Territorial Threats and Military Dictatorships

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nam Kyu Kim
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
External Threat ◽  
Military Institution ◽  
New Research ◽  
State Centralization ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

Many scholars consider the military dictatorship a distinct authoritarian regime type, pointing to the singular patterns of domestic and international behaviors displayed by military regimes. Existing studies show that compared with civilian dictatorships, military dictatorships commit more human rights abuses, are more prone to civil war, and engage in more belligerent behaviors against other countries. Despite their coercive capacity, rulers of military dictatorships tend to have shorter tenures than rulers of non-military dictatorships. Additionally, military dictatorships more quickly and peacefully transition to democracy than their non-military counterparts and frequently negotiate their withdrawal from power. Given the distinct natures of military dictatorships, research on military dictatorships and coups has resurged since 2000. A great body of new research utilizing new theories, data, and methods has added to the existing scholarship on military rule and coups, which saw considerable growth in the 1970s. Most studies tend to focus on domestic issues and pay relatively little attention to the relationship between international factors and military rule. However, a growing body of studies investigates how international factors, such as economic globalization, international military assistance, reactions from the international community, and external threat environments, affect military rule. One particularly interesting research topics in this regard is the relationship between external territorial threats and military rule. Territorial issues are more salient to domestic societies than other issues, producing significant ramifications for domestic politics through militarization and state centralization. Militaries play a pivotal role in militarization and state centralization, both of which are by-products of external territorial threats. Thus, external territorial threats produce permissive structural conditions that not only prohibit democratization but also encourage military dictatorships to emerge and persist. Moreover, if territorial threats affect the presence of military dictatorships, they are more likely to affect collegial military rule, characterized by the rule of a military institution, rather than military strongman rule, characterized by the rule by a military personalist dictator. This is because territorial threats make the military more internally unified and cohesive, which helps the military rule as an institution. Existing studies provide a fair amount of empirical evidence consistent with this claim. External territorial threats are found to increase the likelihood of military regimes, particularly collegial military regimes, as well as the likelihood of military coups. The same is not true of non-territorial threats. This indicates that the type of external threat, rather than the mere presence of an external threat, matters.

scholarly journals The Long Years of Military Rule in Nigeria: A Blessing or a Curse

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
ETEBOM John Monday
Keyword(s):  
High Rate ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Root Cause ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
The North ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Institution ◽  
The Military

Nigeria gained her independence in October 1960 after almost six decades of British colonial rule. The country’s journey into nationhood was herald by high hopes and prospects for national unity, peace and development. This was because of its vast human and material resources, and land mass. Nigeria is dominantly made of three prominent regions: the North (Hausa Fulani), the West (Yorubas) and the East (Igbos) with minorities in other regions.The military took over the leadership of the country barely six years into her independence as a nation. The military held sway for twenty nine years out of the ininitial forty years of the country’s post independence history before her return to civil rule in 1999.The county is still been confronted with challenges on all fronts ranging from insecurity and insurgency, economy, political uncertainty, electoral malpractices, high rate of unemployment, poor infrastructure amongst others. Literature have been skewed toward military intervention in politics as the root cause of the challenges bedeviling the country more than two decades after her return to civil rule.The study employed both quantitative and qualitative data. The study analysed the history of military rule in Nigeria and interrogated the crux of the military institution. It further analysed the peculiarities of each of the military regimes. The study also examined the post-military era in the country and concluded with recommendations.

Political Executives in Military Regimes

2020 ◽  
pp. 754-774
Author(s):  
Natasha Lindstaedt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Separate Category ◽  
The Military ◽  
Over Time

Military executives often seize power because the military sees itself as the best institution to lead the country. Yet the track record of military executives paints a very different picture. This chapter explains the consequences of military rule. In doing so, this chapter justifies why military executives need to be studied as a separate category from other types of authoritarian rule, and how the evolution of the study of military rule has changed over time. Countries ruled by military executives are more likely to commit human rights abuses and become embroiled in civil wars than are civilian executives. In spite of this, military executives have been able to construct the myth that they are better at ruling than civilians. This chapter explains how military executives actually govern and what the future is for the study of military executives.

