Francis Onditi, Gilad Ben-Nun, Edmond M. Were, and Israel N. Nyadera 2021. Reimagining Security Communities: Systems Thinking Approach for Africa. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, LIX + 477 pp. ISBN 978-3-030-70868-9 (hbk), €139,09; ISBN 978-3-030-70869-6 (ebk), GBP 94,48.
Reimagining Security Communities, co-edited by Francis Onditi, Gilad Ben-Nun, Edmond Were, and Israel Nyadera,9 aims to address conceptual and policy-oriented gaps in research on the multilayered African Peace and
The book starts with a discussion of Karl Deutsch’s concept of ‘security communities’ (Chapter 1) and Barry Buzans’s regional security complex (RSC) theory (Chapter 2), attempting to apply these notions to the African peace and security landscape and to provide regional and global views of the RSC s in Africa on the basis of systems thinking. Assessing the intricacy of regional security arrangements in Africa, chapter 3 contends that reconfiguring APSA and adopting systems thinking would help to improve relations between the organs of the African Union (AU) and the REC s. The book then proceeds to unpack APSA – its structure, process, and experiences – and discusses the central principle of subsidiarity (Chapter 4), before turning to the African Standby Force (Chapter 5) and analysing the historical development of African PSO s from a pan-African perspective (Chapter 6).
Chapters 7 to 12 form the core of the book. They deploy the proposed systems thinking model and use its principles to call for a reconfiguration of the framework of Africa’s regional security communities. The chapters present the principles of systems thinking, its elements, and its application to institutional design. These parts of the book indicate that the African-led peace operations are incapacitated, that the AU faces technical and political challenges in realising a regional collective security (Chapter 8), and that incongruences exist in the PSO multi-actor approach to deployment (Chapter 9). But they also, positively, indicate that the security challenges in Africa present an opportunity to test century-old systems and merge them with the one developed in the book (Chapter 10). The book proposes a system design of PSO s based on four principles: purpose; people and systems; systems behaviour and environment; and relationship between AU oversight, the REC s, and other auxiliary structures.
Chapter 12, the last contribution, provides a new theoretical framework for studying regional integration and argues for the need to include and account for the ‘human factor’, incorporating the cultural and psychological aspects
In short, Reimagining Security Communities attempts to offer a solution to the security problems that bedevil some African countries. Although it provides some useful insights into efforts to solve problems in Africa’s security hotspots as well as into the prospect of addressing the problems through the adoption of a regional security approach informed by systems thinking, the book falls short of achieving that mammoth task.
For one, it seems to me that the book is premised on the wrong question concerning the problem at hand. The question should perhaps rather be about what form of community actually defines African regional integration schemes? That is, can the AU and the REC s be considered security communities? This is what scholars initially expected what the REC s would eventually become. The four conditions on which this expectation was based included inclusive processes involving states and civil society; institutionalisation of processes; a schedule for realising objectives; and active handling of development and security challenges. However, although they have achieved some milestones, the REC s still have yet to fulfil most of the cited conditions for security communities. Moreover, regarding the motivation to establish a security community in the case of Africa and the REC s, theory and actual practice seem rather contradictory. Furthermore, traditional security – as used in the book – does not seem to have been the original priority and motivation for integration. In addition, the divergent national interests of many African countries often translate into member states’ refusal to surrender national sovereignty to foster regional integration. This dims the prospects of Africa and the REC s developing into security communities.
Interestingly, the book also discusses the evolution of (in)security, laying the foundation for the following discussion in the volume. It provides a decent historical overview of the evolution of traditional security perspectives as well as attempts to deploy Buzan’s regional security complex theory (Chapter 2). That theory posits that regional security complexes dominate the societal, political, and military sectors. However, the book does not really engage with or interrogate the theoretical contributions of critical views on the subject. For example, it does not juxtapose the non-traditional dimensions presented by scholars such as those of the Welsh/Aberystwyth school of thought, the Paris school, or the Copenhagen school of security studies with traditional thoughts that focus on the physical and military definition of security. Juxtaposing them could help incorporate the role that factors that relate to human (in)security (e.g. poverty, the environment, resources and resource distribution, and the
A couple of issues concerning the methods and theoretical approaches used in the book also affect the ability to achieve its aim – using systems thinking principles to offer solutions to security problems in Africa. The analysis in the book is informed by documentary sources from institutions in East Africa, the Horn of Africa, and West Africa, specifically in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Ghana. In addition, the book draws on information gathered by the authors in their interactions with peacekeepers in regional seminars held under the auspices of governments in the REC s and development partners, as well as from interviews with officials and experts at the AU Commission and the REC s. However, it is not clear how representative the data is and to what extent inferences can be extended to the rest of Africa. Moreover, trying to frame the discussion, the book uncharacteristically deploys multiple theoretical views and principles (e.g. Deutsch’s security community, Buzan’s RSC, ‘Dominiatrian’ thought, and systems theory). In my view, this renders the volume somewhat unfocused, lacking a solid, consistent, and systematic theoretical underpinning.
Overall, however, the book provides helpful insights into how to better organise Africa-led PSO s on the continent. If well executed, and with proper political support and commitment, the interagency approach and multidimensional peace operations, involving civil-military coordination – which are endorsed in the book – are commendable and could help change the security landscape in Africa. I think it could even be more effective if initiated at the local level, within respective member countries of the AU and the REC s. In general, many governments of AU member countries domestically work in silos, adding to challenges associated with heavy administrative duties that affect the application of ‘soft’ power in peace operations by various professionals in African military formations (pp. XXIV, 459, 461). The military itself in some of these hotspot countries should, first, be professionalised to reduce chances of the military becoming a threat to civilian governments and to reduce aspirations of some military personnel to step into politics. Students, policy-makers, civil society, and other actors interested in African security issues and regional governance will find some of the ideas in the book valuable.
Onditi is a senior lecturer and a head of department at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy, Riara University, Nairobi, Kenya; Ben-Nun is a senior researcher at Leipzig University’s Research Centre Global Dynamics, Germany; Were is an associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Kisii University, Kenya; and Nyadera is a graduate student at the Department of Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau.