Regionalization of security and the reconstruction of a region : the Southern African Development Community's (SADC) critical and ironic security dynamics
Abstract
This thesis’ central aim is to rethink regional security cooperation in southern Africa by
transcending the geopolitics that has been characteristic to the region. The constructivist
inspired regional security complex theory is thus preferred as an analytic device through
which a non-statist understanding of security within the region could be conceived.
Furthermore to understand how the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
is involved in the (re)construction of the region, the region building approach is adopted
although the thesis is mindful of the fact that this approach is relevant to regions that
have high levels of regionality. Comprehension of the regional security cooperation could
not be possible without deconstructing the taken-for-granted understanding of regional
security cooperation. To this end, post-modern and post-structuralists traditions become
sites in which the altered and reformulations of regional security cooperation can be
imagined with the hope of re-imagining new interpretations of regional security politics.
Thus, linguistically inspired methodology and methods are embraced in order to unmask
the taken for granted understandings and transform them into objects of discussion and
criticism. Therefore, SADC’s critical and ironic security dynamics are considered within
the post-modern tradition without necessarily engaging in the aesthetics of this tradition.
Zimbabwe as a case illuminates the limits of modernistic understanding of regional
security cooperation. The thesis concludes by proposing regionalist understanding of
security alternatives that are based on integrated analysis of security threats and
preventative approach to responses.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Embargo Reason: Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Electronic copy restricted until 26th July 2017. (Restriction now expired. Awaiting final permissions to release or further restrict full text.)
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