniaturisation of the 
Ministry of Defence in 1968) or rendered inoperative via a battery of legal 
constraints (particularly in as much as it related to public access to information and 
the role of parliament in ensuring oversight and scrutiny over the activities of the 
armed forces). Yet notwithstanding the high levels of SADF influence over the 
political process during the 1980s, it was both the shared values and common 
vision shared between itself and the political and civil elite, and the strong 
ascriptive ties that existed between its command cadre and the leadership of the 
then ruling National Party that prevented its intrusion onto the extra-parliamentary 
terrain (ascriptive ties that were largely a product of the racial, ethnic, religious, 
political and linguistic commonalties between political and military elites). "Total 
Strategy", as the joint political-military management of South African political life 
was to become known in the 1980s, was the product of: 
... reforming the elite coalition, both internally and through power reallo-
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 31 
cations working in favour of a tri-partite alliance between government, 
business and the military, and, externally, through extension of its boundaries 
to bring the Coloureds and Indians into the minority political camp 
(Frankel 1980: 277). 
This partnership proved critical during a period in which the role of the white 
parliament had been substantially reduced via the shift to executive decisionmaking 
in the post-1978 period: considerable power had been consolidated in the 
hands of P.W. Botha via the institution of the Executive Presidency in 1983, and 
the influence of the ruling party over policy matters had been substantially reduced 
(from 1982 onwards the National Party and its provincial congresses could only 
deliberate on matters of principle and not policy). 
A similar, although substantially less autocratic process, was evident in the 
civil-military relations of South Africa's "other army" - the army of the African 
National Congress (ANC), Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK). The ANC's ability to 
control MK was, as is the case with most revolutionary organisations, the product 
of a continuous inter-penetration by the MK leadership and the ANC political 
hierarchy. The integration of MK into the political structures, culture and hierarchy 
of the ANC prevented it pursuing its own corporate agenda (a phenomenon that 
was noticeably absent in the relationship between the Azanian People s Liberation 
Army and the Pan Africanist Congress for instance). 
The experience of MK was markedly different from that of the SADF. Unlike 
the National Party/SADF with its tradition of ethnic and racial exclusivity, 
isolation and authoritarianism, the MK was a partnership premised on a strong nonracial 
tradition and an enduring commitment to democracy. The comparison 
between both partnerships highlights a point that is central to any appreciation of 
why there is need for broadening the scope of current civil-military relations 
theory. It is true that partnerships may constitute highly effective forms of civil 
control; but not all partnerships provide the basis upon which one would endeavour 
to establish healthy civil-military relations. Partnerships, when established, must 
include a mutual respect for the primacy of civil supremacy by the armed forces, 
must be conducted in a transparent manner, and must be accountable to the 
democratic processes of the country concerned (and this article presupposes that 
democratic civil-military relations are desirable in themselves). 
From Authoritarianism to Democracy: Consolidating 
Democratic Civil-Military Relations 
Within a comparatively short period of time the new South African Government 
has managed to institute a range of mechanisms, legislation and processes to ensure 
appropriate civil oversight over the activities of the newly integrated South African 
National Defence Force. The Interim Constitution outlines in considerable detail
32 Rocky Williams 
the roles, functions, posture, composition and responsibilities of the new South 
African National Defence Force (the latter having been created in the post-April 
1994 period as a result of the integration of the seven hitherto warring armies within 
the country). In amarked break from the past, the Constitution called for the posture 
of the new Defence Force to be "primarily defensive", for its structures to be 
representative of the country s population, and for its activities to be sufficiently 
transparent toxnable effective civil control and oversight. 
The visible shift of power from the executive to the legislature during the post- 
April 1994 period has possibly been most manifest in the activities of the Joint 
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence. A robust insistence by the 
Committee on its involvement in all major aspects of defence policy and planning, 
and its refusal to "rubber-stamp" key policy documents emerging from the 
Department of Defence has characterised this tendency. The transfer of the 
departmental accounting function and the defence policy function from the 
Defence Force to the recently established Ministry of Defence has deprived the 
armed forces of much of their institutional influence possessed during the pre- 
April 1994 period. The appointment of civilians to senior positions within the 
Department of Defence, most notably the Secretary of Defence, the Chief of the 
Policy Division, and the Directors of all the key Policy positions, has strengthened 
the role of civilian bureaucrats in the administration of defence matters.2 
These mechanisms were further buttressed by a range of key legal amendments 
and policy processes which began to substantially reconfigure the strategic 
direction of defence. The White Paper on Defence approved by parliament in 1996 
sought to redefine the responsibilities of the armed forces in the new democracy 
whilst the Defence Review sought to secure a national consensus on the defence 
requirements appropriate to a fledgling democracy. By 1997, South African civilmilitary 
relations, despite the dire predictions of many pundits, were on a 
substantially better footing than even optimists had predicted during the tense 
years of the pre-1994 period. 
