scholarly journals Praetorian Army in Action: A Critical Assessment of Civil–Military Relations in Turkey

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Berk Esen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Military Relations

With four successful and three failed coups in less than 60 years, the Turkish military is one of the most interventionist armed forces in the global south. Despite this record, few scholars have analyzed systematically how the military’s political role changed over time. To address this gap, this article examines the evolution of civil–military relations (CMR) in Turkey throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Based on a historical analysis, this article offers a revisionist account for the extant Turkish scholarship and also contributes to the broader literature on CMR. It argues that the military’s guardian status was not clearly defined and that the officer corps differed strongly on major political issues throughout the Cold War. This article also demonstrates that the officer corps was divided into opposite ideological factions and political agendas and enjoyed varying levels of political influence due to frequent purges and conjectural changes.

Military Coups and Military Régimes in Africa

1973 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Decalo
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Regimes ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Intense Debate

In the past several years there has been a proliferation of studies on coup d'états in Africa and the political role of African military structures. Armies have been analysed in terms of their social and ethnic composition, training, ideology, and socialising influences. Intense debate has focused around the overt and covert reasons for their intervention in the political arena. Simple and complex typologies of civil–military relations and of military coups have been constructed; statistical data – both hard and soft – has been marshalled and subjected to factor and regression analysis, in order to validate general or middle-range theories of military intervention. And once in power, the officer corps' performance has been examined in order to generate insights into its propensity to serve as a modernising or developmental agent.

Collective Democratic Control of the Armed Forces

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Phone Kyaw
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Constitutional Government ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
National League ◽  
The Right ◽  
Military Relations

Under its 2008 Constitution, Myanmar is undergoing a political transition from a military regime to a more liberalized democratic and constitutional government. The current National League for Democracy government’s reforms are in stagnation, while debates on the political role of the Tatmadaw (the Myanmar military) as guaranteed by the 2008 Constitution continue. A widespread perception persists that civil-military relations in Myanmar lack civilian control and are a barrier to the reform processes. Such assumptions, however, are made in the absence of theoretical analysis. This article will argue that Myanmar’s constitutional government has the right to establish “democratic control,” while the Tatmadaw’s national political role remains significant. Democratic control of Myanmar’s civil-military relations is based on a “collective” rather than a “confrontational” approach—one that is called “collective democratic control.” The current stagnation in reform and in the national reconciliation process are the result of a lack of understanding of the existing structure of civil-military relations, rather than a lack of democratic control of the armed forces.

Iran: Imperial and Republican Civil–Military Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed S. Hashim
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
Senior Officer ◽  
The Face ◽  
Power Centers ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Iran has traditionally been troubled by unstable civil–military relations throughout its history. In the past, even before the emergence of the academic study of civil–military relations, Iranian imperial monarchs attempted, but often failed to ensure complete oversight of their military forces, due to the nature of imperial rule with its multiple power centers, and to the existence of myriad military forces that were often not under the monarch’s control. The rise of a centralized state in the early 20th century under Reza Shah ensured the emergence of stability in civil–military relations by means of carrots and sticks. Under Mohammad Reza Shah (r.1941–1979), early civil–military relations were quite unstable due to political turmoil and the young ruler’s lack of confidence; in subsequent years, he managed to cement his control over the military by means of patronage, insulation from domestic politics, and stringent oversight of the senior officer corps. The Iranian revolution (1978–1979) succeeded, to a large extent, due to the Shah’s own failures and those of the senior officer corps, both of which were paralyzed in the face of massive political and social turmoil. The successor state, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) achieved control over the armed forces through ideological control and oversight and the creation of institutionalized parallel military structures. Nonetheless, the IRI has faced and continues to face instability in civil–military relations due to war, domestic political and socioeconomic crises, and foreign pressures.

scholarly journals Historical Analysis of Civil-Military Relations in Nepal

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Khadga K.C.
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Developing Democracies ◽  
Organizational Reform ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Democratic Norms

As like in other developing democracies, it is obvious that there are many CMR problems in Nepal. A lack of national security policies and common national interests, ignorance about security sensitiveness, political instability, parochialism, mistrust, are prominent factors contributing to Nepal’s adverse civil-military relations. However, the military though has already begun to tuning with democratic norms and values should further be engaged in serious organizational reform that includes among others; enhancing professionalism, further accountability, transparency and loyalty of army to the civilian authority follow by earliest promulgation of democratic constitution with the clear provision of democratic control over armed forces.

Civil‐Military Relations in Contemporary Argentina

1984 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Little
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Dirty War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Staff Relations

THE ISSUE OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS PRESENTS THE new Argentine government with several problems. One is the structuring of government, that is general staff relations. Moreover the new authorities must take a position in the short to medium term over the question of responsibility for the ‘dirty war’, the plundering of the public purse by the officer corps between 1976 and 1982 and the defeat in the war with Britain. And in the longer term they must confront the wider issue of how to both ‘civilianize’ the armed forces and ‘demilitarize’ civil society.

