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Abstract
The broadened and deepened notion of security has been evolving in two dimensions, one primarily intellectual and the other concerned more with political practice and policy. This paper briefly describes these dimensions, and then critically examines the acceptance of the new notion of security in the form a security-is-development thesis in South African security policy. This case shows how the security-is-development thesis affects the functions of security agencies and legitimates their anti-democratic behaviour. The case serves as a cautionary tale about how an intellectual construct, movement and school, originally intended to be a critique of state behaviour, can become a tool of state power at the expense of democracy.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their helpful comments. Components of this paper are contained in my ‘The Intelligence Services: Issues and Problems’.
Notes
Professor Seegers is a member of the Political Studies Department at the University of Cape Town. She has also been a Visiting Professor at Princeton University since 1999. Seegers has numerous publications but best known is The Military and the Making of Modern South Africa (1996, I.B.Tauris Publishing).
1. CitationBuzan's People States and Fear was one of the earliest and most influential books.
2. The landmark study is CitationHuntington, Political Order in Changing Societies.
3. See CitationButterfield's discussion of ‘The Tragic Element in Modern International Conflict’, chapter 1 of his History and Human Relations. For a more recent discussion, see , Perception and Misperception and ‘Co-operation under the Security Dilemma’.
4. CitationLuckham, ‘Discordant Voices’, 682–690.
5. See CitationFerreiera and Henk, ‘“Operationalising” Human Security’, 501–525.
6. CitationBuzan et al., Security; CitationWalt, ‘Renaissance of Security Studies’; Kolodziej, ‘Renaissance in Security Studies?’; and CitationKrause and Williams, ‘Broadening the Agenda’.
7. CitationDalby, ‘Contesting an Essential Concept’, 9.
8. See CitationWright, ‘Review of People, States and Fear’, 289–290. See also CitationAllison, Essence of Decision.
9. CitationWaltz, Man, the State and War.
10. CitationKolodziej, ‘Renaissance in Security Studies?’, 421–438; Krause and Williams, ‘Broadening the Agenda’, 229–254; and Walt, ‘Renaissance of Security Studies’, 211–239.
11. Dalby, ‘Contesting an Essential Concept’, 10; Krause and Williams, ‘Broadening the Agenda’, 236; , ‘Security and Emancipation’, 313–326; and Booth, ‘Security and Self’. See also CitationCollins, Contemporary Security Studies; and CitationTerriff et al., Security Studies Today.
12. CitationClapham, Africa and the International System; CitationGlenn, ‘The Interregnum’, 45–63; CitationJob, ‘The Insecurity Dilemma’, 11–35; CitationKrause, ‘Theorising Security’, 125–136; and CitationThomas, In Search of Security, particularly Chapter 2: ‘Nation-Building and the Search for Security’.
13. See CitationDuffield, Global Governance.
14. Dalby, ‘Contesting an Essential Concept’, 10. See also CitationJones, ‘Message in a Bottle’, 299–319.
15. What follows is not a formal comparison of the scholarly reception of security-is-development around the globe. The point made by one contrast, Europe and Latin America, is that different communities of scholars have different experiences of security and these experiences shaped their reception of the new security. The silence from Latin American scholars has been deafening and it is important to ask why that is the case.
16. CitationShafer, Deadly Paradigms.
17. One could argue that we are observing things predicted by Orwell, and indeed rhetorical corruption is part of the picture. A good illustration is CitationSchirmer, Guatemalan Military Project.
18. See especially the report on the background and setting in the Citation Report of the Chilean National Commission . Other commissions are contained at: http://www.usip.org/library/truth.html#tc [Accessed 4 December 2008]. See also CitationWeschler, A Miracle, A Universe.
19. CitationCollier, New Authoritarianism; CitationEnselaco, ‘Military Prerogatives’, 255–270; CitationO'Donnell et al., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule; CitationPion-Berlin, ‘Latin American National Security Doctrines’, 411–429; CitationStepan, Authoritarian Brazil; and CitationStepan, Rethinking Military Politics.
20. See CitationKlehr, Early Cold War Spies; and CitationKutler, American Inquisition.
21. See CitationKutler, Wars of Watergate.
22. Buzan et al., Security, 243.
23. See the Index on Censorship 2/82, 17.
24. See CitationRothkopf, Running the World, 1–60.
25. CitationWolfers, ‘National Security’, 481–502. For Wolfers, the ambiguity was not only scholarly in nature but also, and for our purposes significantly, in policy. See also CitationBaldwin, ‘Concept of Security’, 6. Baldwin further notes how rarely Wolfers appears in edited volumes about the new security.
