Reconfiguring Military Capabilities into the 21st Century: Reflections on Selected Operational Activities for Development

Abstract

The nature of the authoritarian colonial legacies in most countries southern African suggests the need for a transformative agenda in public administration and South Africa is not an exception. In pursuit of this transformative agenda, the researcher argues that the national security and defence management offers the opportunity to build such a theoretical trajectory or theory building in public administration. The common African defence and security policy provides the architectures for the regional competitive strength in promoting non-traditional military responsibilities relating to the protection of people’s social, political, economic and cultural values and ways of life – a deviation from the authoritarian colonial legacies that view the citizens as military targets. The regional best practices in support of these non-traditional military responsibilities are explored within the contest of the military knowledge system in pursuit of theory building on military operational activities for development (MOAD. In building this substantive theory, the researchers depend of grounded theory methodology. The central argument in this study advocates the military role in alleviating the socio-spatial inequality in South Africa.