A Special Intermittence and Continuity in Local History: The Chinese Diaspora and Their Hometown in Battlefield Quemoy during 1949-1960s

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiang Bo-wei
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Local History ◽  
The State ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Community Power ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract From 1949, Quemoy became the battlefront between the warring Nationalists and Communists as well as the frontline between Cold War nations. Under military rule, social and ideological control suppressed the community power of traditional clans and severed their connection with fellow countrymen living abroad. For 43 long years up until 1992, Quemoy was transformed from an open hometown of the Chinese diaspora into a closed battlefield and forbidden zone. During the war period, most of the Quemoy diasporic Chinese paid close attention to the state of their hometown including the security of their family members and property. In the early 1950s, they tried to keep themselves informed of the situation in Quemoy through any available medium and build up a new channel of remittances. Furthermore, as formal visits of the overseas Chinese were an important symbol of legitimacy for the KMT, Quemoy emigrants had been invited by the military authority to visit their hometown since 1950. This was in fact the only channel for the Chinese diaspora to go home. Using official files, newspapers and records of oral histories, this article analyzes the relationship between the Chinese diaspora and the battlefield, Quemoy, and takes a look at the interactions between family and clan members of the Chinese diaspora during 1949-1960s. It is a discussion of a special intermittence and continuity of local history.

Explaining the Long-Term Maintenance of a Military Regime: Panama before the U.S. Invasion

1992 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve C. Ropp
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Military Force ◽  
International Banking ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Military ◽  
Term Maintenance ◽  
The U.S

Before the U.S. invasion of December 1989, Panama experienced one of the longest periods of military rule in the modern-day history of Latin America. While numerous authoritarian military regimes emerged in the region during the 1960s and established for themselves a relatively high degree of autonomy from both domestic and international actors, only those in Panama, Paraguay, and Chile survived until the late 1980s. And of these three surviving military regimes, only Panama's was ended through the application of external military force. For the past several years, there has been considerable discussion of the factors that seem best to account for General Manuel Antonio Noriega's personal ability to resist U.S. pressure from 1987 until 1989 and to largely insulate himself from the political and economic constraints of Panamanian domestic politics. However, much less attention has been devoted to discussion of the factors that explain the long-term maintenance of the military authoritarian regime in existence for fifteen years prior to his assumption of power. This analysis suggests that the long-term maintenance of Panama's military authoritarian regime was due in large part to its ability to acquire substantial amounts of foreign capital. During the 1970s, such capital was preferentially obtained from the international banking community. During the 1980s, it was obtained through illicit activities of various kinds, including participation in the growing international drug trade.

Variations among North African Military Regimes

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-78
Author(s):  
Federico Battera
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
North African ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Supreme Council ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Military

This article explores the differences between two North African military regimes—Egypt and Algeria—which have been selected due to the continuity of military dominance of the political systems. Still, variations have marked their political development. In particular, the Algerian army’s approach to civilian institutions changed after a civilian president was chosen in 1999. This was not the case in Egypt after the demise of the Hosni Mubarak regime of 2011. Other important variations are to be found in the way power has been distributed among the military apparatuses themselves. In the case of Egypt, a principle of collegiality has been generally preserved within a body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which is absent in the case of Algeria, where conflicts between military opposed factions are more likely to arise in case of crisis. How differences generally impact the stability of military rule in these two cases is the main contribution of this paper.

