Security policy making in Africa: A human security perspective
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Date
2015-04-17
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University of Ghana
Abstract
The rubrics for security policy making in Africa since independence
have been largely dictated by a confluence of intern al and external
factors. These have included the country's colonial heritage; the Cold
War and its vestiges at some point; post-independence governance
dynamics that manifested in political instability and the inability of
successive regimes to adequately define the boundaries between
regime and state security. In all these the object has oscillated from
maintaining the territorial integrity of the polity, to ensuring sovereignty both from an internal and external dimension. Consequently,
the concept of National Security has provided the framework as well
as serve as the lynchpin for security policy making. With the growing
reality of population-centered threats worldwide, human security
considerations are becoming sine qua non for effective security policy
making globally. Within the African context, this demands the
recalibration of the understanding and implementation of security
policy. This paper traces the development of security policies in Africa
and juxtaposes it by contemporary realities in security consideration.
This is aimed at justifying the need for population centeredness in the
consideration of security
Description
School of social sciences colloquium
Keywords
rubrics, Cold War, political instability, regime, state security