The ability of these mechanisms to contribute to the stabilisation and democratic 
control of South Africa's civil-military relations was not inherent in their structure 
and/or functioning. The resilience of the emerging democratic political culture and 
its high legitimacy within the broad population, have ensured that these formal 
mechanisms of control enjoy a de facto power that often far exceeds their 
constitutionally and legally mandated authority. The undisputed majority enjoyed 
by the new ruling party in parliament and its extensive support within the trade 
unions, the churches, and civil society, renders the likelihood of military intervention 
in the political process improbable, and the chances of its success, should it 
occur, remote. 
Yet, in retrospect the relative success (for indeed some tensions do inevitably 
persist) of this transition in the defence sector was not simply, or even largely
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 33 
attributable to the institution of new constitutional and legal systems or defence 
policy pronouncements. Many of the key interfaces whereby the acquiescence of 
the former S ADF under the new ANC government was accomplished were created 
at the level of subjective partnerships. A number of examples illustrate this 
observation. 
Firstly, in accordance with the policy of "sunset clauses" no former SADF 
members were removed from their positions, neither were their privileges undermined 
(salaries, pensions, gratuities and medical benefits). Secondly, whilst a 
number of key positions were occupied by new incumbents drawn from the former 
guerrilla forces, the key command positions and staff positions continued to be 
occupied by former regular officers. Notwithstanding the transfer of both the 
policy and financial functions from the SADF to the Secretary of Defence within 
the newly created Ministry of Defence, the Chief of the National Defence Force 
continued to remain the Head of the Department of Defence. Thirdly, President 
Mandela, took pains to praise and respect the professionalism of the armed forces 
and to enhance their image in the public eye. 
Fourthly, and perhaps the most important, it was via such processes as the 
Defence Review that the basis was laid for an ongoing partnership with parliament, 
the political elite and a wide range of civil society actors. The comprehensive 
Defence Review process initiated in 1996 and completed in 1997 (arguably the 
most consultative review process conducted by any democracy in the post-Second 
World War period), saw the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence 
playing an oversight role in the policy and plans emerging from the Review (a role 
entirely consistent with their constitutional mandate) as well as entering into a 
more robust and collegial joint management of this process with the Department 
of Defence (particularly in the arena of defining posture, functions and tasks of the 
armed forces, determining the design of the future Defence Force, and approving 
the equipment requirements of the armed forces). Whilst it was their formal 
authority that enabled the Committee to ensure that all policy processes operating 
within the Department of Defence were subject to their scrutiny, it was the 
partnerships established between military personnel and the members of the 
Committee that facilitated joint ownership of the process and contributed to the 
high levels of transparency and accountability which characterised the process. 
Furthermore, it was via processes such as the Defence Review that civil society 
was able to enter into the defence debate and influence its results. This was effected 
at two levels - a t a series of provincial workshops through which both civil society 
and the general public made a wide range of proposals on the direction, shape and 
content of future defence policy, and through their extensive involvement in the 
specialist working groups established to formulate this particular policy in conjunction 
with defence and parliamentary actors. The significance of the involvement 
of civil society in the Defence Review was both the precedent it established
34 Rocky Williams 
and the culture of consultation that it instituted - an interactive process that is 
increasingly becoming institutionalised within South African defence management 
and significantly contributes to the enhancement of civil society's direct and 
indirect control over the armed forces. 
All these interfaces were the result of a continuous interaction and negotiation 
between the political elite and the command cadre of the armed forces - a dialogue 
that was, at times, tense but which developed, in a relatively short period of time, 
into a collegial and largely mutually supportive relationship. What has made this 
relationship work within the civil-military orbit, has been the development of 
sufficient trust between the political and military leaderships to enable the joint 
management and discussion of all key policy and strategic issues - a process that 
was initiated and is maintained voluntarily between both players. 
