With Friends Like These

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozan O. Varol
Keyword(s):  
Political Leadership ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
The Military

This chapter discusses two questions: (1) Why might a military that once supported a dictatorship turn against it? and (2) Why would a military voluntarily choose to abandon the comfort and certainty of a dictatorship for the uncertain reality of democracy? It argues that democracy promotion is often not the principal driver of democratic coups. Rather, militaries stage coups primarily to depose a regime unfavorable to the military’s interests. If the regime doesn’t treat the military well, the soldiers may set aside their previous loyalty and identify more with the protesters’ grievances. Mistreatment can come in the form of low-level, outdated military equipment; costly and unpopular military conflicts; or military defeat, for which military officers may blame the political leadership. In addition, when the survival of a dictatorship is in serious doubt—when it’s clear that the regime is about to sink—the military may defect to avoid sinking along with it. And in deposing a dictator and assuming power during the resulting power vacuum, the military will position itself to reap the benefits of early defection.

Pens, Politics, and Swords

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Ricketts
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Reform ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Army Officers ◽  
The Military ◽  
Institutional Order

The final chapter discusses in parallel the political histories of Spain and Peru in the final years of imperial rule in South America. Peru did not experience a long national struggle and lacked large elites committed to independence. As in the old metropolis, a constant and violent struggle between men of letters and military officers dominated. After decades of military reform and war, army officers with experience in command and government felt entitled to rule. Old subjects and new citizens were also accustomed to seeing them lead. Men of letters, on the other hand, found limited opportunities to exercise their new authority despite their ambitions. Additionally, both in Spain and Peru, liberal men of letters failed to create a new institutional order in which the military would be subjected to civilian rule. It would take decades for both parts of the former Spanish monarchy to accomplish that goal and allow for peace.

Strongmen and Straw Men: Authoritarian Regimes and the Initiation of International Conflict

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. 326-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESSICA L. WEEKS
Keyword(s):  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Conflict Behavior ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Civilian Regimes ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
Conflict Initiation ◽  
The Military

How do domestic institutions affect autocratic leaders’ decisions to initiate military conflicts? Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I argue that institutions in some kinds of dictatorships allow regime insiders to hold leaders accountable for their foreign policy decisions. However, the preferences and perceptions of these autocratic domestic audiences vary, with domestic audiences in civilian regimes being more skeptical of using military force than the military officers who form the core constituency in military juntas. In personalist regimes in which there is no effective domestic audience, no predictable mechanism exists for restraining or removing overly belligerent leaders, and leaders tend to be selected for personal characteristics that make them more likely to use military force. I combine these arguments to generate a series of hypotheses about the conflict behavior of autocracies and test the hypotheses using new measures of authoritarian regime type. The findings indicate that, despite the conventional focus on differences between democracies and nondemocracies, substantial variation in conflict initiation occurs among authoritarian regimes. Moreover, civilian regimes with powerful elite audiences are no more belligerent overall than democracies. The result is a deeper understanding of the conflict behavior of autocracies, with important implications for scholars as well as policy makers.

Haiti: Deconstructing Military Entanglements in Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel S. Laguerre
Keyword(s):  
Capital City ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Principal Mechanism ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Military ◽  
National Infrastructure

Since the independence of Haiti in 1804, the military has played a central role in the governance of the republic, often accessing the presidency through the recurrent phenomenon of the coup d’état, which serves as both a principal mechanism for the transmission of power from one government to another and for reinforcing the domination of the military over the civilian population. The 19th-century model of the coup d’état reflected the de facto decentralization of the military as it was carried out through rebellions concocted and headed by army battalions stationed in the rural provinces. The U.S. occupation (1915–1934), by locating or relocating the military elite, the most prominent military bases, the largest contingent of the military officers and rank and file in the capital city, contributed to the reengineering of a new national infrastructure that facilitates a new model of the coup d’état to emerge: One that germinates among the high command of the military; one that takes the form of a corporate intervention; one that is made possible because of the high command’s control over tactical military weapons, including the heavy military equipment located in the capital city; and one that is swift, thereby preventing any provincial military base from mounting a meaningful or successful military counter-coup.