26. The New York Times Company versus the United States, no. 1873, 3. Available at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0403_0713_ZS.html [Accessed 9 March 2010]. Not long after the Supreme Court's 1971 decision, the philosopher Sissela Bok concluded that American national security, despite its ‘high-sounding’ aims, involved patterns of deceit. CitationBok, Lying, 27.
27. See Dalby, ‘Contesting an Essential Concept’, 4–5, 9–10 and 12.
28. See CitationSeegers, ‘South Africa's National Security Management System’, 253–273.
29. See CitationSeegers, Military in the Making, 161–202.
30. See the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Available at: http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/TRC%20VOLUME%202.pdf [Accessed 17 March 2009].
31. CitationCock, Motivation for the Formation of Research on Militarisation, 1. See also CitationCock and Nathan, War and Society.
32. South African Defence Review, 1991, 1.
33. CitationCCR, Annual Report 1994, 6.
34. In the technocratic sense of the word policy; for example, evaluating policy in a non-partisan manner.
35. See CitationJordaan, ‘South African Defence’; CitationKenkel, ‘Civil Society Participation’, 2–26; and CitationKenkel, ‘Whispering to the Prince’.
36. For its Ready to Govern Conference in 1992, the ANC, for example, used the talents of especially Laurie Nathan and Mark Phillips to prepare the proposals about national security.
37. CitationANC, Ready to Govern.
38. CitationANC, Ready to Govern Emphasis added.
39. CitationANC, Ready to Govern
40. The official commitment may well have concealed some opposition, from within the ANC, to the new security.
41. Chapter 11 of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa is available at: http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons11.htm#198 [Accessed 2 December 2008]. The ‘free from fear’ phrase was inserted by my own hand.
42. Chapter 11 of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa is available at: http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons11.htm#198 [Accessed 2 December 2008]. The ‘free from fear’ phrase was inserted by my own hand
43. It was successfully opposed by, among others, supporters of the new security, such as Laurie Nathan.
44. The defence budget was slashed and national service was reduced, to name but two dimensions of diminished resources.
45. The Report is available at: http://www.info.gov.za/otherdocs/2003/trc/ [Accessed 2 December 2009]. See especially sections 3 and 5.
46. Mo Shaik's phrase. CitationShaw, ‘Spy meets Spy’, 271.
47. National Strategic Intelligence Act, no. 39 of 1994; National Strategic Intelligence Amendment Act, no. 67 of 2002; Government Gazette 24391 of 13 February 2003—Commencement date: 20 February 2003 (Gov Gazette 24475: 2003/02/20).
48. CitationRepublic of South Africa, White Paper on Intelligence.
49. CitationMti, ‘Role of the Intelligence Services’, 7.
50. See , Comment by the Deputy Minister; and Media Statement.
51. CitationRepublic of South Africa, Press Statement.
52. See , Monitoring & Evaluation and Justice, Crime Prevention and Security.
53. CitationNhlanhla, ‘Modalities of Combining’, 76.
54. The paper of Laurie Nathan can be found on the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR). Available at: http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/staff_papers/laurie_arusha.html [Accessed 3 December 2008].
55. See the website of NGO, The Africa Leadership forum. Available at: http://www.africaleadership.org/About%20the%20ALF.htm [Accessed 3 December 2008].
56. See http://www.africaleadership.org/About%20the%20ALF.htm [Accessed 3 December 2008]
57. See , New Thinking about Strategy and ‘Security Regime in Southern Africa’.
58. It was approved by the Organisation for African Unity, for example, although other parts of the OAU eventually used it.
59. The CSCE and the Palme Commission's ideas were not the only Scandinavian export to South Africa. See also the case of ‘non-offensive defense’. See Jordaan, ‘South African Defence’.
60. See, for example, CitationNathan, ‘Towards a Conference’.
61. The important report is that of CitationBoutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace.
62. See CitationBooth and Vale, ‘Security in Southern Africa’, 293.
63. See Seegers, Military in the Making, 245–291.
64. There have been various criticisms of foreign intelligence gathering, including improper priorities, but I do not want to dwell on them here.
65. Specifically on prominent businessman Saki Macozoma.
66. NIA director-general Billy Masetlha was dismissed and prosecuted on two criminal charges: contravening Citationthe Intelligence Services Oversight Act by lying to intelligence inspector-general Zolile Ngcakani about the origins of the hoax e-mails; and committing commercial fraud by using NIA funds to pay others involved in the hoax e-mails. The ‘others’ included former NIA manager for electronic surveillance, Funokwakhe Madlala, and IT salesman Muziwendoda Kunene. The NIA's counter-intelligence manager Bob Mhlanga was transferred to the South African Police Service and NIA deputy director-general of operations Gibson Njenje was suspended.
