Call for papers for a Conference

Conference on Armed Forces and African Societies

18-19 (Tuesday-Wednesday) January 2011 at the University of Yaoundé II, Cameroon.

The failure of the armed forces of states to provide sufficient security for its citizens and the existence of a wide variety of non-state forces which provide and/or undermine security in many parts of Africa today are issues which require urgent attention. Academics, policy-makers, NGO employees, security specialists, UN officials and any others who are willing to share their perspectives about this serious problem and suggest ways to improve security for threatened populations are invited to present their views at this conference.

The study of armed forces in African societies raises both basic theoretical as well as practical questions. How and why do states gain or lose a monopoly on the ‘legitimate’ use of force? What elements of continuity and change has there been in the nature of armed forces in Africa from the early nineteenth century (or even much earlier) until the present, and why? What are the basic motivations of various types of armed forces (grievance vs. greed, etc.)? What positive or negative roles do private security firms play in Africa today? How does the security dilemma in many parts of Africa today compare with the situation in other parts of the world (in either the past or present)? What positive or negative roles have various ‘peacekeeping’ forces played? How and when should ‘outside’ forces intervene in security crises? What are/have been/should be the role of multinational corporations in these crises? What are the best means (by outside or local armed forces) to restore security to many areas afflicted by chronic violence?

The conference organizers welcome the proposal of panels which focus on world-historical, politico-economic, sociological, and ethnological perspectives, but also invite participants with various interdisciplinary perspectives. Papers selected by the conference organizers or other collaborating editors will, if possible, be published online or as book chapters.

A wide variety of armed forces with numerous labels are active in Africa today. The armed forces of states, peacekeeping forces, private security forces, civil militias, ethnic vanguards, rebels, counterinsurgents, presidential bodyguards, predatory bands, highway robbers, conscripted or volunteer child soldiers, drug-trafficking gangs, street gangs, organized crime henchmen, anti-gangs, vigilante groups, terrorists, pirates, bootleggers, protection racketeers, troops of non-African states stationed in Africa, members of military training missions, local and state police forces, prison gangs, and mercenaries, are some examples.[1]

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Thursday 30 September 2010. Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 30 October 2010 and will need to submit their full papers to the organizers by 28 December 2010.

The 300-word abstracts should be submitted by email to the conference secretariat, with the following information:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of paper, e) body of abstract. Emails should include the name of the author and title in the subject line.

All paper proposals submitted will be acknowledged. If you do not receive a reply from us after a week following your submission, you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! In such cases, we suggest that you resend the abstract by an alternative electronic route. Unfortunately, no funding for travel to or lodging at the conference can be offered.

Conference Secretariat:

Ibrahim Ndzesop

Doctoral Candidate

University of Paris 1 and Centre d'Études des mondes africains, France

Military Labor and state formation,

E-mail Ibrahim.Ndzesop@malix.univ-paris1.fr or ibndzesop@gmail.com

Organizing Chairs

Sakah Saidu MAHMUD
Associate Professor and Head of Department of Political Science
Kwara State University, Malete, P. M. B. 1530, Ilorin Post Office, Ilorin-Nigeria

E-mail: sakah.mahmud@kwasu.edu.ng

Nadine MACHIKOU
Enseignante de science politique
Université de Yaoundé II et l'Institut des Relations International du Cameroun
E-mail: nadngameni@yahoo.fr

