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A Developmental Role for Militaries in Africa: The Peace Engineering Corps Solution?
Abstract
In many African states, the military is one of very few technically capable large institutions. Based on interviews with pan-Africanist intellectuals and security experts, this article shows how a “Peace Engineering Corps” concept could be operationalized
by putting suitably trained professional military units to good use for civil-military cooperation and domestic development work. Such PECs would harness the military’s logistical, technical, and administrative capabilities in support of the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), providing environmental remediation, civil infrastructure expansion, and natural disaster response services. Western militaries could empower African partner forces in this regard by tailoring security assistance missions towards establishing and developing PEC capabilities, thereby supporting development, peacebuilding, and regional security efforts. We also note the potential for a pan-African civilian uniformed Peace and Development Corps, distinct from military PECs, in peace-building and economic development.
... Existing literature tends to support the involvement of the military in the development of African nations because of the assumption that the military has capability advantages in comparison with civilian institutions. The key research question in this context is, following the recommendations of authors such as Shaw (1979), Gotowicki (1997), Diop (2013), and Zimmermann and Matisek (2020), whether it makes economic sense to involve the military in the development agenda of the state in Africa. Therefore, this study opted to put to test the notion that the military institution can perform better than civilian institutions in delivering development and services to the citizenry of the African state. ...
... Elsewhere, the African Peace and Security Architecture has proposed the ''Peace Engineering Corps'' approach that institutionalizes the deployment of soldiers for infrastructure buildout and other civilian development project purposes (Zimmermann & Matisek, 2020). This is based on the rationale that in many African states the military is allocated a large share of the national budget and that the military has more capacity than civilian government institutions in terms of equipment, technical capabilities, and trained personnel (Zimmermann & Matisek, 2020). ...
... Elsewhere, the African Peace and Security Architecture has proposed the ''Peace Engineering Corps'' approach that institutionalizes the deployment of soldiers for infrastructure buildout and other civilian development project purposes (Zimmermann & Matisek, 2020). This is based on the rationale that in many African states the military is allocated a large share of the national budget and that the military has more capacity than civilian government institutions in terms of equipment, technical capabilities, and trained personnel (Zimmermann & Matisek, 2020). Zimmermann and Matisek (2020) view this as ''a new peacetime strategic role for militaries'' that could ''contribute to state stability and reduce the trade-off between military and non-military spending'' (p. ...
This article analyses the civil–military relations in Kenya in the context of civilian-activated politicization that is taking place the same way it happens in Latin America and the United States under the former Trump administration. In Kenya, this involves the use of the military in noncombat internal missions such as infrastructure development and management of public institutions especially where such institutions are perceived to be inefficient due to corruption both in public and private sectors. Judging from the outcomes of public works undertaken by the military, corruption and inefficiencies cannot be ruled out. This is demonstrated by the Kenya–Somalia Border Securitization Project where 34 million dollars was used to erect a 10-km fence in the war against terrorism. The outcomes of this study negate the logic of the proponents of developmental militarism in Africa who have been vocal in advocating the deployment of the soldiers to solve noncombat social challenges in the continent. Based on three case studies examined, deploying the military to engage in public works projects brings the military into a political minefield, is not productive, and proves to be an unreliable way to combat internal political corruption.
... From the justifications put forward by the President, political elites may want to deploy military personnel on civilian duties because of the belief that the military is efficient (Diop 2013;Zimmermann and Matisek 2020). This comes to the issue of inefficiency of public and private sectors in the delivery of services to the citizens where the military comes handy. ...
Involvement of the army in civilian duties is not a unique phenomenon in Africa. This study undertakes a document analysis of this phenomenon in Africa in the case of the President Kenyatta's involvement of military officers in the management of municipal service provision in metropolitan Nairobi to reveal the political meanings it engenders between the military and political elites, and society at large. It localises the analysis in Nairobi city where the phenomenon can be understood within the current debates of civilian activation of militarisation and the blurring of boundaries between civilian and military institutions. This furthers the debate as to whether a technologically advanced institution like the military should be left idle in resource poor countries of Africa while citizens continue to suffer from inadequate provision of services.
Within the broader context of securitized responses to Covid-19 globally, Uganda experienced an oversized military role, ranging from law-and-order and lockdown enforcement, to managing food-relief supplies, medical operations, and partisan political repression. What explains this excessive militarization? To address this poser, the article draws on secondary sources and key-informant interviews to test the hypothesis that military involvement in pandemic responses depends on pre-pandemic militarism. The findings reveal direct links between pre-crisis militarism and Covid-19 responses, contrary to the view that exceptionality and novelty of Covid-19 informed overly militarized responses. Through pandemic framing and institutional morphing, pre-pandemic militarism foregrounded military roles because Covid-19 provided Uganda’s ruling elites with a public health pretext to heighten militaristic rule, clutch the political arena in the context of elections, and deepen military presence in civilian public health realms. This excessive militarization of public health seriously impacts civil–military relations, specifically command and control, reporting and accountability, and resources management.
Senegal is viewed as one of the most stable countries in Africa. Many have hypothesized that this is a product of Senegalese culture, Sufi Islam, and/or French trusteeship. This article contends that Senegal has avoided civil wars and coup d’état due to a critical juncture in civil-military relations in 1962, where political and military elites avoided a violent confrontation, which prevented the politicization of the Senegalese armed force (SAF). This created a new path dependence of Armée-Nation ideology, allowing for the SAF to develop a ‘military enclave’ – a strong army in a weak state. Over time, the SAF developed bureaucratic-institutional competence that contributed to state-building, improved militarily effectiveness, all without being a threat to the state or society. This deep case study - based on fieldwork and interviews with military personnel - into Senegal provides a new theoretical conception of what it means to be militarily effective, while suggesting that much of the sociological and political science literature needs to consider how a patrimonial state can have pockets of effectiveness, even in the military. Finally, for comparative purposes, and to draw out causal mechanisms, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) are utilized as a way of showing how agential strategies by political and military elites in Senegal was (and has been) a crucial reason for harmonious civil-military relations (CMR) in Senegal, enabling the SAF to be militarily effective.
- Interview
Interview, Colonel Mathias Rogg, director of GIDS, Hamburg, January
2020.