The United States: Politicians, Partisans, and Military Professionals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Feaver ◽  
Damon Coletta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Army Corps ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

The United States boasts an enviable record regarding the military’s role in politics: never a coup and never a serious coup attempt. However, this does not mean that the military always played only a trivial role in politics. On the contrary, as the Framers worried, it is impossible for a democracy to maintain a military establishment powerful enough to protect it in a hostile international environment without at the same time creating an institution with sufficient clout to be a factor in domestic politics. The U.S. military’s political role has ebbed and flowed over the nearly 250 years of the nation’s history. The high-water mark of political influence came in the context of the gravest threat the country has faced, the Civil War, when the military enforced emergency measures approved by Congress, beyond the letter of the Constitution, including during Reconstruction when the military governed rebellious states of the former Confederacy. These were notable exceptions. For most of the 19th century, the military operated on the fringes of civilian politics, although through the Army Corps of Engineers it played a key role in state-building. When the United States emerged as a great power with global interests, the political role of the military increased, though never in a way to directly challenge civilian supremacy. Today, the military wields latent political influence in part because of its enormous fiscal footprint and in part because it is the national institution in which the public express the highest degree of confidence. This has opened the door for myriad forms of political action, all falling well below the red lines that most concern traditional civil–military relations theory. Military involvement in the American political system may be monitored and evaluated using a typology built around two columns that highlight the means of military influence—the first column is comprised of formal rules and institutions and the second encompasses the norms of military behavior with respect to civilian authority and civil society. While traditional civil–military relations theory focuses on military coups and coup prevention, theory based on this typology can help explain American civil–military relations, illuminating the warning signs of unhealthy friction under democratic governance and promoting republican vigilance at those moments when the U.S. military takes a prominent role and wades more deeply into domestic politics.

Concordance Civil–Military Relations in Ghana’s Fourth Republic

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 618-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naila Salihu
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Military Discourse ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Political Decision Making

Civil–military relations in Ghana have a chequered history; since the first coup of 1966, there had been four military takeovers of political power, in 1969, 1972, 1979, and 1980. Relations are thawing, as evidenced by the fact that there has been no overt attempt at overthrowing a government since 1992. This article employs a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis to explain civil–military relations in Ghana’s Fourth Republic (1992–2018). It argues that there is agreement among three societal partners—political elites, military, and the citizenry on four variables; social composition of the officer corps, political decision–making, and recruitment and military style. Yet focus of the civil–military discourse has been on political elites and military. These two are vital to the political decision process. Although the third partner, the citizenry has a meaningful voice, military–society relations fluctuates over time. There is mixed perceptions among Ghanaian about the armed forces.

Kenya: The King’s Shadow Army

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrik Laugesen
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Constant Factor ◽  
East African ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Subject Field ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

The classical theoretical civil–military relations (CMR) perspective is traditionally concerned with how to obtain civil control of the armed forces. This theme is preeminent in the writings of Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz, the two most dominant voices in the debate of this subject field since the 1960s. By 2019, the character of the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) was heavily influenced, if not determined, by CMR, as CMR seems to be the only constant factor when trying to understand KDF. During British colonial rule in the East African protectorate, the use of force was primarily dedicated to securing the extraction of natural resources from Kenya and maintaining internal security. It was in this colonial context of exploitation and extraction that the KDF was born in 1902, in the form of the King’s African Rifles (KAR). Therefore, to understand the “genetics” of the present-day KDF, one has to understand the political context in which the KDF was born and raised. The surprising point here is that although Kenya has since undergone far-reaching political changes, the KDF still seems to be caught in King Edward VII’s long shadow of colonial repression. The effective, ethnically driven political system and Britain’s military guaranties have dominated CMR and kept an iron grip on the military for more than 100 years.

scholarly journals Introduction to the Armed Forces & Society Forum on Military Reserves in the “New Wars”

2021 ◽  
pp. 0095327X2199622
Author(s):  
Sergio Catignani ◽  
Nir Gazit ◽  
Eyal Ben-Ari
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
New Wars ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Critical Perspectives

This Armed Forces & Society forum is dedicated to exploring recent trends in the characteristics of military reserves and of the changing character of reserve forces within the armed forces within the military, the civilian sphere, and in between them. To bring new and critical perspectives to the study of reserve forces and civil–military relations, this introduction and the five articles that follow draw on two organizing conceptual models: The first portrays reservists as transmigrants and focuses on the plural membership of reservists in the military and in civilian society and the “travel” between them. The second model focuses on the multiple formal and informal compacts (contracts, agreements, or pacts) between reservists and the military.

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