Back on Horseback: The Military and Political Transformation in Egypt

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Albrecht ◽  
Dina Bishara
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Supreme Council ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
The Military

Though there are many expectations regarding the interim character of the current political order, the future of Egyptian democracy remains highly uncertain. A closer look at the take-over of power by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is imperative to an understanding of a political system at a decisive crossroads, but also of the path-dependent implications of the military’s engagement in politics. We project that, irrespective of the institutional framing and the results of the current political transformation, the military will play a decisive role in the country’s political future. In addressing its role during the current revolutionary events, we account for the reason for the military’s engagement in politics, the path of the take-over of political power, and the military’s management of politics. Thus, our analysis will attempt to provide preliminary answers to three questions: When and how did the Egyptian military intervene directly in revolutionary politics? Why did it intervene? And how does it manage the transformation?

Civil–military relations and political order in Guinea-Bissau

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Embaló
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Short Term ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Guinea Bissau ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Elite ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

ABSTRACTSince independence in 1974 the military of Guinea-Bissau have succeeded in controlling the political system, even attempting to impose their rule directly in the aftermath of the 1998/9 war. What makes the analysis of civil–military relations and political order in contemporary Guinea-Bissau particularly challenging is the overlapping of political, ethnic and personal considerations of the politico-military elite and their fluctuating and ambiguous short-term alliances. Guinea-Bissau's armed forces include an amalgam of veterans, claiming historical legitimacy from the liberation war, and officers who use their positions for personal gain rather than furthering democracy and national interests. This article examines the logic of civil–military relations against the heterarchical political figuration and the specific character of the politico-military elite of Guinea-Bissau.

scholarly journals The anniversary of the military coup attempt in Turkey, July 15–16, 2016. The evolution of a political system

2017 ◽  
pp. 63-68
Author(s):  
Y. S. Kudryashova
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Ruling Party ◽  
Coup Attempt

During the government of AK Party army leaders underprivileged to act as an exclusive guarantor preserving a secular regime in the country. The political balance between Secular and Islamite elites was essentially removed after Erdogan was elected Turkish President. Consistently toughening authoritarian regime of a ruling party deeply accounts for a military coup attempt and earlier periodically occurred disturbance especially among the young. The methods of a coup showed the profundity of a split and the lack of cohesion in Turkish armed forces. Erdogan made the best use of a coup attempt’s opportunities to concentrate all power in his hands and to consolidate a present regime. The mass support of the population during a coup attempt ensured opportunities for a fundamental reorganization of a political system. Revamped Constitution at most increases political powers of the President.

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.

Presidential Term Limits as a Credible-Commitment Mechanism

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Octavio Amorim Neto ◽  
Igor P. Acácio
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Term Limits ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Credible Commitment ◽  
Chief Executives ◽  
Regime Stability ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military

Contra the conventional wisdom that term limits are meaningless in dictatorships, Brazil’s military regime developed term-limits for its chief executives and managed a durable political order. This chapter argue that term limits moderated intra-elite conflicts, thus contributing to regime stability. Term limits were key to reconcile two warring factions within the armed forces. The authors see term limits as a credible-commitment mechanism. Three elements are jointly sufficient to explain the adoption of term limits: (1) the armed forces’ decision in 1964 to part ways with the decades-old pattern of episodic, short political interventions and stay in office for the long haul; (2) a legalist tradition that led the new regime to keep a façade of constitutionalism through a myriad of political institutions; and (3) the ideological and political cleavages within the armed forces. We corroborate our arguments using a new dataset of tension events between the military and the government in 1946–85.

Lebanon: A Military in Politics in a Divided Society

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oren Barak
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Divided Society ◽  
The Military

Since Lebanon’s independence in the mid-1940s, its military—the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)—has played a pivotal role in the country’s politics. The political role of the LAF in Lebanon might seem surprising since the Lebanese state did not militarize, and its political leaders have continuously managed to keep their military relatively weak and small. Indeed, in this respect Lebanon has been markedly different from its close neighbors (Syria and Israel), but also from several other Middle Eastern states (especially Egypt and Iraq), where the military, which was large and powerful, was continuously involved in politics. Additionally, both Lebanon and the LAF have persistently striven to distance themselves from regional conflicts since 1949, particularly in relation to the Palestinian issue, albeit not always successfully. Still, and despite these ostensibly unfavorable factors for the military’s involvement in politics in Lebanon, the LAF has played an important political role in the state since its independence. This role, which has been marked by elements of continuity and change over the years, included mediation and arbitration between rival political factions (in 1945–1958, 2008, 2011, and 2019); attempts to dominate the political system (in 1958–1970 and 1988–1990); intervention in the Lebanese civil war (in 1975–1976 and 1982–1984); attempts to regain its balancing role in politics (in 1979–1982 and 1984–1988); and facilitating the state’s postwar reconstruction (since 1991). The political role of the military in Lebanon can be explained by several factors. First, the weakness of Lebanon’s political system and its inability to resolve crises between its members. Second, Lebanon’s divided society and its members’ general distrust towards its civilian politicians. Third, the basic characteristics of Lebanon’s military, which, in most periods, enjoyed broad public support that cuts across the lines of community, region, and family, and found appeal among domestic and external audiences, which, in their turn, acquiesced to its political role in the state.

