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Since 1994 the South African Police Service (SAPS) has undertaken various efforts to build legitimacy in South Africa. Extensive community policing resources have been made available, and a hybrid community-oriented programme (sector policing) has been pursued. Nevertheless, public opinion data has shown that there are low levels of public trust in the police. Using Goldsmith’s framework of trust-diminishing police behaviours, this article suggests that indifference, a lack of professionalism, incompetence and corruption on the part of the police, particularly in high-crime areas, have eroded public trust in the SAPS. Furthermore, in an effort to maintain order, reduce crime and assert the authority of the state, the police have adopted militaristic strategies and practices, which have contributed to numerous cases of excessive use of force, which has consequently weakened police legitimacy in South Africa

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Understanding the factors that determine the military burdens in developing economies is an important area of research. Previous research has suggested that to understand the dynamics of the relationship between military burden and economic and strategic factors requires detailed case studies. This article provides an analysis of the South African experience, a particularly valuable case study given the importance of the military sector to the apartheid system, the marked reductions in military spending that have taken place under the new government and the availability of good time-series data. A detailed analysis of the trends in military spending and the changing structure of government spending over the past 40 years is undertaken. A simple model based on a general theory of the demand for military spending provides the basis for an investigation of the relative importance of strategic and other social and economic factors, and is found to perform surprisingly well. The results of the regression analysis suggest that the trends in South Africa's military spending (for the period 1963-97) could be explained as an autoregressive process in military burden conditioned on a number of country-specific strategic factors. Imposition of the mandatory UN arms embargo in 1977 and the change in regime in 1994 had significant negative impacts, while involvement in the Angolan War and the early years of the Republic had positive impacts.

This article analyses the nature of coordination between the various stakeholders during the design and implementation of a disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process. It makes detailed reference to the contemporary DDR programme in South Sudan as this African country is a relevant example of significant international and local efforts to facilitate DDR coordination in a fragile and complex political and operational environment. The analyses showed that in South Sudan, coordination appeared to have been negatively affected by hierarchical, convoluted and inflexible organisational structures and arrangements. In addition, further contributing factors included: inadequate communication; uncertainty over roles and responsibilities; and unequal access to financial resources. Moreover it was apparent that these arrangements and dynamics fostered inter-organisational tensions and eroded trust between stakeholders. This ultimately resulted in fragmented and sub-standard DDR outcomes.