Maturing civil-military relations

For more than 30 years, the overall framework to explain security-related political matters was the civil-military relations (CMR) approach (Huntington 1957; Janowitz 1960; Finer 1962), which tried to understand the formal and (crucially) informal politics of the relationships between civilian and military authorities and was often motivated by the vexed question of how to prevent military seizure of power. This approach was centred on the military and not on the security sector as a whole. From the late 1990s, there occurred a shift from CMR to SSR and SSG, which moved the focus from the military exclusively to taking on board the other components of the security sector, as explained earlier. However, in contrast to CMR, SSR/SSG has been oriented much more toward norm development and formal institution-building, reflecting contemporary imperatives of democratisation. In the process, however, the SSR/SSG approach has tended to be overly prescriptive and misses the crucial element of power relations and realpolitik which had been core to the classical CMR scholarship, particularly in terms of better understanding the micro-politics of the security establishment itself.

It is now necessary to develop a better awareness of possible changes in the military ethos and institutional cultures as a result of new contexts and missions (in particular international and regional peace operations) and emerging/non-conventional threats (terrorism, transnational crime, corruption within the security sector itself). Indeed, differences in local and regime responses to these common challenges have stimulated a diversity of forms of civil-military relations across the African continent (Bathily and Hutchful 1998) that demand systematic analysis. Since independence, security forces in most West African countries have suffered because of poor governance. Often, political interference eroded their professionalism and led to ethnically or geographically biased recruitment. Other times, political leaders attempted to buy the loyalty of special forces at the expense of national militaries. Contrary to popular belief, military regimes tended to undermine the effectiveness of security forces, while single-party states demanded party loyalty over military professionalism. Frequently, military regimes paid relatively little attention to the role and mission of the security forces or their effective management. At times, security forces were used as an employer of the last resort, resulting in large but poorly educated and ill-trained military establishments. Given an almost complete disregard for civil security, the police usually fared even worse than the military. However, policemen and policewomen in many cases are one of the very few signs of state presence in the daily life of West Africans. These “street-level” bureaucrats, much more involved in daily governance than the military, are therefore much more visible. In most instances security, of both the state and the individual, suffered, and relations between security forces and society deteriorated.

Military academies in each West African country can also provide a relevant opportunity whilst defence reviews can also be a good tool to rethink CMR. Even if focused quite narrowly on defence-related matters, defence reviews can help developing a holistic, evidence-based and inclusive methodology, including integrating civil society into the process. If integrated into wider national security strategies based on a broader assessment of the security environment, such reviews can prove extremely significant in opening up public space and stimulating national dialogue on defence issues, as well as integrating defence budget processes into wider public policy frameworks.

Forging new civil-military relations could also mean to develop a new approach to the operationality of the defence and security forces themselves. The operational challenge does not have the same acuteness in the different West African countries. In countries such as Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria (even if in the latter massive human rights violations have historically been a matter of concern), security apparatuses appear historically as the most operational, but the commitment of armed forces in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in operations to fight terrorism (together with the Operation Barkhane French forces or within the G5 Sahel) might change such a situation. However, operationality of the defence and security forces should not be considered as a global concept but should rather be defined as a combination of these four elements: effectiveness of security providers, which considers operationality from a technical perspective (mission performance); efficiency of security sector institutions, which envision operationality under the lens of human and financial capacities to fulfil their missions sustainably; readiness, which is related to the state of preparedness of persons, systems, or organisations to meet a situation and carry out a planned sequence of actions; and professionalism, which refers to a normative perspective on operationality (unity, integrity, discipline, impartiality, equality). Furthermore, it is important to note that the different national security forces may not have the same record of performance from one sector or service to another; for instance, in a given country, the military can better perform than the police forces, or some forces (such as the gendarmerie in francophone countries) within the police themselves can show better results than other ones. A discriminating approach based on a distinction between different sectors or services enables to better capture the operational challenge.

The greatest challenge in West Africa remains how to move the security sector away from being a protector of regimes in the context of new and emerging forms of politicisation frequently suppressing internal discord and competitive politics, rather than true guardians of states and nations. Ethnic allegiance and promotion, and lack of professionalism, continue to harm CMR in the sub-region.

These challenges provide an opportunity to reinvigorate the CMR approach by unpacking civil-military relations and considering them through different perspectives, such as micropolitics and power relationships underlying civil-military relations; relationships between the military and the political authorities, both within the executive and the legislative branch; relations between the military and the security forces (each with their own perception of security policies and military strategies); relations between the military and civil society organisations (CSOs) and the media; relations between the military and the population at large; civil-military relationships in rural and remote areas (challenge of decentralising security beyond central elites and institutions); and civil-military relations in the context of the fight against terrorism and violent extremism. Such a perspective would bring a political economy approach to SSR, which would enable a more sociological perspective. It would be possible to avoid a one-size-fits-all and too standardised approach to security governance.

Accountable and legitimate security through democratic governance and civilian oversight

Whilst 20 years ago there was almost no oversight of the security sector, which was the preserve of the president and of a limited number of surrounding decision makers, the institutional framework necessary to establish democratic SSG formally does exist today in most West African countries. In particular, the different security services have been created according to national legislation and regulations (e.g. laws, decrees, ministerial decrees, administrative decisions), whilst their missions and prerogatives are also legally defined; civilian control by democratically elected authorities over the defence and security forces has been theoretically instituted.

It is nevertheless important to stress the fact that SSR is well rooted in the history of democratisation in some West African countries. What can be conceptualised as “proto-SSR/G” practices were unfolding within the West African landscape, particularly manifest in the experiences of countries such as Nigeria, Ghana or Senegal in their respective processes of embracing multiparty democracy. There is a vast accumulated set of lessons to be learnt, in particular regarding the kind of balance to be struck between security and democratic governance in establishing relatively viable civil-security relationships and organs of democratic security governance.

Yet, the very existence of such control mechanisms actually has not prevented dysfunctions, gaps, deficits and failures, a large number of which still continue today. Even in contexts where democracy is relatively well rooted, West African parliaments have not played the role they are entitled or expected to play and have often served as an extension of the executive. In some countries, especially those emerging from conflict, legislative representatives may be unaware of their role. There is consequently a significant gap between the role assigned by national constitutions to legislative actors, on the one hand, and their actual role on the ground, on the other. A major challenge will be to build bridges between parliaments and CSOs. An innovative solution, for instance, might include providing CSOs with office space in parliaments to follow up the work of the Defence and Security Commission on a daily basis.

Democratic control, however, should not be reduced to parliamentary control but expanded to include other oversight institutions and actors. Judicial authorities and the justice system have key roles to play in security sector oversight by ensuring that security-related legislation does respect the constitutional order and that the defence and security forces do respect the law. Independent state authorities with focused mandates also need the willingness and capacity to include the security sector and its activities in their remit (e.g. human rights commissions, financial audit bodies, ombuds institutions, anti-corruption commissions). A final matter for consideration is what civilian democratic oversight means for local structures and people, far removed from the capitals and centres of power.

Legal reform might be a complementary entry point. Not only do laws need to be updated to ensure security sector activities respect democratic process and human rights, but people must also be aware of the rights and protections the law affords them. Thus, there is a need to make the law available to any citizen in relevant local languages and to improve awareness of the obligations of security providers. Supporting the development of more accountable standards for the classification of information under law, as well as freedom of information laws and better record keeping, can also help to raise awareness in a number of countries.

Even if all the international and regional SSR frameworks (AU, ECOWAS, UN, EU, etc.) share common principles of a comprehensive approach to SSR in a context of democratic security governance, little attention and resources have been devoted to support such a democratic SSG. Different actors of the security sector still need support to fulfil their supervisory and oversight role.

Enhancing the role of civil society and media

Another critical factor in democratisation processes in West Africa has been the active role played by well-organised civil society (compared, for example, to Central or East Africa), many of them having benefited from support from private foundations and international development partners.

However, traditionally civil society has tended to consider security issues as the preserve of the executive, also tending to view security forces mostly as “the enemy”. Consequently, CSOs have been slow to appreciate the legitimate concerns (and the genuine constraints and limitations) of the armed and security forces, even when those forces have seemed eager for greater recognition and cooperation. However, blame for the poor state of civil-security relations can be apportioned equally in most cases, and all too often the civilian political authorities have borne primary responsibility for obstructing more positive relationships between the security forces and civil society. A significant shift in prevailing culture and mindset is required on all sides to overcome the lack of dialogue and reluctance to cooperate.

Most CSOs also lack familiarity with security-related issues: CSOs as well as the population at large lack (or are often denied) access to security information, owing in large part to a lack of transparency in management of security affairs, but also to the difficulty the African media seems to experience in covering security matters (whether due to lack of expertise, self-censorship or alleged tendencies to sensationalism and indiscretion).

