African Security: Local Issues and Global Connections provokes new ways of thinking about solutions to African security-solutions that consider the eclectic and sometimes disparate natures of African conflicts and that address both their domestic and their external dimensions. The book centers on the concept of glocalized security, which draws from sociological critiques that point to localization within globalization. This edited collection brings the concept of glocalization into African security studies by examining the fusion of domestic and external drivers of conflicts and how that relationship creates a glocalized security situation across Africa. The chapters in this volume engage the literature on domestic and external causes of conflicts in Africa, most notably issues of patrimonialism, ethnicity, natural resources, climate change, and geopolitics. These conflict drivers are woven in with known theories on security, such as neocolonialism, liberal peace, responsibility to protect (R2P), and collective security. The book presents rich qualitative and historical data, convincingly analyzed and theorized. Contributors: Folahanmi Aina, Alfred Babo, Abu Bakarr Bah, Noamane Cherkaoui, Nikolas Emmanuel, Tenley K. Erickson, John Mwangi Githigaro, Michael Nwankpa, Norman Sempijja, and Akram Zaoui
Abu Bakarr Bah is Presidential Research Professor of Sociology at Northern Illinois University and founding director of the Institute for Research and Policy Integration in Africa. He is also editor in chief of African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review and African editor for Critical Sociology. His works include International Statebuilding in West Africa: Civil Wars and New Humanitarianism in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire; Post-conflict Institutional Design: Peacebuilding and Democracy in Africa; International Security and Peacebuilding: Africa, the Middle East, and Europe; and Breakdown and Reconstitution: Democracy, the Nation-State, and Ethnicity in Nigeria, as well as articles in numerous journals.
Introduction Local Issues and Global Connections in African Security ABU BAKARR BAH Chapter 1 African Realities and Knowledge Production Conceptions of Civil Wars, International Interventions, and State Building ABU BAKARR BAH AND NIKOLAS EMMANUEL Chapter 2 Proscription Regimes and the Internationalization of National Security Threats Countering Terrorism in Nigeria FOLAHANMI AINA Chapter 3 Countering Violent Extremism through Community Policing in Likoni, Mombasa, Kenya JOHN MWANGI GITHIGARO Chapter 4 Militarized Response to Domestic, Regional, and International Security Issues in Nigeria and Uganda MICHAEL NWANKPA Chapter 5 The Conundrums of International Military Interventions in Africa The Cases of Cote d'Ivoire and Mali ALFRED BABO Chapter 6 African Agency in Securitization Assimilating International Capacities TENLEY K. ERICKSON Chapter 7 The African Union on the Periphery of Peacebuilding The Role of External Powers and Regional Bodies in Libya NORMAN SEMPIJJA, AKRAM ZAOUI, AND NOAMANE CHERKAOUI Contributors Index
Durable solutions to Africa's multiple security challenges continue to be elusive. Proposing an insightful conceptual framework, this excellent volume presents deeply nuanced and contextual case studies of key security challenges on the continent. This book will be an invaluable resource for scholars and policymakers attempting to make sense of Africa's multiple security challenges. - Leonardo A. Villalon, University of Florida One of the most worrying developments of recent years has been the growing number of African citizens who feel unsafe in their own homes. A solution to this problem is urgently needed if it is not to have dramatic consequences for development and democracy. African Security: Local Issues and Global Connections could therefore hardly be more timely or vital. The fresh insights in this volume go a long way to explaining the most effective ways to enhance security-and, just as importantly, the things to avoid. An important contribution. - Nic Cheeseman, University of Birmingham This pathbreaking book encapsulates new thinking on how the combination of domestic and externally driven factors both reshape and redefine emerging conflict dynamics in Africa, and underpin new transformations of security and insecurities-aptly framed using the lens of glocalization. It also offers new homegrown options for transcending glocalized African insecurities. - Cyril Obi, African Peacebuilding Network