Civil-Military Relations in Southern Africa: The Power of Partnerships 
The experience of other Southern African countries tends in a similar vein to South 
Africa's. Virtually, all countries possess the battery of formal mechanisms via 
which, it is claimed, civil control over the armed forces is ensured and which are 
largely derived from the institutional and judicial traditions of the former colonisers. 
Typically these include constitutional provisions regulating the functions of the 
armed forces, parliamentary defence committees, public accounts committees, 
audit and exchequer acts, internal audits and service regulations. In some countries, 
fully-fledged Ministries of Defence and Military Ombudsman systems exist, 
whilst in others creative and varied forms of both civil and civilian oversight over 
the armed forces have been instituted. Yet, in virtually all these countries, real 
control over the armed forces is wielded via a range of subjective interfaces and 
partnerships of which the formal mechanisms are either a component thereof or are, 
alternatively, the formal expression of these power relations. A brief overview of 
prevailing Southern African civil-military relations confirms this observation. 
For those countries that emerged victorious from their respective liberation 
struggles, a strong symbiotic relationship exists between the new government and 
the military elite in the armed forces. This has ensured that the activities of the 
armed forces have been conducted within the context of a shared value framework 
- itself a product of an enduring political-military partnership that had its roots in 
the fusion of political and military leaderships which occurred during the liberation 
wars. This partnership has resulted in the maintenance and development of wellestablished 
transmission belts between the new political and military elites that is 
reinforced by the role which the ruling party performs in these different countries. 
Former Frelimo commanders in Mozambique constitute a sizeable percentage 
of the present government's Ministers and senior civil servants. The former head 
of the Zimbabwean National Army is now the chair of the Parliamentary Defence 
Committee for instance, and many former senior Tanzania officers are now
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 35 
prominent politicians constituting prime examples in this regard. Furthermore in 
Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, members of 
the military elite are either card-carrying members of the ruling party or, more 
significantly, they are represented on the central committees of the ruling parties 
themselves. 
Tanzania, for instance, devised a system of civil and civilian control over its 
armed forces which exceeded many of the control mechanisms introduced by other 
post-colonial Southern African states. Strongly influenced by the attempt by the 
Tanzanian armed forces to seize power in the early 1960s, Nyerere introduced a 
series of additional measures to ensure the obedience of the armed forces. These 
ranged from the introduction of a National Service Scheme and militia on the one 
hand, to the creation of a range of national, regional and district committees of the 
ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party whereby the activities of the armed forces 
could be monitored. The net effect of this system was to ensure the establishment 
of a variety of non-government, civilian oversight mechanisms whereby the 
activities of the armed forces could be continually monitored, as well as ensuring 
that the skills monopoly enjoyed by the military was now broken and dispersed 
within civilian society itself (Rupiyah 1996; Baynham 1992). 
This close relationship has been loosened in some ways with the introduction 
of multi-party rule in both Tanzania and Zambia, for example. Interestingly neither 
experience has resulted in the development of a praetorian mentality amongst their 
officer cadre. This is attributable to a number of different factors. The first is 
undoubtedly the fact that political conditions within Southern Africa have generally 
(with the exception of Lesotho) not lent themselves to the development of an 
interventionist ethos within the armed forces. Mass based parties emerging from 
a long struggle for democracy, the close relationships forged between the political 
and military elites during the guerrilla struggles, the strong civic ethos instilled 
within the corporate identities of the armed forces (all guerrilla armies did, after all, 
was literally to fight for the institution of democracy with its various "checks and 
balances"!), and the strong sense of regional co-operation and destiny (the latter 
being the product of the anti-apartheid struggle) have been major factors in this 
regard.1 
Political control over the armed forces has also been maintained in the negative 
sense in some Southern African countries. The former President of Malawi, 
Hastings Banda, attempted to monitor and control the activities of the armed forces 
via the creation of the Young Pioneers - a paramilitary structure designed to 
support the programme of the ruling party. The eventual disbanding of the Young 
Pioneers by the military was a product, interestingly, of the armed forces resistance 
to the intrusion into their constitutionally demarcated territory and their concern 
that the Young Pioneers constituted an obstacle to the democratisation of the 
country. In Zaire, similarly, the late Mobutu encouraged rivalries amongst his
36 Rocky Williams 
different military units in order to ensure that their attentions were not turned 
towards him. His Civil Guard was Egyptian-trained, his former 31 st Brigade was 
French trained, and the elite Special Presidential Division was Israeli-trained (the 
latterbeingcomposedmainlyofNgwandi-Mobutu'sown ethnic groupand power 
base) (Luckham 1995, 1997; Baynham 1992). 