In a number of African countries, however (e.g. Senegal, Niger, Mali, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone), civil society has developed original approaches to its oversight of the security sector, such as participation in public hearings mounted by legislators and investigative commissions set up by government, visits to police stations, meetings with police commanders and advocacy on behalf of the security services when required (e.g. by making the public aware that government had failed to invest in uniforms or hygiene facilities). In building the capacity of civil society to engage more effectively, exchange visits with other countries have proved of good value, while collaboration with international partners sometimes has given their voice added weight on the national scene. In Senegal, collaboration between the armed forces and CSOs produced positive results in fighting the proliferation of light weapons.

Organisations more often than not lack stable staff and access to resources, so they have time to build up their expertise and to engage on a long-term basis with state security providers. At the same time, external financing for civil society activities tends to skew civil society concerns towards external priorities and elite-driven projects. The concept of civil society itself can be problematic on the African continent. While Western partners may tend to idealise African CSOs, associating them with progressive thinking and civic values, the same organisations are sometimes perceived much more negatively in West Africa, where they may be viewed as politicised, partisan or even corrupt. Furthermore, far from systematically promoting human rights and democracy, CSOs advocate or defend norms and values incompatible with the principles of accountability, inclusiveness or equality.

CSOs, however, are not the only actors which suffer such weaknesses. In fact, there is a tendency to define civil society in narrow terms, based on expectations about the style and composition of ideal-type civil society actors, which misses out on contributions of other potential stakeholders. Expanding the definition of civil society beyond conventional CSOs to encompass any voluntary group that espouses a vision of the public interest can enable new SSRG entry points. Yet, the “civil society” label should not be applied so promiscuously as to encompass all and every active organisation. A clear distinction should be made between private organisations acting on the profit motive and private organisations articulating for the public interest to enable them to articulate a security agenda that serves local needs as well as those of society.

Security from the bottom up: hybrid security governance

Prevailing approaches to SSR – and the associated policy literature – have tended to stress the notions of the state characterised by legal-rational norms and institutions. Thus, SSRG processes have more often than not concentrated on the formal arrangements of the state and its security and justice institutions. Yet, such approaches are fundamentally at variance with the underlying realities of the West African context, where many political and social transactions (not least in the security sector) take place in the context of informal norms and systems, and where a wide array of institutions operate alongside or within nominally formal political institutions. Security provisioning in Africa is predominantly bottom up, not top down, delivered by an array of informal institutions and actors in concert as well as in competition with the state. Yet this large and heterogeneous sector is not captured in current security governance structures or strategies. Ignorance of the non-codified norms, non-state actors and non-formal networks active in the security realm – as well as, indeed, the extent to which state policies in Africa are themselves impregnated by informal norms and practices – leads inexorably to a core element in explaining the failure of orthodox, state-centric peacebuilding and security-related policies. Such socio-cultural realities do matter in understanding African environments and tailoring solutions suited to those environments, particularly beyond the domain of the state.

This may well account for many of the limitations of efforts to reform the security sector and its governance systems. In fact, the efficiency of SSR policies conducted on the African continent often turns out to be limited because they tend to focus mostly on state institutions, governmental established stakeholders, legal frameworks and codified standards. Although understanding and controlling the state dimension remains essential, the complexity of Africa’s socio-political and security dynamics calls inseparably for a deep understanding of societal realities, often informal, within which security governance in Africa is rooted. Furthermore, analysis of recent crises that have occurred in many African countries involving the security apparatus demonstrates the need to better understand the societal and cultural context within which SSR policies are implemented. Increasingly, references to the informal security and justice sector have crept into the SSR and “state-building” toolkits, although so far based upon insufficient empirical understanding of how this sector functions in the political and security marketplace, or of the complex interplay between formal and informal institutions, which determine how policies play out on the ground and impact (or not) the lives of citizens and communities. On the African continent, formal and informal systems tend to overlap, interrelate and interpenetrate at complex levels, and states and informal networks are not mutually exclusive but should rather be seen as embedded in each other.

There is consequently a need to identify this complex amalgam of formal and informal networks, actors and processes which, alongside legally established structures, influence decision-making as well as policy implementation in the security sector and which together constitute what can be seen as “hybrid security orders” (Boege, Brown and Clements 2009). The concept of hybridity (Bagayoko, Hutchful and Luckham 2016) can provide a powerful analytical tool to explain governance in West Africa, where most security networks and practices are embedded (to one degree or another) in informal institutions and beliefs. Analysis and policy have scarcely begun to touch upon the deep politics of reform or to draw in any systematic way upon the critical literatures on hybrid political orders and security.

