Abstract: | A new approach to civil-military relations is developed by Peter Feaver in 'Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations' (2003). Feaver's 'agency theory' offers important advances against the standard 'professionalism' approaches to the topic exemplified by Samuel P. Huntington (1957) and Morris Janowitz (1960). But how applicable is the theory in the African context? Feaver himself is pessimistic about the value of his theory in a context where there is not an established culture of submission to civilian rule among military forces, and where coups are a real danger. The present author argues, however, that even under these conditions 'agency theory' remains extremely valuable as an analytic tool. Moreover, Feaver has not recognized the potential benefits that regional organizations offer to civilian principals in their goal of ensuring military obedience, even where a tradition of military professionalism does not exist. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |