Organizing Warfare and Diplomacy in Western India, 1778–83

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Manu Sehgal
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
Western India ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Military

This chapter examines the origins of a distinctive system of organizing military conquest in the final quarter of the eighteenth century. It seeks to de-centre the study of politics and military contestation by looking at the war against the Marathas (1778–82) from the vantage point of the region most directly affected by it—the western peninsular territory of the Bombay presidency. The advantage in shifting the focus away from the politically dominant Bengal presidency allows identification of a critical component in the political economy of conquest—the transfer of political authority from a civilian council to the commander of a military force. This shift in political power was essential to the success of the EIC regime of conquest even as it became a perennial source of conflict within the governing structures of the Company state. The debate and dissension that accompanied the deployment of military force both enabled the success of the machine of war and characterized the creation of a distinctive early colonial ideology of rule that subverted civilian control of the military.

scholarly journals The Degree of Military Political Autonomy during the Spanish, Argentine and Brazilian Transitions

1993 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Zaverucha
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Military ◽  
Democratic Country

The state of civil–military relations in the world, especially in the Third World, is very well summed up by Mosca's statement that civilian control over the military ‘is a most fortunate exception in human history’.All over the globe, the armed forces have frequently preserved their autonomous power vis-à-vis civilians. They have also succeeded in maintaining their tutelage over some of the political regimes that have arisen from the process of transition from military to democratic governments, as in Argentina and Brazil. Spain is a remarkable exception. Today, Spain, despite its authoritarian legacy, is a democratic country. The constituted civil hierarchy has been institutionalised, military áutonomy weakened, and civilian control over the military has emerged. Spain's newly founded democracy now appears quite similar to the older European democracies.

The age of ‘Agricolamania’: early modern uses and abuses of Tacitus’ Agricola

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-148
Author(s):  
Alan Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Political ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
Literary Source ◽  
The North ◽  
The Military

The Agricola of Tacitus is the most extensive surviving ancient literary source on Roman Britain, and much of it deals with the Roman general Agricola’s conquest of Caledonia. Apparently providing evidence of the military prowess and civilising intentions of Rome whilst also describing a brave Caledonian hero named Calgacus, the text could be interpreted differently according to the political and patriotic affiliations of its early modern readers. As chapter seven will reveal, the Agricola would become something of an obsession amongst Scotland’s antiquarians, providing historical information on Roman exploits in the north but also lacking key geographical and historical details, encouraging conjecture which sometimes tipped into pure fantasy. As a result, a phenomenon christened ‘Agricolamania’ had already been noted by the end of the eighteenth century.

Setbacks to Political Institutionalisation by Praetorianism in Africa

1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Opoku Agyeman
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Managerial Leadership ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Constitutional Changes

Praetorianism has been authoritatively defined as a situation in which ‘the military class of a given society exercises independent political power within it by virtue of an actual or threatened use of military force’.1 A praetorian state, by elaboration, is one in which the military tends to intervene and potentially could dominate the political system. The political processes of this state favor the development of the military as the core group and the growth of its expectations as a ruling class; its political leadership (as distinguished from bureaucratic, administrative and managerial leadership) is chiefly recruited from the military, or from groups sympathetic, or at least not antagonistic, to the military. Constitutional changes are effected and sustained by the militaty, and the army frequently intervenes in the government.2

Military Intervention

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Third ◽  
Legal Duty ◽  
External Powers ◽  
The Military

This article examines the role that military intervention can play in ending genocide and the political, moral, and legal debates that surround it. The first section briefly examines how genocides have ended since the beginning of the twentieth century, and explores the place of military intervention by external powers. The second section examines whether there is a moral and/or legal duty to intervene to end genocide. The third section considers the reasons why states intervene only infrequently to put an end to genocide despite their rhetorical commitments. Historically, once started, genocides tend to end with either the military defeat of the perpetrators or the suppression of the victim groups. Only military force can directly prevent genocidal killing, stand between perpetrators and their intended victims, and protect the delivery of lifesaving aid. But its use entails risks for all parties and does not necessarily resolve the underlying conflict.

‘Stranger to Relate yet Wonderfully True’

2021 ◽  
pp. 39-70
Author(s):  
Manu Sehgal
Keyword(s):  
Local Administration ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Peninsular India ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Complete Breakdown ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Civilian Authority ◽  
The Military

Building on the preceding chapter’s effort to study war and territorial conquest from the vantage point of peninsular India, this chapter focuses on the Madras presidency at war against the sultans of Mysore (1780–4). In stark contrast to the muted resistance offered by the civilian government of Bombay, when confronted with a vastly expanded military challenge, the Madras civilian power completely imploded. The belligerent Governor George Macartney struggled to wrest control against encroachments over his civilian authority from military commanders, an overweening Bengal administration and the inveterate hostility of the rulers of Mysore. These fissiparous struggles were not merely confined to the high politics of colonial administration. Ideologues like Henry Malcolm argued for the complete inversion of the ideology of civilian control of the military, especially for the local administration in Madras presidency. Taken together—the complete breakdown of civil–military relations at the highest levels of the Madras presidency and the view from the margins of local administration—the experiment of placing the military well above and beyond the civilian components of early colonial rule had taken deep roots in peninsular India.

