The Other Clash of Civilizations: Samuel Huntington and American Civil Military Relations

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan J. Dodd
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Clash Of Civilizations ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations

scholarly journals Coup-Proofing and Civil War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Koga Sudduth
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
The Future ◽  
Face Threats ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Political leaders face threats to their power from within and outside the regime. Leaders can be removed via a coup d’état undertaken by militaries that are part of the state apparatus. At the same time, leaders can lose power when they confront excluded opposition groups in civil wars. The difficulty for leaders, though, is that efforts to address one threat might leave them vulnerable to the other threat due to the role of the military as an institution of violence capable of exercising coercive power. On one hand, leaders need to protect their regimes from rebels by maintaining strong militaries. Yet, militaries that are strong enough to prevail against rebel forces are also strong enough to execute a coup successfully. On the other hand, leaders who cope with coup threats by weakening their militaries’ capabilities to organize a coup also diminish the very capabilities that they need to defeat their rebel challengers. This unfortunate trade-off between protection by the military and protection from the military has been the long-standing theme in studies of civil-military relations and coup-proofing. Though most research on this subject has focused primarily on rulers’ maneuvers to balance the threats posed by the military and the threats coming from foreign adversaries, more recent scholarship has begun to explore how leaders’ efforts to cope with coup threats will influence the regime’s abilities to address the domestic threats coming from rebel groups, and vice versa. This new wave of research focuses on two related vectors. First, scholars address whether leaders who pursue coup-proofing strategies that weaken their militaries’ capabilities also increase the regime’s vulnerability to rebel threats and the future probability of civil war. Second, scholars examine how the magnitude of threats posed by rebel groups will determine leaders’ strategies toward the militaries, and how these strategies affect both the militaries’ influence over government policy and the future probability of coup onsets. These lines of research contribute to the conflict literature by examining the causal mechanisms through which civil conflict influences coup propensity and vice versa. The literatures on civil war and coups have developed independently without much consideration of each other, and systematic analyses of the linkage between them have only just began.

A Comparative Conceptualization of Civil-Military Relations

1980 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Albright
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Individual Country ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Alternative Conceptualization ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Dividing Line

Since the late 1950s, discussion of civil-military relations has taken place largely within one general conceptual framework. According to this theoretical perception, military and civilian authorities constitute two distinct groups (although they each consist of a variety of subgroups), and relations between them are inherently conflictual. What keeps the conflict within bounds is subordination of the officer corps to civilians except on matters requiring military expertise—i.e., civilian control. Shifts in civil-military relations, moreover, are a function of the degree of effectiveness of civilian control. A close examination of the experiences of the sixteen communist states indicates that these propositions lack comparative validity. It also suggests an alternative conceptualization of civil-military relations. Such relations can be thought of in terms of a continuum, with cooperation at one pole and conflict at the other. Where an individual country falls on that continuum at any time depends on a number of specific variables, of which the sharpness of the dividing line between military and civilian authorities is one. Modifications of civil-military relations can result from changes in any of these variables.

The Party in Uniform: Toward a Theory of Civil-Military Relations in Communist Political Systems

1982 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amos Perlmutter ◽  
William M. LeoGrande
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Political Resource ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military ◽  
Over Time

This article is an effort to establish a comparative theoretical framework for the study of civil-military relations in communist political systems. Although the literature on civil-military relations in polyarchic and praetorian polities is theoretically as well as empirically rich, theories of civil-military relations in the field of comparative communism are still at the preliminary stage of development. It is argued that civil-military relations, like all the fundamental dynamics of communist political systems, derive from the structural relationship between a hegemonic Leninist party and the other institutions of the polity. Although the party directs and supervises all other institutions, its political supremacy is necessarily limited by the division of labor among various institutions. The relative autonomy of the military and its relations with the party vary from one country to another and can be described as coalitional, symbiotic, or fused. These relations are dynamic, changing over time in each country in response to contextual circumstances. The role of the military in politics is complex and variegated: on ideological issues, there is usually little conflict between party and army; on issues of “normal politics,” the military acts as a functionally specific elite engaged in bargaining to defend its perceived institutional interests; and in crisis politics, the military is a political resource that various party factions seek to enlist against their opponents.

Patterns of militarism in Israel

1993 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baruch Kimmerling
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Present State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Israeli Society ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Most of the subjects concerned with Israel, such as the location of the military and militaristic culture, are heavily distorted in comparison to other themes prevalant in the discourse and the debates in the social sciences, very much like the other issues linked with the Jewish-Arab conflict and Jewish-Arab relations (Kimmerling, 1992). Ideological and value loaded considerations blur the issue, making even the usage of the term ‘militarism’ in the canonical textbooks a taboo in Israel. The main purpose of this paper is three-fold: 1) to present a brief survey of the present state of the literature on so-called ‘civil-military relations’ in Israel, from which 2) a revision can be made of the overall impact of the Jewish-Arab conflict and the militarization of Israeli society. This will be followed by 3) a reformulation of the effect of militarization on the institutional and value spheres of the Israeli collectivity.

After Military Rule in Europe: Spain, Portugal, and Greece

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltan Barany
Keyword(s):  
International Organizations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Secondary Case ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Military Relations

This chapter focuses on the cases of Spain and Portugal. After decades of authoritarianism, placing the Spanish military under civilian control proved to be a relatively straightforward and brief process. The transformation of Portuguese civil–military relations, on the other hand, was more contentious, took far longer, and did not succeed as completely as Spain's. Greece, the secondary case in this chapter, had a much shorter but more intense experience with praetorianism; its return to democracy and democratic civil–military relations was quick albeit not without some shortcomings. The chapter then assesses the influence of international organizations, particularly NATO, on the democratization of the three states and their defense establishments.