By relying on the perspectives offered by sociology and anthropology in the daily functioning of security provision (both at the central and local levels), the analysis of hybrid security governance could provide new and refreshing insights on networks and alliances as well as on competition, tensions and conflicts within African defence and security services, which may help to explain the difficulties in implementing SSR processes. Such an approach is likely to offer decision makers a key input to understanding non-state stakeholders, non-official networks and non-codified standards, whose influences compete against or to the contrary complete the intervention perimeter of state institutions and legal frameworks. It may also serve to explain how hybrid security systems are experienced at the grassroots by supposed beneficiaries, and in particular how they impact the lives of vulnerable groups and shape citizen expectations of security and security entitlements.

In addition to contributing to strengthening the research and evidence base of SSR, this approach carries important policy implications for how we approach security governance in Africa. In this regard, the ultimate intent is going beyond the use of hybridity as an analytical tool to inquire as to the extent to which the concept can provide the underpinnings of an approach to building more effective security and security governance systems and inform the agendas of West African states and partners who wish to participate in programs aimed at reaching this objective.

SSRG and asymmetric threats in West Africa

The security environment in West Africa is presently characterised by “asymmetric” threats and conflicts which existing security institutions have not been trained to deal with, as proved by the situation in the Sahel and Lake Chad region. There is almost no doctrine or security policy in West African states to address such asymmetric challenges, resulting in ad hoc and reactive responses even to increasingly complex threat environments, be they vernacular, or international or cross-border in character (ISSAT n.d.; Van Veen 2017; Bagayoko 2020). The fight against terror and radicalisation processes is of course a major new challenge for SSRG in West Africa, and their impact must be evaluated. The logic of the fight against terrorism might squeeze out whatever fragile commitment exists to democratic security governance, whilst there is increasing blurring in mandates of the armed forces, the police and the intelligence in countries undergoing counterterrorism operations. The nature of counterterrorism operations will be key to the future of the democratic governance–based approach to security reform.

Furthermore, other security challenges (sometimes emerging but also more ancient) should be seen as important as the terrorist threat, such as conflicts around resource management (between herders, farmers and fishermen); water; gold washing; maritime insecurity (e.g. piracy, armed robbery, illegal fishing); transnational organised crime; and communal conflicts. These asymmetric threats are challenges not only to the operationality of the security sector but also to its accountability and ability to provide security to the people and the states. Those emerging security risks in West Africa may well mean that SSR will become even more focused on stabilisation imperatives and counterterrorism initiatives (Charbonneau 2019) rather than longer-term governance and institution-building. More and more SSR funding will be diverted to humanitarian and migration issues; and while violent extremism is arguably leading to increased security assistance, this assistance will be guided more by donors’ own security agendas rather than those of “recipient” states, along with a growing focus on capacitating security institutions (via “train-and-equip” and “robust SSR”) and less focus on security governance. There also could be greater willingness to tolerate serious human rights violations (particularly in the context of asymmetric operations) and growing restrictions on political freedoms by governments. This is an adverse and unfortunately all too real development that West African states and their international partners should be particularly vigilant about if SSR is not to be gutted.

Fostering SSRG in a non-conflict setting

The SSRG agenda essentially has been driven by a conflict and post-crisis perspective: most of the SSRG efforts have concentrated on the Sahel region (Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in a lesser extent) as well as Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia. Yet, an increasingly essential challenge is to support the SSRG agenda in non-conflict settings with a much longer-term approach, particularly in post-authoritarian environments as well as stable countries. Such a perspective positions SSR as an essential component of the UN’s Sustaining Peace Agenda, of the prevention-based approach promoted by the UN secretary-general (Guterres 2017) and in the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS). However, distinct approaches must be developed to differentiate countries presently embracing genuine democracy from those under a more authoritarian rule.

Countries not involved in conflict face threats which transcend borders and pose unprecedented challenges, hamstrung by weak, corrupt or absent institutions. The threats posed by organised and cross border crimes; trafficking of drugs, arms, and people; money laundering; terrorism; document forgery; identity theft; online extortion/cybercriminality; and others demand not only more robust actions but also a more efficient regional and international cooperation.