Lori HARTMANN-MAHMUD

Hower Associate Professor of Government and International Studies

Centre College, 600 West Walnut St., Danville, KY 40422

E-mail: lori.hartmann-mahmud@centre.edu

Richard BRADSHAW

Professor of History and International Relations

Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, USA

E-mail: rick.bradshaw@centre.edu

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[1] A few of the many sources which examine armed forces in Africa include David J. Francis, ed., Civil Militia: Africa’s Intractable Security Menace? (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); Julius Mutwol, Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa: Insurgent Motivations, State Responses, and Third-Party Peacemaking in Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009); Jimmy David Kandeh, Coups From Below: Armed Subalterns and State Power in West Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); George Klay Kieh, Jr. and Pita Ogaba Agbese, The Military and Politics in Africa (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004); ); Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Clausewitz and African War: Politics and Strategy in Liberia and Somalia (New York: Frank Cass, 2004); Preben Kaarsholm, Violence, Popular Culture & Development in Africa (London: James Curry, 2006); Ikechi Mgbeoji, Collective Insecurity: The Liberian Crisis, Unilateralism, and Global Order (Vancouver: UBC Press, (2006), 28; Mats Utas, Sweet Battlefield: Youth and the Liberian Civil War (Uppsala : Institutionen för Kulturantropologi och Etnologi, 2003), 46; Mark Huband, The Skull Beneath the Skin: Africa After the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001); Michael G. Wessells, Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection (London: Harvard University Press, 2006); Mary Moran, “Warriors or Soldiers? Masculinity and Ritual Transvestism in the Liberian Civil War,” in Constance R. Sutton, ed., Feminism, Nationalism and Militarism (Arlington, VA: Association for Feminist Anthropology/American Anthropological Association, 1995), 73-88; Naison Ngoma, “Civil-Military Relations in Africa: Navigating Uncharted Waters,” African Security Review 15 (2006): 98-; Amii Omara-Otunnu, Politics and the Military in Uganda, 1890-1985 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); Marc Fontrier, “Des Armées Africaines: Comment et Pour quoi Faire?” Outre-Terre, 2, 11 (2005): 347-374; Oliver Furley and Roy May, eds., Ending Africa’s Wars (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Herbert M. Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner, 2001); Jackie K. Cilliers and Peggy Mason, eds., Peace, Profit or Plunder? The Privatisation of Security in War-Torn African Societies (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 1999); Christopher Clapham, ed., African Guerrillas (Oxford: James Curry, 1998); Adekey Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2002); William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998); Ali A. Mazrui, “The Failed State and Political Collapse in Africa,” in Olara A. Otunnu and Michael W. Doyle, eds., Peacemaking and Peacekeeping in the New Century (Landam: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 233-44; E. Braathen, M. Bøås and G. Sæther, eds., Ethnicity Kills? The Politics of War, Peace and Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa (London: Macmillan, 2000); Robert I. Rotberg and Greg Mills, eds., War and Peace in Southern Africa: Crime, Drugs, Armies and Trade (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 1998); Henry Bienen, Armies and Parties in Africa (New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1978); Henry Bienen, Armed Forces, Conflict, and Change in Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989); Gunnar Sorbo and Peter Vale, eds., Out of Conflict: From War to Peace in Africa (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1997); John W. Turner, Continent Abaze: The Insurgency Wars in Africa, 1960 to the Present (Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1998); Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid, eds., West Africa’s Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004); Donald Rothschild, Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures and Incentives for Cooperation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997); Gerry S. Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984); Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. ‘Kayode Fayemi, Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma (London & Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000); Barry Sadler and Gene Eugene, The African Mercenary (Spokane, WA: Books In Motion, 2005); Niels Kastfelt, ed., Religion and African Civil Wars (London: Hurst & Co., 2002); Greg Mills and John Stremlau, eds. The Privatisation of Security in Africa (Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Relations, 1999); Abiodun Alao, John Mackinlay, and ‘Funmi Olonisakin, Peacekeepers, Politicians and Warlords: The Liberian Peace Process (Tokyo: United Nations University, 1999); E.G. Beman and K. E. Sams, Peacekeeping in Africa: Capabilities and Culpabilities (Geneva: UNIDIR and Pretoria: ISS, 2000); Nicole Ball, “Demobilizing and Reintegrating Soldiers: Lessons from Africa,” in Kumar Krishna, ed., Rebuilding Societies After Civil War. Critical Roles for International Assistance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 85-106; Kees Kingma, “Demobilization, Reintegration and Peacebuilding in Africa,” International Peacekeeping 9, 2 (Summer 2002): 181-201; Lephophoto Mashike, “Standing Down or Standing Out? Demobilising or Reintegrating Former Soldiers,” African Security Review 9, 5/6 (2000): 64-71; Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimensions of an African Civil War (London: Hurst, 1999); Klaas Van Walraven, The Pretence of Peacekeeping in Africa: ECOMOG, West Africa and Liberia (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 1999); Karl Magyar and Earl Conteh-Morgan, eds., Peacekeeping in Africa: ECOMOG in Liberia (London: Macmillan, 1998); Mohamed Omer Beshir, The Mercenaries and Africa (Khartoum, Sudan: Khartoum University Press 1972); Bjørn Møller, Raising Armies in a Rough Neighborhood: Soldiers, Guerillas and Mercenaries in South Africa (København: Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, 2001); Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth, and Resources in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey, 1996); Monique Mekenkamp, Paul van Togeren and Hams van de Veen, eds., Search for Peace in Africa: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Management Activities (Utrecht: European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation, 1999); David R. Smock, Making War and Waging Peace: Foreign Intervention in Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace, 1993); Gregory Vincent Larkin, “Democracy and Imperialism: Mercenaries and Conscripts in the Making and Unmaking of Empire (Algeria, South Africa),” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1994; John L. Hirsch and Robert B. Oakley, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: International Peace Academy, 1998); “DCR: Rebels, Mines and Mercenaries,” West Africa, 21 May 2001, 24-25; “Guerres en RDC et au Tchad: Les « Mercenaires Africains » en Action,” Le Potentiel, 7 February 2008; Jack Hirt, “The Eco-Mercenaries,” New York Times Magazine, 4 August 2002; Linda Lebrun, “Mercenary Connections: DiamondWorks, Executive Outcomes and the New Corporate Military Market,” Attache (Winter 1998-1999), http://www.trinity-utoronto.ca; “The Mungiki: Cult, Street Gang or Political Force?” Safer Access, July 2007, http://www.saferaccess.org;