Relations between African militaries, civilian authority and the public have undergone significant transformation over the past decades. Much of previous scholarship on civil-military relations tended to approach the subject through the idiom of the coup. Analysts in the 1960s initially presented the military in positive terms as a modernising agent, a representation cast aside in the throes of coups d’état, instability and rights violations at the behest of armed forces. This article revisits the conceptual and theoretical terrain in light of recent socio-political changes and in the wake of the peak of military coups on the continent. In reconceptualising civil-military relations, this article proposes a typology that combines the nature of modal relations with civilian authority and relations with the civilian public. The article analyses the different models of relations, tracing the domestic reconfigurations and external influences that structure news ways of civil-military engagement.
Acknowledgment
For their critical and constructive comments and suggestions, we are grateful to John Clark, the co-editors and two anonymous reviewers of this journal. We presented earlier versions of this article at a workshop at North Carolina State University on 16 November 2018 and at the annual meetings of the African Studies Association in Atlanta in November 2018 and Boston November 2019. We are indebted to participants at all three meetings for their useful comments and criticisms.
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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
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Notes on contributors
Moses Khisa
Moses Khisa is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at North Carolina State University, a Research Associate with the Centre for Research and columnist for Daily Monitor newspaper, both in Kampala, Uganda. His scholarly work has appeared in Africa Development, Third World Quarterly and Commonwealth and Comparative, among other peer-reviewed journals.
Christopher Day
Christopher Day is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program of African Studies at the College of Charleston. His work focuses on the politics of conflict in Africa and is author of The Fates of African Rebels: Victory, Defeat and the Politics of Civil War (Lynne Reinner).
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