Bureaucrats and the Senegalese Political Process

1971 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
'Ladipo Adamolekun
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Political Process ◽  
West African ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
The Military

While independence in West Africa focused academic attention on political parties, the proliferation of military régimes in the late 1960s– by 1970, seven West African countries had experienced military rule — brought two other institutions into prominence: the military and civil bureaucracies. This article seeks to throw some light on the place of the civil bureaucracy in Senegal through a study of the role of bureaucrats in the country's political process.

scholarly journals Democracy, external threat, and military spending

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 205316802110496
Author(s):  
Matthew Hauenstein ◽  
Matthew Smith ◽  
Mark Souva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Military Spending ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
External Threat ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

A number of studies find that democracies spend less on their military than non-democracies. Yet there are well known counter-examples, including but not limited to the United States and Israel. We contend that these counter-examples are part of a larger pattern. The relationship between regime type and military spending is conditional on external threat. Among countries that do not perceive a significant external threat to their interests, democracies allocate considerably less to the military than non-democracies. However, democracies with a significant external threat do not allocate less to the military than non-democracies. The reason prior research consistently finds that democracies, on average, spend less on the military, even while controlling for external threat, is that democracies are much less likely to have a high external threat. For example, autocracies are nearly twice as likely as democracies to have a significant external threat in our sample. An empirical analysis of military spending from 1952–2000 is consistent with these expectations.

The Consequences of Military Rule: Juntas Versus Strongmen

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Geddes
Keyword(s):  
Personal Control ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Regular Army ◽  
The Military

During the 20th century, seizures of power led by military officers became the most common means of imposing new dictatorships. The consequences of military rule have varied, however, depending on how widely power has been shared within the military-led government. Most military-led dictatorships begin as relatively collegial, but the dictator’s position in collegial military regimes is inherently unstable. His closest collaborators command troops and weapons with which they could, if they are dissatisfied with his policy choices, oust him without ending the regime. This vulnerability to ouster by close allies both constrains the dictator to consult with other officers in order to keep them satisfied and gives him reasons to try to protect himself from coup plots. Common means of protection include taking personal control of the internal security police, in order to spy on officers as well as civilian opponents, and creating paramilitary forces recruited from personal loyalists. Dictators build new paramilitary forces to defend themselves from attempted coups staged by the regular army. A military dictator who can withstand coup attempts need not consult with other officers and can concentrate great power in his hands. Military dictators who have to share power with other high-ranking officers (juntas) behave differently than military rulers who have concentrated power in their own hands (strongmen). These differences affect the well-being of citizens, the belligerence of international policy, the likelihood of regime collapse, how military rule ends when it finally does, and whether it is followed by democracy or a new dictatorship. In comparison to junta rule, strongman rule tends to result in erratic economic decision-making and high rates of corruption. Strongmen also behave more aggressively toward their neighbors than do juntas. Nevertheless, regimes led by strongmen last longer, on average, than do juntas. When faced with widespread opposition, juntas tend to negotiate a return to the barracks, while strongmen often must be overthrown by force. Negotiated transitions tend to end in democratization, but forced regime ousters often result in new dictatorships.

The Military Institution Revisited: Some Notes on Corporatism and Military Rule in Latin America

1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 421-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Philip
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Military Institution ◽  
The Military

Does political science advance or do fashions merely change? There can be no doubt that this past decade has seen a major change in the ways in which the nature of military rule in Latin America has been examined. To a large extent, this has been due to changes in the nature of Latin American governments themselves and, more particularly, to the emergence of the long term military-bureaucratic (sometimes called bureaucratic-authotitarian) government.

scholarly journals Global Banks and Latin American Dictators, 1974–1982

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Edoardo Altamura
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Foreign Capital ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
South American ◽  
International Capital ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
International Banks ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Global Banks

This article examines the relationship between international commercial banks and military regimes in South America. The focus is on how military regimes in the Southern Cone of Latin America and Brazil in the 1970s became heavily dependent on foreign capital provided by international banks based in Britain and France. It makes use of previously unavailable archival evidence to examine the interactions between international banks and South American governments, showing how these interactions intensified once military rule was established. It shows that international capital was used for a wide variety of purposes, including arms imports. When global banks cut loans once the debt crisis erupted in 1982, they aggravated the economic crisis but also fostered democratic change.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document