Abstract:
This article presents a synopsis of Community of Insecurity : SADC’s struggle for
peace and security in southern Africa, published by Ashgate in 2012. It focuses on
SADC’s efforts to establish a common security regime; conflict and peacemaking in
southern Africa between 1992 and 2011; and the prospects of SADC becoming a
security community. It summarises the reasons for SADC’s difficulties in the sphere
of regional security and politics, namely the weakness of member states, their
unwillingness to surrender sovereignty to communal mechanisms, and the absence
of common values among them. The main conclusion is that these problems lie
primarily at the national level and cannot be solved at the regional level. SADC
is a forum of states and it cannot do anything that these states will not permit
it to do.