67. CitationRepublic of South Africa, Intelligence in a Constitutional Democracy.
68. See CitationRepublic of South Africa, Report of the Hefer Commission and Citation Khampempe Commission Report . The information about silly mistakes is in the reports of the Inspector-General for Intelligence.
69. In May 2007 the South African Teachers’ Union SADTU, for example, claimed that NIA had questioned teachers over the impending public service strike. A spokesman told of the fear of teachers being intimidated.
70. This answer owes a great deal to Clausewitz's writing about a ‘remarkable trinity’ in war: ‘the people’, ‘the commander and his army’ and the ‘government’, with government declaring war, the commander and his army conducting operations and the people supporting the war effort. The commander and his army are thus instruments of the people and the institution housing the representatives of the people, the legislature. CitationClausewitz, On War, 89.
71. One of the most important conclusions of the 9/11 Commission in the US was to confirm the principle of intelligence services as an ‘executive function’.
72. See the recording of sessions by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) at http://www.pmg.org.za/audio [Accessed 3 December 2008]. The PMG is a partnership of the Black Sash, Human Rights Committee and IDASA.
73. In other words, the problem consists of bad law rather than illegal behaviour.
74. President Mbeki in 2005: ‘I must say that for many years now I have been concerned about the quality of a significant proportion of the intelligence information I have been provided’. Sanders, Apartheid's Friends, 364.
75. CitationSanders, Apartheid's Friends, 343.
76. See CitationBetts, ‘Analysis, War, and Decision’, 61–89; CitationChan, ‘Intelligence of Stupidity’, 171–180; CitationGeorge, ‘Case for Multiple Advocacy’, 751–785; and CitationMcGarvey, ‘DIA: Intelligence to Please’.
77. Dr David Klatzow, a private consultant, quoted in The Cape Times, 1 November 2006.
78. Sanders, Apartheid's Friends, 356.
79. Sanders, Apartheid's Friends, 368.
80. Sanders, Apartheid's Friends, 348.
81. Republic of South Africa, Intelligence in a Constitutional Democracy, 11.
82. In South Africa's history, for example, the police's professional development was inhibited by the availability of the military to perform tasks that the police should have been doing in the first place. The result was the militarisation of the police and the politicisation of the military. See Seegers, Military in the Making, 46–117.
83. Sanders, Apartheid's Friends, 343. The legal bases of these bodies vary. In the case of the Scorpions, for example, it was an act of Parliament. The units within the Presidency and Foreign Affairs were created by the power of discretion accorded to the Cabinet and President.
84. CitationRepublic of South Africa, White Paper on Intelligence, 16.
85. Republic of South Africa, White Paper on Intelligence, under ‘Basic Principles and Guidelines of National Intelligence’, Annexure B, 5.3.
86. The Commission then proposes the mandate be redefined to focus on criminal behaviour and also to excise economic intelligence and the political intelligence function, as currently understood, from the mandate: ‘[the NIA's most important function] is to identify, analyse and forewarn government about violence and other extreme threats that entail criminality […] the political intelligence function as currently conceived should be abandoned’. Republic of South Africa, Intelligence in a Constitutional Democracy, 11 and 15. Although the intent is to focus the NIA on more serious crime, the Commission cannot resist proposing that NIA should continue to unobtrusively monitor the political and socio-economic environment, 15–16.
87. Republic of South Africa, Intelligence in a Constitutional Democracy, 128–129, does indicate that the intelligence mandate during President Mbeki's term expanded in three leaps. Mr Mbeki's style of management has been widely derided as authoritarian; yet the point to underline here is that the problem with the mandate was not a consequence of personal factors. Even former President Mandela notes: ‘As President for five years I know that my intelligence services many times didn't inform me before they took action. Sometimes I approved, sometimes I reprimanded them’. Sanders, Apartheid's Friends, 344.
88. Seegers, Military in the Making, 85–161.
89. CitationO'Brien, Controlling the Hydra.
90. The controversy over the release of the report of the Commission of Inquiry is one sign of impending battles. The publication of the report was threatened by the departure of the chief executive, Mr Thabo Mbeki, but the report did become a public document on account of its approval during the last hours of Mr Mbeki's tenure.
91. Some, like Bill McSweeney, have argued that there is in Buzan and his allies an implicit reliance on the state as primary actor. If so, making it explicit and considering the consequences of a strong but bad state would make a good start. See CitationMcSweeney, ‘Durkheim and the Copenhagen School’, 140.