Honduras: All-Purpose Militarization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Mani
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The State ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Civic Action ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Military

The Honduran military has a long history of established roles oriented toward both external defense and internal security and civic action. Since the end of military rule in 1982, the military has remained a key political, economic, and social actor. Politically, the military retains a constitutional mandate as guarantor of the political system and enforcer of electoral rules. Economically, its officers direct state enterprises and manage a massive pension fund obscured from public audit. Socially, the military takes on numerous civic action tasks—building infrastructure, conserving forests, providing healthcare, and policing crime—that make the state appear to be useful to its people and bring the military into direct contact with the public almost daily. As a result, the military has ranked high in public trust in comparison with other institutions of the state. Most significantly, the military has retained the role of arbiter in the Honduran political system. This became brutally clear in the coup of 2009 that removed the elected president, Manuel Zelaya. Although new rules enhancing civilian control of the military had been instituted during the 1990s, the military’s authority in politics was restored through the coup that ousted Zelaya. As no civilian politician can succeed without support for and from the military, the missions of the armed forces have expanded substantially so that the military is an “all-purpose” institution within a remarkably weak and increasingly corrupt state.

scholarly journals The Search for an Exit from the Dictatorship and the Transformation of Greek Conservatism, 1967-1974

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Sotiris Rizas
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Military ◽  
A Current

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of transformation of Greek conservatism that evolved during the dictatorship from a current identified with the restrictive practices of the post-Civil War political system to a tenet of the democratic regime established in 1974. The realization that the military coup was not just the manifestation of anti-communism, the dominant ideology of the post-Civil War period, but also of an anti-parliamentary spirit permeating the armed forces, the prolongation of military rule that led to the crystallization of differences between the military regime and the conservative political class and an apprehension that the dictatorship might fuel uncontrollable social and political polarization are three inter-related factors that explain this transformation.

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.

يسقط‎ يسقط‎ حكم‎ العسكر‎ “Down, Down with Military Rule”

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-103
Author(s):  
Amy Austin Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Business Elite ◽  
Single Person ◽  
Supreme Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
The Military ◽  
First Time

After Hosni Mubarak stepped down, Egypt was ruled by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). During this time, a new form of antimilitarist activism emerged for the first time in Egyptian history. Of the three waves of antigovernment uprisings, this one was perhaps the most revolutionary: the goal was not to topple a single person or to hold elections but rather to dismantle the entrenched power of the armed forces. This chapter offers insights into these groups that fall in between the Muslim Brotherhood/military dichotomy. Many of these groups were led by women. After Mubarak was ousted, certain private companies celebrated the revolution in their advertising, but opposition to the SCAF was never commercialized. Despite egregious human rights abuses committed under the SCAF, neither the business elite nor the United States ever withdrew support from the military junta. However, the SCAF did lose popular support, evidenced when mass protests emerged in July during the Tahrir sit-in, and then again during the Battle of Mohamed Mahmoud in November–December 2011.

The Guatemalan Military Since the Peace Accords: The Fate of Reform Under Arzú and Portillo

2005 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-85
Author(s):  
J. Mark Ruhl
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Institutional Autonomy ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Peace Accords ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

AbstractThe Guatemalan military dominated the country's politics for nearly half a century, but its political power declined during the 1990s. Democratically elected presidents Alvaro Arzú (1996–2000) and Alfonso Portillo (2000–2004) subordinated the armed forces to their authority and thereby gained an unprecedented opportunity to reduce the role of the military and institutionalize democratic civil-military relations. Unfortunately, neither of these tasks was accomplished. An analysis of the level of democratic control, combining Alfred Stepan's military prerogatives indicators with a newer system of measurement and classification designed by Samuel Fitch, shows that the armed forces retained substantial institutional autonomy and de facto legal immunity when Portillo left office in 2004. The role of the military in Guatemalan society, moreover, expanded again under Portillo after declining under Arzú. This study finds that the lack of sufficient civilian commitment to reform, rather than resistance from the armed forces, was the principal cause of these disappointing outcomes.

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