Civil-Military Relations in Developing Countries

1989 ◽  
Vol 45 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 154-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veena Kukreja
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Political System ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Other ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
The World ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Students of civil-military relations, particularly those in the developing countries, admit having to work on myopic assumptions, meagre data, sloppy conceptualization and inelegant explanations. The relative newness of this area of studies could be one reason for this. The study of civil-military relations in the narrow sense referring mainly to military coups and interventions, has attained importance after World War II. But the study of civil-military relations in the broader perspective of multiplicity of relationships between military men, institutions and interests, on the one hand, and diverse and often conflicting non-military organizations and political personages and interests on the other, has begun to draw academic interest only in the last two decades or so. In the twentieth century, the armed forces, being an universal and integral part of a nation's political system, no longer remain completely aloof from politics in any nation. If politics is concerned, in David Easton's celebrated words, with the authoritative allocation of values and power within a society, the military as a vital institution in the polity can hardly be wished out of participatory bounds, at least for legitimate influence as an institutional interest group with a stake in the political decision-making. The varying roles the military may play in politics range from minimal legitimate influence by means of recognized channels inherent in their position and responsibilities within the political system to the other extreme of total displacement of the civilian government in the forms of illegitimate overt military intervention in politics. This paper seeks to attempt an overview of the existing scholarship on civil-military relations; second, it examines civil-military relations in the world with special reference to major political systems of the world; third, it surveys the literature on civil-military relations in general, and finally, it attempts to develop a general, complex, and hopefully fruitful causal model for analyzing the dynamics of civil-military relations; exploring implications for future research on civil-military relations.

Domestic military missions in Latin America: Civil-military relations and the perpetuation of democratic deficits

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Nicole Jenne ◽  
Rafael Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
Basic Services ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Abstract Latin American militaries are today in many regards inoperative and obsolete as an instrument of defence. Yet, they seek to maintain their organisational power and privileges. Governments, on the other hand, lack the adequate means to fight criminality, persisting poverty and social inequality. In an apparent win-win situation, Latin American governments have used the military as a wildcard to step in where civilian state capacity falls short, including for urban and border patrols, literacy campaigns and to collect garbage, among many other tasks. The military's manifold internal use has been defended mainly based on pragmatic reasons. We argue instead that the ostensive pareto optimality between militaries and governments has had negative effects for civil-military relations from a democratic governance point of view that takes into consideration the efficiency and effectiveness of how the state delivers basic services across different policy areas.

An American Crisis in Civilian Control and Civil-Military Relations?

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Peter D. Feaver
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Correct Answer ◽  
American History ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The Other ◽  
Civilian Control ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Who décidés and what do they gct to décidé?1 This is the central normative question in civil-military relations theory, and disagrccment over the correct answer is behind much of what passes for the currcnt ‘crisis’ in American civil-military relations. So far. the American answer appears to havc solved tire problem that prcoccupies most comparative civil-military relations theorists: how to keep the military from taking over the governmcnt. Yct American history is rife with civil-military conflict because the American answer Icaves unresolved the other problem inhérent in the civil-military relationship: finding the proper division of labor belween civilian and military institutions, cspccially on use of force decisions.

scholarly journals CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN (1998-2015)

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-88
Author(s):  
Shaista Taj ◽  
Zahir Shah ◽  
Manzoor Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Political Leadership ◽  
Vested Interest ◽  
The Other ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
A Priority ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

Pakistan remained under military domination for about 32 years (1958-1971,1977-1988 and 1999 to 2008). The perpetual influence of military overshadowed the civilian in one way or the other. To analyze civil-military nexus accurately, it is necessary to assess how both civil and military leaders handle policy discrepancies between them. The entire concept of the overall civil-military nexus is broadly based on the fact of how to assure civil control over the military. During Musharrafs regime, various nonmilitary practices with the vested interest of the military as a priority encouraged the military greatly while the civilians were kept in the background. But in spite of such defiance towards the army, a sound political leadership could not be brought forward to stand against military power and to keep them confined to their barracks. The civilian power that has governed the country encompasses two families monopoly i.e. the Bhutto and Sharif

Socio-economic Aspects of German Rearmament

1965 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Brandt
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Research ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Crucial Problem ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Industrial Societies

The advent of a new branch of social research under the name of civil-military relations studies within the course of the last two decades may be taken as an indication that the relationship between military and civil institutions has become one of the crucial problem areas in highly developed industrial societies. Whether this state of affairs might be characterized in terms of an increasing militarization of industrial society, like the Garrison State theory implies, or on the other hand, as a permeation of military institutions by specific values of civil institutions, does not now seem to be clear. Very likely, the problem before us does not lend itself to clear-cut statements like these. Notwithstanding the complexity of the relationships involving the two subsystems and the divergence of interpretations by different students of civil military relations, there appears to be agreement that both military and civil institutions have lost some of their relative autonomy. Something like a reciprocal interpenetration of both subsystems, without precedent in the history of industrial societies, has taken place. Likewise, the reasons for changes in the relations between the two sectors seem to be beyond controversy. The question of national defense has become a crucial problem of industrial societies which has been traced back to changes in the traditional world balance of power on the one hand, and revolutionary advances of weapons technology on the other. Concentrated as they are in the hands of two overwhelming antagonists, modern weapons, because of their range and destructive power, are capable of dealing a decisive blow to the war potential of the opponent within a matter of hours. Consequently, the outcome of any conflict must be anticipated within its earliest phase; to put it another way, the antagonists have to be prepared to face a showdown at any moment or risk their own destruction. It is for this reason that the full deployment of the military potential before a conflict is even in sight has become a postulate of modern military policy (2). Yet, permanent mobilization, as it is required by a rational military policy in the atomic age, tends to call in question the very social order which it to be secured against outside aggression.

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