Bringing together leading scholars from across the world, this comprehensive Research Handbook analyses key problems, subjects, regions, and countries in civil-military relations. Showcasing cutting-edge research developments, it illustrates the deeply complex nature of the field and analyses important topics in need of renewed consideration.
The Routledge Handbook of Civil-Military Relations not only fills this important lacuna, but offers an up-to-date comparative analysis which identifies three essential components in civil-military relations: (1) democratic civilian control; (2) operational effectiveness; and (3) the efficiency of the security institutions. This Handbook will be essential reading for students and practitioners in the fields of civil-military relations.
A provocative approach to evaluating civil-military relations. Dale R. Herspring considers the factors that allow some civilian and military organizations to operate more productively in a political context than others, bringing into comparative study for the first time the military organizations of the U.S., Russia, Germany, and Canada. Refuting the work of scholars such as Samuel P. Huntington and Michael C. Desch, Civil-Military Relations and Shared Responsibility approaches civil-military relations from a new angle, military culture, arguing that the optimal form of civil-military relations is one of shared responsibility between the two groups. Herspring outlines eight factors that contribute to conditions that promote and support shared responsibility among civilian officials and the military, including such prerequisites as civilian leaders not interfering in the military's promotion process and civilian respect for military symbols and traditions. He uses these indicators in his comparative treatment of the U.S., Russian, German, and Canadian militaries. Civilian authorities are always in charge and the decision on how to treat the military is a civilian decision. However, Herspring argues, failure by civilians to respect military culture will antagonize senior military officials, who will feel less free to express their views, thus depriving senior civilian officials, most of whom have no military experience, of the expert advice of those most capable of assessing the far-reaching forms of violence. This issue of civilian respect for military culture and operations plays out in Herspring's country case studies. Scholars of civil-military relations will find much to debate in Herspring's framework, while students of civil-military and defense policy will appreciate Herspring's brief historical tour of each countries' post–World War II political and policy landscapes.
The armed forces may no longer rule nations throughout Latin America, but they continue to influence democratic governments across the region. In nine original, thought-provoking essays, this book offers fresh theoretical insights into the dilemmas facing Latin American politicians as they struggle to gain full control over their military institutions. Latin America has changed in profound ways since the end of the Cold War, the re-emergence of democracy, and the ascendancy of free-market economies and trade blocs. The contributors to this volume recognize the necessity of finding intellectual approaches that speak to these transformations. They utilize a wide range of contemporary models to analyze recent political and economic reform in nations throughout Latin America, presenting case studies on Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela. Bridging the gap between Latin American studies and political science, these essays not only explore the forces that shape civil-military relations in Latin America but also address larger questions of political development and democratization in the region. The contributors are Felipe Aguero, J. Samuel Fitch, Wendy Hunter, Ernesto Lopez, Brian Loveman, David R. Mares, Deborah L. Norden, David Pion-Berlin, and Harold A. Trinkunas. Latin American Studies/Political Science
"This carefully conceived collection focuses on an important, but often overlooked, aspect of civil-military relations: military effectiveness. Insightful and informative ... the chapters form a cohesive whole. Those interested in military politics, from the novice student to the seasoned expert, will find the book useful and thought provoking." -Zoltan Barany, University of Texas at AustinHow does civilian control affect military effectiveness? Can a balance be achieved between the two? In-country experts address these questions through a set of rich comparative case studies. Covering the spectrum from democracies to authoritarian regimes, they explore the nexus of control and effectiveness to reveal its importance for national security and the legitimacy of both political order and the military institution.
American Civil-Military Relations offers the first comprehensive assessment of the subject since the publication of Samuel P. Huntington’s The Soldier and the State. Using this seminal work as a point of departure, experts in the fields of political science, history, and sociology ask what has been learned and what more needs to be investigated in the relationship between civilian and military sectors in the 21st century. Leading scholars—such as Richard Betts, Risa Brooks, James Burk, Michael Desch, Peter Feaver, Richard Kohn, Williamson Murray, and David Segal—discuss key issues, including: • changes in officer education since the end of the Cold War • shifting conceptions of military expertise in response to evolving operational and strategic requirements • increased military involvement in high-level politics • the domestic and international contexts of U.S. civil-military relations. The first section of the book provides contrasting perspectives of American civil-military relations within the last five decades. The next section addresses Huntington’s conception of societal and functional imperatives and their influence on the civil-military relationship. Following sections examine relationships between military and civilian leaders and describe the norms and practices that should guide those interactions. What is clear from the essays in this volume is that the line between civil and military expertise and responsibility is not that sharply drawn, and perhaps given the increasing complexity of international security issues, it should not be. When forming national security policy, the editors conclude, civilian and military leaders need to maintain a respectful and engaged dialogue. Essential reading for those interested in civil-military relations, U.S. politics, and national security policy.
This book investigates the relationship between international security governance, democratic civil-military relations and the relevance of strategy, as well as of absolute and relative gains, in norms formation in hybrid orders. Highlighting caveats of the legacy of Huntington’s paradigm of military professionalism, the book applies a robust methodology and data collected in four sample regions in Pakistan. It gauges the effects of international and local actors’ support in the Security Sector Reform domain and examines instances of civil-military interactions and military transition. The book also analyses determinants and strategies that can influence them to demonstrate the impact of global governance in norms diffusion, as well as of absolute and relative utility gains and incentives in normative change. The author generates a new theory pertaining to international organisations and actors as determinants of transformation processes and consequently sheds new light on the issue of global security governance, especially its impact on civil-military relations and democratisation in hybrid orders. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in the field of global governance, civil-military relations, grand strategy and foreign policy as well as Asian politics, South Asian studies, peace, security and strategic studies, International Relations and political science in more general.
"The interaction between military and civilian courts, the political power that legal prerogatives can provide to the armed forces, and the difficult process civilian politicians face in reforming military courts remain glaringly under-examined. This book fills a gap in existing scholarship by providing a theoretically rich, global examination of the operation and reform of military courts in democracies. Drawing on a newly-created global dataset, it examines trends across states and over time. Combined with deeper qualitative case studies, the book presents clear and well-justified findings that will be of interest to scholars and policymakers working in a variety of fields"--