Purges of the officercadre of the armed forces have also been conducted in order 
to ensure the subordination of the armed forces to political authority. This was done 
somewhat brutally as was the case with the Matabeleland uprising m Zimbabwe in 
1982 and the subsequent purging of elements of the ZIPRA command echelon 
from the Zimbabwean armed forces; or subtly as was the case with the removal of 
many English-speaking officers and liberal Afrikaner officers from the South 
African armed forces after the Afrikaner Nationalist victory at the polls in 1948. 
One of the reasons cited for the abortive coup in Zambia in November 1997 was 
the belief that President Chiluba was meddling with the promotions of Zambian 
Army officers. 
In a nutshell, objective mechanisms do exist and work with varying degrees of 
efficacy in Southern Africa; but both South African and the other Southern African 
examples reinforce the centrality of subjective mechanisms in contributing to the 
maintenance of stable civil-military relations. They also highlight the importance 
of exploring such partnerships in the future and establishing areas within which 
further theoretical research can be conducted. In this connection, some tentative 
suggestions are made below. 
Theoretical Possibilities and Revisions: African Civil-Military 
Relations into the 21st Century 
It was stated in the introduction that developing countries in general and African 
countries in particular have often tended to mediate their experiences of civilmilitary 
relations via the traditions of either their former colonisers, or, with the 
impact of globalisation, via their major trading partners. The resulting intellectual, 
ideological and doctrinal dependence produces a situation aptly described (in this 
case, the Latin America context) as follows: 
As long as imported theories and cultural movements remain divorced from 
the opposition of forces which are the only means of lending specific 
importance and historical density to the signs produced in Latin American 
cultures, they act as little more than orthopedic aides within the contexts of 
those cultures. Characteristically, this kind of production exhausts itself in 
mere formal repetitions or 'doctrinal mannerism' (italics mine) (Richard 
1993: 465). 
If African countries are to avoid this "doctrinal mannerism" referred to here,
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 37 
then it is imperative that some of the key assumptions underpinning current 
Western civil-military relations theory be revisited. A conceptual geography of 
civil-military relations needs to be developed that is more consistent with the 
realities of civil-military relations in general. The reification of one tradition and 
theoretical system to the detriment of other discourses can stifle and impede 
constructive intellectual debate as well as produce unintended political consequences 
if literally applied. A number of suggestions can be made regarding the 
proposed re-examination of the theoretical assumptions underpinning the study of 
civil-military relations in African countries. 
Firstly, the adoption of a more flexible and less absolute approach to the current 
Western civil-military relations tradition should not be construed as constituting a 
negative attack on the positive principles of traditional civil-military theory. The 
limited utility or inapplicability of certain formal mechanisms to developing 
countries does not detract from the principles upon which these mechanisms are 
predicated (the principle of civil supremacy and the importance of precisely 
defining the roles and tasks of the armed forces for instance). The limitation of 
current civil-military relations discourse lies with its ontological pretensions and 
not the formal, epistemological status of its central concepts. The latter can be 
redeemed and key categories of civil-military relations can be reconstructed via a 
critique of their ontological status — the manner in which they are constructed in 
relation to a plurality of contexts and realities. A key area of research in the future 
will be investigating how these mechanisms can be made more effective and, 
significantly, how objective mechanisms can interface with subjective mechanisms 
to improve the overall levels of oversight over the armed forces. 
Secondly, the exploration of the hitherto neglected realm of partnerships (the 
subjective component) in civil-military relations does not imply an abrogation of 
the utility of objective mechanisms in "traditional" civil-military relations theory. 
