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Theorizing civilian control of the military in emerging democracies: agency, structure and institutional change

Zivile Kontrolle des Militärs in jungen Demokratien: Agency, Struktur und institutioneller Wandel

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Abstract

This article integrates insights from historical institutionalism and arguments of strategic action in order to develop a new conceptual and theoretical approach to explaining changes in civil-military relations. In order to enforce civilian control over the military in new democracies, civilian decision-makers need to “break” stabilizing mechanisms of path dependence in civil-military relations. The ability of ‘change agents’ to overcome ‘path dependence’ depends on the concrete approach civilians take to reduce military power. Civilian choices, however, are structured by the specific structural, institutional and ideational contexts in which civil-military interaction takes place. These contextual factors also provide the constraints and resources for civilian actions. The civilian choices and the success of their control strategies are thus conditioned by the resources to which civilians have access and which allow them to initiate and consolidate changes vis-à-vis those actors opposing change in civil-military relations.

Zusammenfassung

Durch die Verbindung von Erkenntnissen des historischen Institutionalismus mit Argumenten des strategischen Handelns entwickelt der Artikel eine neue konzeptionelle und theoretische Herangehensweise zur Erklärung der Veränderungen des Verhältnisses von Militär und Zivilisten. In neuen Demokratien stellt die Durchsetzung ziviler Kontrolle des Militärs als Versuch ziviler Entscheidungsträger, stabilisierende Mechanismen der Pfadabhängigkeit zivil-militärischer Beziehungen zu „durchbrechen“, eine Herausforderung dar. Die Fähigkeit von change agents die Pfadabhängigkeiten zu überwinden unterliegt der konkreten Herangehensweise der Zivilisten zur Verringerung militärischer Macht. Jedoch gestalten die jeweiligen strukturellen, institutionellen und ideellen Rahmenbedingungen, innerhalb derer die zivil-militärischen Interaktionen erfolgen, die zivilen Wahlmöglichkeiten und stellen sowohl Einschränkungen als auch Ressourcen zivilen Handelns dar. Die Wahlmöglichkeiten der Zivilisten und der Erfolg ihrer Kontrollstrategien werden dementsprechend durch die Ressourcen bedingt, zu welchen sie Zugang haben und die es ihnen gestatten, Veränderungen hinsichtlich derjenigen Akteure zu initiieren und zu konsolidieren, die Veränderungen der zivil-militärischen Beziehungen ablehnen.

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Notes

  1. Civilian control is not necessary for a political system to fulfill the minimal criteria of electoral democracy. However, in order for democracy to consolidate, the armed forces must be under firm control of the elected civilians and they must possess authority over all political decision-making matters, including defense and security policy. For a more complete elaboration of this argument see Croissant et al. 2010.

  2. We consider those countries as ‘new’ or ‘emerging’ democracies which have made the transition from authoritarianism to democracy during the so-called “third wave” of democratization and which are still in the process of consolidating the democratic institutions, practices and values.

  3. This also holds true for civil-military relations in communist one-party regimes in which military elites usually occupy positions in the top party organs (Joo 1995).

  4. Mahoney distinguishes four categories of institutionalist explanations: utilitarian, power, legitimation and function (Mahoney 2000, p. 517). His category of “utilitarian” explanations can be further differentiated into what we have conceptualized as the structural argument of increasing returns and what we term compensation. “Functional” explanations argue that institutions persevere because they serve a systemic function while change occurs when exogenous shocks transform the demands of the system and thus render the old institutional structure dysfunctional. We do not consider the functional mechanism here because functionalist explanations do not provide leverage for the analysis of agency, as it implies the workings of structural variables rather than intentional choice of approaches to strengthen civilian control.

  5. Indeed, as Agüero (1995) demonstrates for Southern Europe, segments of the military might prefer less military decision-making authority in certain policy areas in order to strengthen military hierarchy and the institutional coherence of the armed forces. Another example is Mali, where pro-democratic officers overthrew dictator Moussa Traoré, initiating what is widely considered a comparatively successful case of democratization (Wing 2010). In Indonesia, the military had already started an internal debate on military reform before democratization and implemented many of the proposals autonomously or with little civilian involvement (Honna 2003).

  6. To define monitoring as a strategy is somewhat ambiguous as we view the creation of institutions as explanans, although institutional change, strictly speaking, is our main explanandum. However, what we are focusing upon here is the agency component of institutional change, not the institutions themselves.

  7. On military autonomy in Brazil, see Hunter (1997); the role of the military’s impunity for human rights abuses for Chile’s transition is discussed in Radseck (2002); on the prerogatives of the Turkish military see Jenkins (2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Politische Wissenschaft, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Bergheimer Str. 58, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Aurel Croissant, David Kühn M.A., Paul W. Chambers PhD & Philip Völkel M.A.

  2. South Asia Institute, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Siegfried O. Wolf

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  1. Aurel Croissant
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  2. David Kühn M.A.
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  3. Paul W. Chambers PhD
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  4. Philip Völkel M.A.
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  5. Siegfried O. Wolf
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Correspondence to Aurel Croissant.

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This article contains results from the research project “Democratic Transformation and Civilian Control of the Military: Comparing New Democracies in Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia” conducted from 2008 to 2011 at Heidelberg University with funding by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The authors wish to thank the editors and one anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments.

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Croissant, A., Kühn, D., Chambers, P. et al. Theorizing civilian control of the military in emerging democracies: agency, structure and institutional change. Z Vgl Polit Wiss 5, 75–98 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-011-0101-6

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