What has been the impact in South Africa of the ‘new security’? This article argues that the security-is-development thesis affects the functions of security agencies and is used to legitimate anti-democratic behaviour. In South Africa, a broad and deep vision of security promoted by inexperienced policymakers has contributed to the involvement of intelligence agents in domestic (often partisan) matters. An intellectual construct intended to critique state behaviour has thus become a tool of state power. Ultimately, all regime types define security in a self-interested, often anti-democratic way. A wide mandate in the hands of the state contains anti-democratic potential at least equal to that of a narrow understanding of security.
In the 1980s a new conception of security emerged. This involved both military and non-military dimensions and encompassed the security of multiple actors – not just of the state. The new security scholars thought they could avoid the political problems of a vague understanding of security by introducing referents other than the state and by arguing for the inclusion of non-coercive issues and methods in security agendas. When the concept was applied in South Africa, however, the state emerged as first among supposedly equal referents.
In 1992, the ANC committed itself to a new approach to security, which saw security as having political, economic, social and environmental dimensions. However, the intelligence sector rose to dominate the security establishment through the transition to democracy in South Africa.
- In 1994 a National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was created as a domestic intelligence service. It was never explained why a National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was necessary.
- Four new intelligence-like organisations were also created: the Scorpions; the Presidential Intelligence Unit; the South African Revenue Service’s intelligence unit; and a similar unit within the Department of Foreign Affairs.
- In 2006, the Intelligence Minister acknowledged that the intelligence services were in crisis. A scandal involving the NIA spying on businesses was involved.
- Another part of the crisis concerned intelligence officers’ involvement in the so-called succession struggle (for the presidency of the ANC and South Africa), with hoax emails circulating among senior ANC figures.
- A Ministerial Review Commission in 2008 reported that the NIA had since 1994 established for itself a record of misbehaviour in domestic affairs.
- An overly-broad, ambitious mandate contributed to poor service delivery by the NIA.
The story is a cautionary tale about policymakers’ use of scholarship. The problematic implementation of the new security in South Africa arose not from the particular definition of security used, but from the political process of definition – dominated by the incumbent government. Concepts borrowed from a democratic context acquire new meanings and roles in authoritarian, transitional and democratising contexts. The state (in the sense of government) needs to return to the centre of any theorising about security.
- In practice, a domestic intelligence agency with a broad mandate will not remain aloof from domestic disputes.
- Arguably, if security institutions are given developmental tasks, capacity development in civilian institutions is hindered, and security institutions may be distracted from their primary duties.
- Assigning developmental tasks to hierarchical organisations with a command or military ethos may spoil the developmental approach.
- Scholarship’s focus on securitisation processes could expand beyond what goes on the agenda to include what happens to the agenda when it is a tool of policy and when it is a justification of state repression.
- The appeal to policy activists of the new notion of security has rested in part on scholars’ indifference to such realities.
- Theoretical reconsideration is important, even though it will involve crossing interdisciplinary boundaries.