The Sidama Quest for Self-Rule: The Referendum on Regional Statehood Under the Ethiopian Federation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Kjetil Tronvoll
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Southern Ethiopia ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Regional State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
The Military

Abstract The Sidama of southern Ethiopia has a long history of struggle to reclaim self-rule, which was lost with the forceful incorporation of their territory into the Ethiopian empire in 1893. With the fall of the military junta in 1991, the new government reconfigured the country into a multinational (ethnic) federation. Years of protests and turmoil led to the consolidation of a nationalist movement demanding the constitutional right to conduct a referendum on the establishment of a separate Sidama regional state under the federation. The process was marred by demonstrations and incidents of violence, but the vote itself was conducted peacefully with an overwhelming 97.7 per cent ‘yes’ vote. Sidama regional state was eventually formed, but the political leadership initially advocating for its establishment was marginalised due to the centralising policies of the federal government party restricting the principles of the constitutional multinational federalism.

The Constraints of International Courts as a Tool for Resolving the Ukrainian-Russian Conflicts

2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 371-406
Author(s):  
Nikolay Marin ◽  
Bilyana Manova
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Justice ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Legal Remedies ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
International Attention ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Military

Abstract: This article addresses the large number of cases brought by Ukraine before different international courts and tribunals against the Russian Federation following the inclusion of Crimea in Russia and the military conflicts in Eastern Ukraine that ensued. The initiation of numerous legal proceedings is presented as a part of an overall Ukrainian strategy to respond to the loss of Crimea, both in order to obtain specific legal remedies and to draw international attention to its cause. The characteristics of the Ukrainian-Russian proceedings that stem from the political significance of this conflict are addressed. The implications of these cases for international law, and the constraints on the existing system of international justice that have been revealed are also evaluated. It is shown that Ukraine often faces difficulties establishing a jurisdictional basis for its claims. Russia's reluctance to submit the disputes to examination by international courts, manifested in its frequent challenging of their jurisdiction, is explained both by the fact that it is aware of its violations and anticipates adverse judgments, and that it may regard such courts as somewhat hostile towards it. These phenomena are analysed in the larger context of the trend in international politics towards a declining trust in international cooperation.

The Continuing Relevance of Morris Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier for the Education of Officers

2020 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2096048
Author(s):  
Suzanne C. Nielsen ◽  
Hugh Liebert
Keyword(s):  
Social Impact ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Senior Leaders ◽  
Strategic Success ◽  
Education And Development ◽  
The Military

In the current strategic environment, Morris Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier deserves renewed emphasis, especially from the military’s senior leaders who are responsible for the education and development of the country’s officer corps. Janowitz’s work is an especially valuable guide to the education of officers today because of his focus on the need for military officers to understand the political impact of military posture and military operations. The education of U.S. military officers to meet the country’s national security needs in the 21st century must go beyond Huntington’s formulation of expertise to an appreciation, in Janowitz’s terms, of “the political and social impact of the military establishment on international security affairs” across the spectrum of conflict. Janowitz’s formulation is the better guide because military means serve political purposes, and ultimately, a country’s strategic success will be judged in political terms.

The Political Role of the Dominican Armed Forces: A Note on the 1963 Overthrow of Juan Bosch and on the 1965 Dominican “Revolution”

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham F. Lowenthal
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Political Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
Professional Institution ◽  
Civilian Authority ◽  
The Military

Several years ago, in a general essay on Dominican politics, I wrote a few pages about the political role of the Dominican Armed Forces. I argued that “the history of the past few years in the Dominican Republic may best be viewed as a constant struggle among changing alliances, not in terms of confrontation between civilian authority and the military establishment” (Lowenthal, 1969: 40). I suggested that “far from being a professional institution dedicated to certain principles that impel its occasional entry into politics, the Dominican Armed Forces have never had any significant function beyond politics, except for plunder” (Lowenthal, 1969: 40). Painting a picture of constant struggle within the Dominican Armed Forces, for power and a chance at the spoils, I played down the importance, for understanding the political role of Dominican military officers, of institutional and ideological considerations.

