This new Handbook examines the issues, challenges, and debates surrounding the problem of security in Africa.
Africa is home to most of the world's current conflicts, and security is a key issue. However, African security can only be understood by employing different levels of analysis: the individual (human security), the state (national/state security), and the region (regional/international security). Each of these levels provides analytical tools for understanding what could be called the "African security predicament" and these debates are animated by the "new security" issues: immigration, small arms transfers, gangs and domestic crime, HIV/AIDS, transnational crime, poverty, and environmental degradation. African security therefore not only presents concrete challenges for international security but provides a real-world context for challenging conventional conceptions of security.
Drawing together contributions from a wide range of key thinkers in the field, the Routledge Handbook of African Security engages with these debates, and is organized into four parts:
- Part I: The African security predicament in the twenty-first century;
- Part II: Understanding conflict in Africa;
- Part III: Regionalism and Africa;
- Part IV: External influences.
This Handbook will be of great interest to students of African politics, human security, global security, war and conflict studies, peacebuilding, and IR in general.
Part I: The African Security Predicament in the 21st Century 1. Introduction, James J. Hentz 2. The African Security Predicament, Kwesi Aning, Kofi Annan and Naila Salihu 3. Conflict and War in Africa, William Reno 4: Human Security versus National Security in Africa: Developmental versus Failed States among the Rest, Timothy M. Shaw 5. Africa and Terrorism, Peter Pham and Michael S. Ansari 6. States, Boundaries, and Regional Collapse in Sub-Sahara Africa, James J. Hentz and Thomas Blevins 7. Peacekeeping in Africa after the Cold War: Trends and Challenges, Paul D. Williams and George Washington University Part II: Understanding Conflict in Africa 8. Understanding African Guerrillas - From Liberation Struggles to Warlordism and International Terrorism?, Morten Bøås and Kevin C. Dunn 9. Resources and Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa, Jessica Piombo 10. The State System and Africa’s Permanent Instability, Ian S. Spears 11. Security Sector Reform in Africa, Anthoni van Nieuwkerk 12. Humanitarian Aid and Conflict: From Humanitarian Neutralism to Humanitarian Intervention, Terrence Lyons 13. Separatism in Africa, Pierre Englebert 14. The Gendered Subject of Violence in African Countries, Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern 15. The Environment and Conflict in Africa, Kevin Dunn Part III: Regionalism and Africa 16. Regionalism in Africa: Concepts and Context, Daniel C. Bach 17. The African Union and African Security, Ulf Engel and João Gomes Porto 18. ECOWAS-AU Security Relations, Cyril Obi 19. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Africa, Stephen Burgess 20. IGAD and Regional Security in the Horn, Sally Healy 21. Regional Security Cooperation in Central Africa: What Perspectives after Ten Years of Peace and Security Operations?, Angela Meyer Part IV: External Influences 22. China’s Role in African Security, Ian Taylor 23. Comprehensive Security vs. Competing Interests: The EU’s Africa Policy on a Balancing Act, Belachew Gebrewold 24. U.S. Security Policy in Sub-Sahara Africa after the Cold War, Louis J. Nigro, Jr., Nicolas J. Lovelace 25. The United Nations and African Security, John F. Clark 26. The Afro-Arab Security Nexus, Hussein Solomon 27. Still ‘Getting Away With It’: France’s Africa Defense and Security Policy, Boubacar N’Diay
Biography
James J. Hentz is Professor and Chair of the Department of International Studies and Political Science at the Virginia Military Institute. He is the co-editor of New and Critical Security and Regionalism: Beyond the Nation State (2003), editor of Obligation of Empire: U.S. Grand Strategy for a New Century (2004), and author of South Africa and the Logic of Regional Cooperation (2005) and The Nature of War in Africa (forthcoming). He is also editor-in-chief of the leading journal African Security.