The constitutional troubles of Ọyọ in the eighteenth century

1971 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. C. Law
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Military ◽  
Political Disputes

This paper examines the internal disputes which the Ọyọ kingdom suffered during the eighteenth century, and which had as their ultimate issue a coup d'état in ca. 1796 which is traditionally held to mark the beginning of the disintegration of the kingdom. The troubles began with a conflict within the capital of the kingdom, between the Alafin (king) and the Ọyọ Mesi, a group of non-royal chiefs led by the Baṣọrun, and the first phase of the troubles culminated in 1754 in a seizure of power by the Baṣọrun. It is suggested that this struggle between the Alafin and his chiefs had its origins in competition for control of the new sources of wealth derived from the expansion of the kingdom. In 1774 the Alafin overthrew the Baṣọrun and recovered power in the capital by calling in the assistance of the subject towns of the kingdom. It is argued that this action proved fatal to the Ọyọ kingdom, by involving the rulers of the provincial towns in the political disputes of the capital and revealing the military impotence of the divided capital. In ca. 1796 the provincial rulers intervened at the capital on the other side, assisting the Baṣọrun to overthrow the Alafin. But the coalition of dissident metropolitan chiefs and dissident provincial chiefs immediately broke up, and many of the latter began to disregard the divided capital and make themselves independent.

Creating a ‘Pure and Simple Despotism’

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-234
Author(s):  
Manu Sehgal
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Colonial Order ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Imperial Governance ◽  
The Military ◽  
Flow Of Information

This chapter seeks to locate the political economy of conquest within a wider context of British politics in the age of transoceanic global conflict. The Second Anglo-Maratha War was both the most extensive project of military conquest as well as the least debated colonial misadventure. This war—the most ambitious project of military conquest of the long eighteenth century—was also a secret war. The orderly flow of information about a growing list of subjects—the financial health of the Company, political negotiations with Indian polities, military projects—had become a vital part of early colonial rule. Imperial governance relied on the availability of this information to such an extent that when its transmission was disrupted by/under Richard Wellesley, tectonic shifts in the EIC’s bid for hegemony could not be critically scrutinized. The structures that constituted a distinctive early colonial order—ideological privileging of the military over the civilian, elaborating a legal framework for conquest, nourishing a machine of war, restructuring the hierarchies of power, reconceptualization of land as territory yielding revenue—were animated in the war against the Marathas. The financial exhaustion wreaked by the war typified the political economy of conquest that created an early colonial order in South Asia.

Between Scylla and Charybdis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozan O. Varol
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Transition Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
The Military ◽  
Better Than

Following most democratic coups, the military manages to secure exit benefits, which, depending on their degree, may foster various dysfunctions in the political system and undermine long-term democratic development. The dose determines the toxicity. A democratic regime can mature even with prerogatives for the military, as long as those prerogatives don’t interfere with democratic notions of civilian control of the armed forces. Although these prerogatives are often undesirable from civilians’ perspective, any attempts by civilians to immediately march the military back to the barracks empty-handed can prompt a backlash from the military leaders. They may dig in, rather than give in, and derail the transition process. And from civilians’ perspective, the military’s exit with benefits is often better than no exit at all.

scholarly journals Subjects of politics: Between democracy and dictatorship in Thailand

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eli Elinoff
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Political Actor ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Political Capacity ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
The Military ◽  
Northeastern Thailand

In May of 2014, the Thai military deposed elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Since the coup, the chief aim of the military government has been to bring order to the country by silencing politics. In this paper, I trace the drift from democracy to dictatorship as a set of disagreements about democracy and its redistribution of political capacity. Specifically, I show how debates revolving around the political capacities of the poor reflect both the emergence of a new subject of politics and the anxieties produced by shifting arrangements of the political.1 Working from the vantage point of urban railway squatter communities in northeastern Thailand, I show how disagreements between residents, non-governmental organization activists, state development agencies and the military reflect unresolved tensions between multiple orderings of the political and the unreconciled question of who is a legitimate political actor. Residents’ engagements with development projects preceding the coup expose the ways in which their emergent claims to political capacity provoked new governmental strategies to incorporate their voices but manage their political aspirations. Military rule has once again transformed the shape of the political, narrowing the horizons of political possibility for citizens such as those living along the railway tracks. Yet, even amidst such threats, the military government remains fragile precisely because the political is always contingent, composed of heterogeneous disagreements. By making these processes legible through an ethnography of disagreement, I argue that anthropology and ethnography are fundamental for understanding the emerging forms of the political in the 21st century.

Civilian Control and the Constitution

1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 676-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel P. Huntington
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Basic Principle ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
The Military

“Civilian control of the military is a basic principle of the American Constitution”; so runs the commonplace. It is the thesis of this article that the cliché could hardly be more inaccurate, for actually the American Constitution in the twentieth century obstructs the achievement of civilian control. It is well known that civil supremacy was a major concern of the Framers. They provided for it in the only form in which they knew it. But civilian control in the eighteenth century is very different from civilian control in the twentieth century: the Constitution which was expertly designed to provide for it then, for this very reason, frustrates it now. In presenting this thesis, it is necessary: (1) to show how the meaning of civilian control has changed over the intervening years; (2) to describe the Framers' concept and show how it was embodied in the Constitution; and (3) to demonstrate how the provisions which they thought would guarantee it impair its effectiveness today.

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