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Continuity and Discontinuity in African Military Organisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Claude E. Welch Jr
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Extract

The contemporary involvement of the armed forces in African politics seems to prove Mosca's maxim: ‘the class that bears the lance or holds the musket regularly forces its rule upon the class that handles the spade or pushes the shuttle’.1 Explanations for coups d'etat are myriad. The eruption of social conflicts into the armed services; personal and corporate greed; abridgement of military institutional prerogatives; weaknesses of the political system as a whole; increased emphasis on coercion: all figure among the reasons for intervention.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1975 , pp. 229 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

Page 229 note 1 Mosca, Gaetano, The Ruling Class (New York, 1939), p. 228.Google Scholar

Page 229 note 2 Gutteridge, W. F., The Military in African Politics (London, 1969), p. 6.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 1 Ajayi, J F. Ade and Smith, Robert, Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1971 edn.).Google Scholar See also, inter alia, Omer-Cooper, J. D., The Zulu Aftermath: a nineteenth-century revolution in Bantu Africa (Evanston, 1966);Google Scholar and Walter, Eugene Victor, Terror and Resistance: a study of political violence (New York, 1969).Google Scholar

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Page 245 note 1 According to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, military expenditures per member of the armed forces averaged $2,457 in 1968, ranging from highs of $9,368 (South Africa) and $8,000 (Chad and Mauritania) to lows of $9ii (Ethiopia), $750 (Liberia), and $609 (Tunisia). Multiples of 20–30 times the G.N.P. per capita are not uncommon. World Military Expenditures (Washington, 1971), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

Page 246 note 1 Luckharn, Robin, The Nigerian Military: a sociological analysis of authority and revolt, 1960–67 (Cambridge, 1971), p. 173.Google Scholar

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Page 248 note 1 Finer, S. E., The Man on Horseback: the role of the military in Politics (New York, 1962), p. 233.Google Scholar