Technology, the Military, and Democracy in Brazil

1992 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Conca
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Main Challenge ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The Military ◽  
Brazilian Politics

Brazil Entered the 1990s with its transition from authoritarian rule incomplete. The gradual withdrawal of the armed forces from power brought an end to over two decades of direct military rule in 1985, paving the way for a new constitution and the first presidential election in nearly 30 years. These formal democratizing changes were erected, however, on a foundation of socio-economic structures and political institutions with some decidedly non-democratic features. As a result, Brazilian politics retains some important vestiges of authoritarianism. Pre-existing centers of power in society remain extraordinarily influential within the emerging system, frequently operating beyond the reach of even nominal democratic control or oversight.If events of the 1980s did not completely transform Brazilian politics, they did redefine the main challenge of the political transition. The initial problem of replacing the military government with a civilian regime has given way to a second, less tangible, task of consolidating democratic institutions and procedures (O'Donnell, 1988).

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.

Madagascar: The Military in Politics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juvence F. Ramasy
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Military

In many African countries, armies played a key public role in the aftermath of independence. For this reason, no study of African politics can overlook the militarization of the state. Postcolonial Madagascar, for example, was ruled for over two decades by personnel from its army. National armies often present themselves as neutral entities that can guarantee a country’s political stability. However, there is no such thing as neutrality, whether in Africa or elsewhere. The best hope for armies to become and remain as politically neutral as possible is the demilitarization of political power. The withdrawal of the military from politics and their subordination to civilian decisions is important but does not suffice to ensure the army’s political neutrality. Such a withdrawal was widely carried out through the third wave of democratization, the historical period during which there was a sustained and significant increase in the proportion of competitive regimes. Democratization processes cannot succeed without efforts toward neutralizing the military, and thus, toward demilitarizing the political society and depoliticizing the army. Post-transition regimes striving for democracy should bring about and preserve a formal separation of power between the political and the civilian spheres. For these regimes to establish a solid mandate, the army and the security apparatus need to be placed under democratic control. In Africa, the disengagement of the military from the public sphere came about with the political transitions of the 1990s. But changes in political regimes over the past decade have challenged the democratization process, as the return of praetorianism (an excessive political influence of the armed forces in the Sahel and Madagascar) testifies. Hence, demilitarizing politics, on the one hand and depoliticizing and reprofessionalizing the army on the other remain essential issues to be addressed.

Nigeria's New Political Institutions, 1975–9

1980 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude S. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Good Image ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Military

In October 1970, after the civil war had ended, General Yakubu Gowon reiterated his earlier pledge that military rule would be terminated on 1 October 1976, but two years before that date he postponed the return to civilian rule indefinitely on the grounds that Nigerians had not yet demonstrated ‘moderation and self-control in pursuing sectional ends’.1 In July 1975, nine years after his own elevation to Head of the Federal Military Government (F.M.G.), Gowon was removed by a coup d'état led by Brigadier Murtala Mohammed, who cited mismanagement as the immediate reason. However, after the coup, ‘well-placed spokesmen for the new administration…reaffirmed that the goals of the coup were to restore the good image of the military and to create conditions which will make reactive military intervention unnecessary in the future’.2

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.

The Soldier and the State in China: The Political Work System in the People' Liberation Army

1991 ◽  
Vol 127 ◽  
pp. 527-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Shambaugh
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Active Duty ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Political Work ◽  
The People ◽  
The Military ◽  
Modern Era

The military is a key actor in the political life of many nations. Across the developing and socialist worlds, the armed forces have served as far more than guarantors of national security as they sustain civilian elites in power or often seize it themselves. In China there has been a long tradition of military rule during much of the modern era–one need think only of Li Hongzhang and the Beiyang Army, the Republic's first president General Yuan Shikai, the warlords of the 1920s, or Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and theGuominjun(the twin sibling of the ruling Guomindang). In post-1949 China former and active-duty military officers (as well as the military as an institution) have been central actors in the political life of the nation, effectively administering the country from 1949–52 and 1967–73. However, this article is not so much about the militarization of politics in China as about the politicization of the military.

“With colleagues like that, who needs enemies?”:Doctors and Repression under Military and Post-Authoritarian Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-505
Author(s):  
Eyal Weinberg
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Prisoners ◽  
State University ◽  
Medical Assistance ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Medical Board ◽  
Military Physician ◽  
The Military ◽  
Healing Arts

As young medical students at Guanabara State University, Luiz Roberto Tenório and Ricardo Agnese Fayad received some of the best medical education offered in 1960s Brazil. For six years, the peers in the same entering class had studied the principles of the healing arts and practiced their application at the university's teaching hospital. They had also witnessed the Brazilian military oust a democratically elected president and install a dictatorship that ruled the country for 21 years (1964–85). After graduating, however, Tenório and Fayad embarked on very distinct paths. The former became a political dissident in opposition to the military regime and provided medical assistance to members of the armed left. The latter joined the armed forces and, as a military physician, participated in the brutal torture and cruel treatment of political prisoners. At the end of military rule, Brazil's medical board would find him guilty of violating the Brazilian code of medical ethics and revoke his license.

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.

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.

Between Intellectual Responsibility and Political Commodification of Knowledge: Nigeria's Academic Political Scientists under the Babangida Military Junta, 1985–1993

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-121
Author(s):  
Ade Kunle Amuwo
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Commodification Of Knowledge ◽  
Intellectual Integrity ◽  
The Military ◽  
Major Criticism ◽  
Intellectual Responsibility

Abstract:The academic political scientists—mainly professors—who were hired by the Babangida military government in Nigeria between 1985 and 1993, ostensibly to theorize and articulate a new political culture and morality through the political transition program (PTP), have been objects, both then and ever since, of serious criticism concerning their role and contribution to a program that promised much but delivered little or nothing. The major criticism is that the political scientists, despite an initial commitment to help the military fashion a new political order, lost their “science” by providing an intellectual cover for the general's schemes and enriched the “political,” including the politics of corruption and self-enrichment. We examine this critique and show that these individuals, by choosing to remain in office—if not in power—even after witnessing so many broken promises by the regime, tarnished their intellectual integrity and moral credibility. Appointed to serve as an instrument of legitimization for the regime, they contained, constricted, and shrank the political and intellectual space rather than facilitating intellectual and democratic empowerment.

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