ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly evaluates the state of play of African Security Studies. It highlights the usefulness and the shortcomings of contemporary approaches. It points out the mixed results of liberal international interventionism (especially with regards to security interventions) as a failure of the Security Studies which inspire them. It is argued that the Newtonian approach (taken by most security studies) is no longer adequate. Consequently, it argues that complexity science is the suitable approach to the study of security. Considering the growth of literature on resilience, it is argued that resilience and robustness are attributes of complex adaptive systems, thus a focus on resilience only may limit the utility of complexity science to Security Studies. It is submitted that the complexity science framework (which embraces systems, chaos, cybernetics and network theories) provides the foundation for resilience thinking. As a result, it is submitted that complexity science and its computational methods such as agent-based modelling (ABM) will lead to a better understanding of security-producing systems.
