Civil-military Relations Theory and its Relevance to Africa Sample Clauses

Civil-military Relations Theory and its Relevance to Africa. Any discussion of civil-military relations in Central Africa must begin with the consideration that the African military remains a little studied subject overall, with gaps in research analysis being even more pronounced for the non-English (mostly Francophone and Lusophone) worlds. As regards geographic coverage, for years, English language publications on Central Africa remained restricted to translations from French and Flemish studies, with little research being carried out in the English speaking world, with the exceptions of a 1982 analysis of French military influence on francophone Africa by Xxxxx Xxxxxxx and of Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx’x broad overview of a century 39 Special cases, such as the two competing armies of Rwanda and the Congolese FAZ and AFPL, will be dealt with in depth in the relevant case study of francophone African history.40 In France, Central Africa is a research area only with regard to the questionable role La Françafrique plays in national foreign policy.41 The military discussed in this context is the French national one as far as it is involved in African domestic politics. Belgian research is limited to its former African colony (Congo) and protectorates (Rwanda, Burundi), through area research conducted by the Congo Museum in Tervuren and the Congo Research network centred at Leuven University.42 In terms of substance, some anthropological work on the pre-colonial warrior cultures of Anglophone Africa is available,43 as well as a number of studies on the relevance of colonial campaigns in French historiography44 and some historical accounts dedicated to African warfare at the tactical level,45 leading, in the more recent period, to a few – usually pessimistic – assessments of the military value of African armed forces today.46 However, it is only as of the mid-1980s, with a large range of works published in response to a long decade of coups d’état stretching from the late 1970s to the early 1990s,47 that authors have begun approaching African military history in a 40 Xxxxxxx, Xxxxx (1982), French Militarism in Africa, Review of African Political Economy, 24, 55-84; Xxxxxxx, Xxxxxxx (1998), Francophone sub-Saharan Africa, 1880-1995, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 41 Xxxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxx-Xavier (1998), Françafrique : Le plus long scandale de la République, Editions Stock, Paris 42 xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.xx/xxxx; xxxx://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx/ 43 Xxxxx, XXX (1965), Professional Warriors in Nineteenth Century Yoruba Politics, Tari...