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306 J. M. Lee, African Armies and Civil Order, New York, Frederick A. Praeger, 1969. pp. 198, $ 6.00. J. M. Lee's African armies and civil order is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the role of the security forces in the politics of African states. This study confirms, if any confirmation is at all neceesary, the view that the functioning of political institutions can best be understood in terms relative to a given society and at a given period. Attempts to apply uni- versal standards of evaluation simply obscure the issues involved. For the study of the role of the security forces in the politics of African states to be meaningful the nature of the colonial inheritance (political, economic, bureaucratic and even intellectual) must be fully appreciated and, in turn, related to the specific character of African societies themselves. To an extent this is what Lee has tried to do, by studying the behaviour of the security forces of the states of Tropical Africa against the background of the "apparatus" these states inherited from their former rulers. Lee's thesis, though by no means novel, is essentially that the avalanche of military coups d'etat in Tropical
Journal of Asian and African Studies (in 2002 continued as African and Asian Studies) – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1972
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