SECURITY GOVERNANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA Paper for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Security Governance Project NOTE Gavin Cawthra This paper is aims to provide a very broad-brush overview of key issues involved in security governance in South Africa. It of necessity covers the transformation period although it seeks to concentrate on current and future challenges. It is‘formative research’ in the sense that it identifies the scope and nature of the issue but does not seek to provide definitive answers. It is also not comprehensive: it does not deal in any detail with foreign policy dimensions of security governance or with the criminal justice system, for example. To some extent the paper is also a result of‘action research’ in that it is based on the author’s involvement in security governance and policy issues. A number of interviews were carried out with practitioners, but these have not been attributed. Nor has the paper been referenced, given the very broad nature of its concerns and its synthesis of many sources. However, key sources of information are provided at the end. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION In the almost ten years since the establishment of South Africa’s first inclusive, democratic government, an ambitious, extensive and systematic process of reform has been carried out in the governance of security. The process is widely regarded as having been successful and a model for other processes of‘security sector reform’ in the context of transitions from authoritarian forms of governa nce to democratic ones. The new government led by the African National Congress(ANC) was faced with daunting security challenges, for which it was ill-prepared. The apartheid regime had put in place a comprehensive‘national security management system’ to deal with both internal and external threats, but this had been largely demolished and was in any case based on political repression, militarism and conflictual relations with neighbouring countries and had been largely unaccountable. Yet the new government inherited intact