The primacy of the political and the importance of ensuring the subordination of 
the armed forces to elected civilian government continues within this expanded 
scope of civil-military relations. It is only through a combination of both objective 
and subjective mechanisms, each developed in relation to the political and cultural 
peculiarities of the country concerned that effective and context-specific civilmilitary 
relations can be developed. 
At a practical level, a range of measures can be instituted to build capacity and 
mutual trust between the political and civilian elites and the command echelons of 
the armed forces. Active involvement of the parliamentary representatives and 
non-military civilian experts in the defence policy process can contribute immensely 
to their understanding of both the nuances of the defence decision-making 
process and the peculiarities of military culture. Similarly, the exposure of the 
senior officer corps to the parliamentary process, the party-political process and the 
civilian budgeting process will sensitise them to the exigencies of political and
38 Rocky Williams 
civilian rule Joint seminars, team-building exercises, active involvement by 
political and civilian representatives in the reserve formations of the armed forces, 
and joint visits to military installations are among some of the mechanisms that can 
be instituted in this regard. It is important to stress that such partnerships are not 
equal partnerships, however, and operate within the hierarchy of authority provided 
for by either a democratic dispensation or, where a "traditional" liberal 
democratic system does not prevail, a situation in which the inviolable authority 
of the elected civilian authority is respected (as in Uganda for instance). 
Thirdly, the scope of civil military relations needs to be expanded to incorporate 
non-institutional actors and mechanisms into its orbit as well as a consideration of 
the role which both police agencies, intelligence services and, in some cases, 
private security companies may play in either ensuring or undermining civilmilitary 
relations. In the case of the former, the transformation of the South African 
Defence Forces illustrates the critical role which can be played by organs of civil 
society in contributing to the shaping of the mission of the armed forces and 
ensuring their subordination to civil control. In the case of the latter it is instructive 
to note that the downsizing of the armed forces in many developing countries (a 
product of both budgetary constraints and inter-lined donor agencyAMF injunctions) 
has led to a corresponding increase in the size and power of the police force 
and the civilian intelligence agencies. Notwithstanding the emphasis on their 
civilianisation, and although not equipped with the organisational and logistical 
ability to influence civil-military relations at a national level, they do possess the 
capacity to influence civil-military relations at a regional and, more particularly, 
a local level. 
Equally perturbing has been the transfer of state functions, intentionally and 
unintentionally, from state agencies to private security companies - a phenomenon 
most vividly exemplified by the influence of the private South African security 
company Executive Outcomes in diverse African conflicts, and the expansion of 
private security companies throughout Southern Africa generally (the latter 
increasingly consisting of former police and military personnel drawn from both 
the former guerrilla armies of the liberation movements and soldiers from the old 
regular forces). Ultimately, it may be more appropriate in many developing 
countries to speak either of civilian-military relations or even civilian-security 
relations rather than simply focusing on civil-military relations in the narrower 
institutional sense of the word. 
Fourthly, whilst it may not be possible to erect an integrated and overarching 
theoretical system or an axiomatic foundational basis which proves capable of 
explaining all civil-military relations scenarios, it will be possible to elucidate the 
central values of such a project. The normative dimension of civil-military 
relations theory needs to be stressed and bolstered and this should provide a 
lodestar for all interventions in the civil-military debate in developing countries.
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 39 
The basis of this normative framework emphasises the importance of democratic 
civil-military relations and stresses those universal moral values of transparency, 
accountability and the primacy of elected government within this equation. 
Fifthly, a new methodology is required that will prove capable of providing a 
radical critique of the assumptions of much of contemporary civil-military relations 
theory, as well as constituting the basis for an ongoing and active intervention 
in the civil-military relations debate within the developing world. It is proposed 
here that any theoretical revision can only be effected on the basis of an interdisciplinary 
approach that incorporates into its orbit both African and Western 
intellectual traditions as evident in such disciplines as sociology, political science, 
international relations, state theory, and the critical-reflective traditions developed 
in such schools of thought as the Frankfurt School, Post-Modernism and elsewhere. 
Finally, the concept of the "apolitical" soldier (popular, if somewhat misapplied, 
in the discourses of many Third World armed forces) needs to be reexamined. 
