After Military Rule in Asia: South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltan Barany
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
Good Case ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
Institutional Architecture ◽  
The Military

This chapter discusses three Asian states: South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia. The “good” case, South Korea, has been remarkably successful in consolidating democracy and carving out a proper place in the new institutional architecture for its armed forces. The “bad” case is Thailand where, after a promising though difficult fifteen-year democratization process, the military overthrew the elected government in 2006. Finally, the “interesting” case is Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority state, where, against the expectations of most experts, the armed forces' political presence and influence have gradually diminished since 1998. The chapter explains why Korean officers have become the servants of the state, why their Indonesian colleagues have more or less given up their intention to run their country, and why members of the Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTAF) have been far more reluctant to relinquish their political role.

“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.

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.

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.

The Armed Forces in Latin America: Potential for Changes in Political and Social Functions

1972 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Kossok
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Military Dictatorship ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Number Of Publications ◽  
The Military ◽  
Coups D'etat

At the beginning of this study of military dictatorship and the political role of the intellectuals in Latin America, Florestan Fernandes (1970: 1) makes the following statement: “The idea that Latin America is a region in which the coups d'état are a political routine has become a commonplace.” Without doubt, such an opinion is justified and also explains—at least to a certain extent—the wealth of “routine” verdicts on the function of the military in Latin America. A contradiction, however, seems evident at this point: while the number of publications on the political and social position of the armed forces is rapidly increasing (McAlister, 1966; Rouquié, 1969), there is an evident lack of comprehensive analyses that go beyond detailed description, and which explain in a reliable and sound manner the phenomenon of the cyclically increasing militarization of politics. It cannot be overlooked that research on the role of the military in Latin America is in a really critical situation which calls for a reexamination of the facts according to new criteria.

Military profile rises but coup is unlikely in Brazil

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Political Role ◽  
Military Members ◽  
Senior Officers ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Military

Subject The political role of the armed forces. Significance The armed forces have recently assumed an unusually high political profile. The current government has appointed generals to high-level positions and ordered a large-scale intervention led by the army in Rio de Janeiro state security institutions. These measures, many of them unprecedented, are an attempt by President Michel Temer to boost his popularity as a ‘tough-on-crime’ leader. The armed forces are one of the few public institutions enjoying high levels of trust among Brazilians. Impacts Despite recent protest calls for a military coup, support for such a move is restricted to a radical minority. Resistance against further reliance on the military for domestic law enforcement will rise, including among senior officers. Bolsonaro will focus his message on crime, promising to bring more military members into his cabinet, including the Education Ministry.

Wars in Review: Subaltern Methodologies in Conflict Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 030582982110365
Author(s):  
Rishika Yadav
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
West African ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Conflict Studies ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
War Narratives ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Military ◽  
Israeli Defence Forces

This essay reviews four disparate studies on war narratives: ‘Right to Mourn’ by Suhi Choi (2019), ‘Fly Until You Die’ by Chia Youyee Vang (2019), ‘Soldiers in Revolt’ by Maggie Dwyer (2018), ‘Breaking the Binaries in Security Studies’ by Ayelet Harel-Shalev and Shir Daphna-Tekoah (2019). The studies take a ‘view-from-below’ approach and build new theoretical frameworks that not only expose ‘the price of war’, but also investigate how ‘subaltern subjects’ subjects view their place and participation in the conflict and resist over-arching homogenous interpretations. The studies respectively focus on post-war remembrance in South Korea, oral histories of Hmong pilots, mutinying in West African states, and the experiences of female combatants in the Israeli Defence Forces. Although dissimilar in terms of geographic spaces, actors and even methodology, the authors all commonly challenge established binaries within conflict studies that assume a separation of the ‘military’ and the ‘civilian’, the prevalence of power-hierarchies within armed forces, and the supposed passiveness of powerless actors in conflict. This essay reviews these books as not individual publications that contribute to the literature of their own disciplines, but as interactive theoretical frameworks that not only dispute prevailing theories of war but also present new understandings on how these narratives interrelate.

The Jamaat of Allah's Friends: Maulana Allahyar's Reformist Movement and Sacralising the Space of the Armed Forces of Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-193
Author(s):  
SAADIA SUMBAL
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Prisoner Of War ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Missionary Movement ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Town

AbstractThis article discusses a Sufi-inspired reformist movement that was set up in Chakrala (Pakistani Punjab) by Maulana Allahyar during the second half of the twentieth century. Attention is paid to the polemical religious context in which this movement arose, in part linked to the proselytising activities of local Shias and Ahmadis. Allahyar's preaching in the town created sectarian divisions within Chakrala's syncretic religious traditions. His reformist ideas also were articulated through a tablighi jamaat (missionary movement), which penetrated the armed forces of Pakistan during the military rule of Ayub Khan. Against this backdrop, the article also discusses the interface between Islam and the army, as this relationship played out in Indian prisoner-of-war camps holding captured Pakistani soldiers in the wake of the 1971 war, and so points to ways in which the mutual performance of mystical practices by Allahyar's Jamaat created a cohesive moral community.

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.

The Military and Democratization in El Salvador

1993 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Walter ◽  
Philip J. Williams
Keyword(s):  
El Salvador ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

The recent coups and attempted coups in Haiti, Venezuela, and Peru serve as a sobering reminder of the military's central role in the political life of Latin America. Earlier assessments of the prospects for democratic consolidation now seem overly optimistic in light of these events. At a minimum, they point up the need to focus on the role of the military during transitions from authoritarianism and the consolidation of democratic regimes. As Stepan has suggested, prolonged military rule can leave important legacies which serve as powerful obstacles to democratic consolidation (Stepan, 1988: xi-xii). Understanding these legacies and the problems they present is essential in developing strategies aimed at democratizing civil-military relations.This is no less true in El Salvador, where the prospects for democratization are closely linked to the future of the country's armed forces.

Military Power, Impunity and State-Society Change in Latin America

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Patrice McSherry
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
State Terror ◽  
Civilian Regimes ◽  
The Military

AbstractThe transition from military to civilian rule in Latin America has thrown a searchlight upon the legacy of military repression from the era of the national security states, and the problem of still-powerful and unrepentant armed forces. These intertwined problems have profound implications for the possibility of fundamental change in a region long characterized by extreme social inequality and political instability. As Rouquié notes, civilianization of the military state does not necessarily mean the democratization or demilitarization of power. How to deal with the perpetrators of state terror is a burning and controversial issue throughout the region. During the process of transition, the major demand of the military in virtually all states was for guarantees against accountability for human rights crimes—widely called impunity in the region—a demand that implicitly places the military above the law. This issue strikes at the very heart of the transformation of national security states and the democratization of power. Additionally, despite the transition from military rule, structures of the national security apparatus remain embedded within the civilian regimes. An examination of the question of impunity and those embedded structures exposes the tensions between democratization and persisting military prerogatives and power.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document