Revolution, Rhetoric, and Reality in the Sudan

1979 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunstan M. Wai
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Military ◽  
Gain Access

The shrinking political arena in Africa,1 caused by the authoritarian practices of presidential monarchs, has more often than not undermined the process of legitimation, as those who have not ‘fallen into things’ resort to unconstitutional means to gain access to political and economic kingdoms. Hitherto, political competition has become a raw power struggle, partly as a result of the absence of stable institutions for channelling and ordering politics,2 and partly because political leadership is so divided that it has failed to give form to statecraft. The failure of the first generation of African politicians has consequently encouraged the military to intervene and to sack them. But the African army has also experienced divisions and factions. Its record has not been impressive. Thus, in most African countries, the political situation has deteriorated progressively to praetorianism.3

scholarly journals The U.S. Policy of Democracy Promotion in the Post-Soviet Space

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
V. A. Ponomarev
Keyword(s):  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
Military Equipment ◽  
The Us ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
Military Campaign ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Trump Administration ◽  
Post Soviet Space

After the collapse of the USSR, U.S. Administrations exploited the policy of «democracy promotion» to expand American influence in the post-Soviet space and to counterbalance Russia. In the light of the military campaign in Syria, the escalation around Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the importance of the post-Soviet space for the US foreign policy has declined, U.S. aid to the region was cut. However, the Trump Administration maintains interest in keeping loyal elites in power to ensure the implementation of reforms and business projects, in particular, with a view to export U.S. military equipment and liquefied natural gas. The U.S. primary goal is to counteract Russian influence in the region, to prevent post-Soviet republics from building stronger ties with Moscow and reorient them towards the «collective West».

scholarly journals THE RELATIONSHIP AMONGST SOEHARTO, MILITARY, AND MUSLIM IN THE END OF NEW ORDER REGIME

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Abdul Haris Fatgehipon
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Vice President ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Order ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Muslim Scholar ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Relationship

<p>In the end of Suharto's authority, he began to embrace the power of Islam; he realized the position of Muslims was very important and strategic. While some high-ranking military, like LB Moerdani felt unhappy with business built by Soeharto’s family. Suharto built a new political power through the ICMI (Indonesian Muslim Scholar) organization. The emergence of ICMI has been confronted by much of the military officers, they assessed that ICMI shaped sectarian mindset, Gus Dur as NU leader also did not approve the establishment of ICMI. ICMI was chaired by BJ Habibie who at that time had a special affinity with Suharto that made ICMI has the most important role in Indonesian and clout. At the end of Suharto's power, he embraced the power of the Muslim Civilians, Reviews such as ICMI and Muhammadiyah organization. He tried to minimize the political dependence on the military. Hereinafter, Habibie has successfully elected as a vice president of Indonesia based on the general assembly in 1998, after the riots in May 1998, Habibie replaced Suharto's position that has discharged due to students and citizens' demonstrations. By the pretense of the 1945 constitution, the military endorsed the nomination of BJ Habibie as president.</p><p> </p><p>Pada akhir otoritas Soeharto, ia mulai merangkul kekuatan Islam; ia menyadari posisi Muslim sangat penting dan strategis. Sementara beberapa petinggi militer, seperti LB Moerdani merasa tidak bahagia dengan bisnis gurita yang dibangun oleh keluarga Soeharto. Soeharto membangun kekuatan politik baru melalui organisasi ICMI (Indonesian Muslim Scholar). Munculnya ICMI telah dihadapkan oleh banyak perwira militer, mereka menilai ICMI berbentuk pola pikir sektarian, Gus Dur sebagai pemimpin NU juga tidak menyetujui berdirinya ICMI. ICMI dipimpin oleh BJ Habibie yang pada waktu itu me-miliki kedekatan khusus dengan Soeharto yang membuat ICMI memiliki peran paling penting dalam Indonesia dan pengaruh. Pada akhir kekuasaan Soeharto, ia memeluk kekuatan Sipil Muslim, Ulasan seperti ICMI dan Muhammadiyah organisasi. Dia mencoba untuk meminimalkan ketergantungan politik pada militer. Selanjutnya, Habibie telah berhasil terpilih sebagai wakil presiden Indonesia berdasarkan sidang umum pada tahun 1998, setelah kerusuhan Mei 1998, Habibie menggantikan posisi Soeharto yang telah habis karena mahasiswa dan de-monstrasi warga. Dengan berdasar UUD 1945, militer mendukung pencalonan BJ Habibie sebagai presiden.</p><p> </p>

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