Even in democracies and countries with little experience of the intrusion 
of the armed forces into the political realm, the armed forces are invariably 
involved in politics in varying degrees. This involvement (be it of a benign or more 
assertive nature) inevitably results in the penetration of political themes and 
concepts into the discourse and, ultimately, the construction of the corporate 
identity of the armed forces (identities as diverse as those of the revolutionary 
soldier; the Western professional soldier of the USA and the UK, or the "Citizenin-
uniform" of the Bundeswehr). The influence of the "political" may be manifest 
in an asymmetrical and differentiated manner within the practices of different 
armed forces depending on the peculiarities of the country concerned, but is always 
present at the heart of their activities. This may be reflected in the constitutional 
imperatives to which the armed forces are expected to adhere, the involvement of 
the armed forces in the parliamentary, policy and state budgeting process, the 
access to the president as Commander-in-Chief which the armed forces enjoy or, 
simply, the different political persuasions of the different members of the armed 
forces. 
It is not only inevitable that the armed forces should be "political"; but it is also 
perhaps desirable that they are so inclined. It is imperative that the armed forces of 
developing countries, and particularly those that are involved in the delicate task 
of consolidating democracy, are fully conversant with the democratic features of 
the system which they serve (hence the need forarobust civic education programme 
amongst its members), understand and are integrated into the government's key 
policy initiatives (especially when these relate to the encouragement of domestic 
development and stability) and are able, on a discursive and interactive basis, to 
interact with the elected civil authorities around a range of issues critical to their 
national mandate. What is critical about this "political" role, however, is the fact
40 Rocky Williams 
that it does not include the terrain of the party-political (and the armed forces as 
such must always be non-partisan in orientation), that their partnership_ with the 
civil authorities is not an equal partnership, and that their involvement in the terrain 
of national policy (politics with a small "p" as opposed to politics w.th a big P ) 
is clearly circumscribed and mutually acknowledged. It will be on th.s basis 
that a more fruitful debate on civil-military relations in developing countries, a 
debate less ascriptive than many of the present theoretical assumptions, will be 
generated. 
Conclusion , 
It is important, therefore, to strike a balance between the strengths of traditional 
civil-military relations (and there are many) and the possible insights which could 
flow from the type of analysis suggested in the preceding pages. This article argues 
for the adoption of a critique that utilises the new insights proposed above to 
redeem those elements of value within traditional civil-military relations and 
thereby render them more applicable in an African environment. This is essential 
if the ongoing process of democratisation and demilitarisation in Africa is to be 
supported. 
In essence, the answers to these intellectual challenges lies not in a reformulation 
of answers, but in a reconstruction of the questions that underpin much of the 
logic and methodology of defence thinking. Many of the key concepts which have 
been used to justify the existence of armed forces in the past are inadequate in their 
ability to explain the complexities of the present. Consequently, new interventions 
are required to create the space within which the boundaries of the civil-military 
relations debate can be expanded. 
e 
Notes 
* A former commander in Umkhonto We Sizwe (the guerrilla army of the 
African National Congress). He is currently the Director of Operations Policy 
at the South African Ministry of Defence. 
1. See "Uit Die Voorgeskiedenis van die S.A.W.: 1902-1910" (The History of th 
South African Defence Force : 1902- 1910) published in the first edition of 
Militaria, 1969, South Africa and "History of the S.A.D.F." in the South 
African Defence Force Review, 1989, S.A.D.F. Directorate of Public Relations, 
Pretoria, p. 25. 
2. The move towards civilianisation has been most manifest in the Policy, 
Finance, Logistics, and Personnel Divisions. This process has not been without 
its problems and was initially characterised by a certain degree of mistrust and 
suspicion between the uniformed component and the new civilian incumbents. 
The civilian Secretariat still relies heavily on both serving and former military 
members for the execution of its function and the process of capacity-building
Towards the Creation of an African Civil-Military Relations Tradition 41 
amongst its new members will clearly take some years before it reaches 
fruition. This has obviously limited the extent to which effective civil oversight 
can be instituted over all aspects of the defence function, as well as reducing the 
receptivity of the armed forces to the requirements of the new government. 
3. The information on the variety of formal and informal mechanisms on civilmilitary 
control was gathered from extensive interviews and discussions with 
senior officers and civilian defence officials from Zimbabwe, Namibia, 
Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana and Angola. 
A similar pattern to that described here also persists in such countries as Uganda 
and Kenya. 
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