Southern Africa has embarked on one of the world's most ambitious security co-operation initiatives, seeking to roll out the principles of the United Nations at regional levels. This book examines the triangular relationship between democratisation, the character of democracy and its deficits, and national security practices and perceptions of eleven southern African states. It explores what impact these processes and practices have had on the collaborative security project in the region. Based on national studies conducted by African academics and security practitioners over three years, it includes an examination of the way security is conceived and managed, as well as a comparative analysis of regional security co-operation in the developing world.

Attitudes Among the Youth

This book examines the defence and security challenges facing the new South Africa in the context of development and nation-building priorities. The transformation of security policy during the transition from apartheid and since the April 1994 elections is examined. Challenges facing the defence force and the police service are examined and the relationships between defence, development and domestic and external security are explored in an integrated way which points to a policy framework for security in the developing world.

With the end of white-dominated South Africa, many observers have argued for a positive transformation of the whole of Southern Africa based upon market integration and increased cooperation among the states of the region. Poku and the contributors to this collection re-examine this optimistic scenerio, and they point to the problems of translating good intentions into actual policies. In reality, the economic imbalance between South Africa and its neighbors poses severe problems for the region. Far from finding a stronger ally in regional reconstruction and development, the countries in the region are finding that for many in South Africa they simply do not matter that much. The analysis points to greater polarization, which may imply greater marginalization of the poorer countries in the region. Moreover, a major widening of the gap between the richer South Africa and some or all of the weaker economies may lead to increased tensions and breakdown of regional relations, even to a situation detrimental to economic development in the region. A provocative analysis by some of the leading politico-economic thinkers of the region, the volume will be of great use to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with Southern African development.

South Africa's democracy faces increasing challenges from within, whether from protest, bad governance or general public dissatisfaction. South Africa ́s Democracy at the Crossroads explores the question; what are the challenges to future democratization in South Africa?

Revisits the work of Rick Turner, a South African political theorist, and addresses contemporary debates Rick Turner was a South African academic and anti-apartheid activist who rebelled against the apartheid state at the height of its power. For this he was assassinated in 1978, at just 32 years of age, but his life and work are testimony to the power of philosophical thinking for humans everywhere. Turner chose to live freely in an unfree time and argued for a non-racial, socialist future in a context where this seemed unimaginable. This book takes seriously Rick Turner’s challenge that political theorising requires thinking in a utopian way. Turner’s seminal book The Eye of the Need: Towards a Participatory Democracy laid out some of his most potent ideas on a radically different political and economic system. His demand was that we work to escape the limiting ideas of the present, carefully design a just future based on shared human values, and act to make it a reality, both politically and in our daily lives. The contributors to this volume engage critically with Turner’s work on race relations, his relationship with Steve Biko, his views on religion, education and gender oppression, his participatory model of democracy, and his critique of enduring forms of poverty and economic inequality. They show how, in his life and work, Turner modeled how we can dare to be free and how hope can return, as the future always remains open to human construction. This book makes an important contribution to contemporary thinking and activism where the need for South Africans to define their understanding of their greater common good is of crucial importance.

This book covers the contributions of various international organisations, governments and their peoples, and solidarity organisations to the liberation struggle in South Africa. With emphasis on international solidarity with the liberation struggle, the subject matter in this book examines and analyses the events leading to the settlement of democracy in South Africa with a focus on: the events leading to the banning of the liberation movements; the various strategies and tactics adopted in pursuit of the democratic struggle; and the events leading to the advent of democracy Print editions not for sale in Sub-Saharan Africa. This book is part of Routledge’s co-published series 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa, in collaboration with UNISA Press, which reflects on the past years of a democratic South Africa and assesses the future opportunities and challenges.

This book shows that the security, economic, political, and social problems challenging national security, democracy, and good governance currently in Nigeria would get better or worse, depending on what happens to the seventy-one percent (71%) of Nigerias population still living below poverty line. This is in spite of the billions of petrodollars that Nigeria garnered as revenue over the past few decades. It reveals that one does not need to be a political prophet to predict that if these challenges are not successfully addressed through good governance and inclusive growth, this country will witness the worst civil disobedience, violence, revolts, militancy, breakdown of law and order, more kidnappings, and more of the citizens trying to check out of the country to other parts of the world in future. It concludes, however, that under such intense pressures, the Government of Nigeria, even if it is simply for its self-preservation, will be forced by the objective conditions to move against the interests of the dominant groups and classes in Nigeria. These are the ones who have, for long, captured and hijacked state power and the resources of the country for their exclusive use.