The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper

The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper
Author: Arturo C. Sotomayor
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2014-01-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421412136

If democratic principles do not just "rub off" onto United Nations peacekeepers, what positive or negative implications can be observed? Winner of the Luciano Tomassini Latin American Relations Book Award of the Luciano Tomassini Latin American Relations The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper reevaluates how United Nations peacekeeping missions reform (or fail to reform) their participating members. It investigates how such missions affect military organizations and civil-military relations as countries transition to a more democratic system. Two-thirds of the UN’s peacekeepers come from developing nations, many of which are transitioning to democracy as well. The assumption is that these “blue helmet” peacekeepers learn not only to appreciate democratic principles through their mission work but also to develop an international outlook and new ideas about conflict prevention. Arturo C. Sotomayor debunks this myth, arguing that democratic practices don’t just “rub off” on UN peacekeepers. So what, if any, benefit accrues to these troops from emerging democracies? In this richly detailed study of a decade’s worth of research (2001–2010) on Argentine, Brazilian, and Uruguayan peacekeeping participation, Sotomayor draws upon international socialization theory and civil-military relations to understand how peacekeeping efforts impact participating armed forces. He asks three questions: Does peacekeeping reform military organizations? Can peacekeeping socialize soldiers to become more liberalized and civilianized? Does peacekeeping improve defense and foreign policy integration? His evaluation of the three countries’ involvement in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti reinforces his final analysis—that successful democratic transitions must include a military organization open to change and a civilian leadership that exercises its oversight responsibilities. The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper contributes to international relations theory and to substantive issues in civil-military relations and comparative politics. It provides a novel argument about how peacekeeping works and further insight into how international factors affect domestic politics as well as how international institutions affect democratizing efforts.

Civil-Military Relations in Indonesia

Civil-Military Relations in Indonesia
Author: Muhamad Haripin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2019-09-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000691438

This book examines military operations other than war (MOOTW) of the Indonesian military in the post-Suharto period and argues that the twin development of democratic consolidation, marked by ‘stable’ civil–military relations from 2004 to 2014 under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency, and internationalization of the military have not yet entirely de-politicized the armed forces. This book shows how peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and counter-terror missions have been reinvented by the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI) to adhere to its politico-institutional interests rather than to divert military attention from politics. In contrast with conventional arguments about the rationale of MOOTW in promoting military professionalism, this book provides the first critical analysis of the development of these missions and correlates them with TNI’s concerted effort to preserve territorial command structure – a military network that parallels the civilian bureaucracy down to the village level. The book argues that the military in Indonesia remains domestically political amidst high intensity of international activism. A detailed investigation of civil–military relations in Indonesia, this book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Southeast Asian studies and Asian politics, and more generally to those interested in civil–military relations, military politics, and MOOTW.

Guns & Roses: Comparative Civil-Military Relations in the Changing Security Environment

Guns & Roses: Comparative Civil-Military Relations in the Changing Security Environment
Author: Steven Ratuva
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2019-01-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 981132008X

This edited volume provides a critical and comparative discussion of the changing synergy between the military and society in the dramatically transforming global security climate, drawing on examples from the Asian, Pacific, African, Middle Eastern, European and South American regions. The book is interdisciplinary and covers wide-ranging issues relating to civil military relations, democratization, regional security, ethnicity, peace-building and peace keeping, civilian oversight, internal repression, gender, regime change and civil society.

Civil-Military Relations and Shared Responsibility

Civil-Military Relations and Shared Responsibility
Author: Dale R. Herspring
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1421409291

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.

American Civil-Military Relations

American Civil-Military Relations
Author: Suzanne C. Nielsen
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2009-10-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0801895057

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.

Civil-Military Relations in International Interventions

Civil-Military Relations in International Interventions
Author: Karsten Friis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2020-02-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000037975

This book examines military and civilian actors in international interventions and offers a new analytical framework to apply on such interventions. While it is frequently claimed that success in international interventions hinges largely on military–civilian coherence, cooperation has proven challenging to achieve in practice. This book examines why this is the case, by analysing various approaches employed by military and civilian actors and discussing the different relationships between the intervening actors and those upon whom they have intervened. The work analyses different military concepts, such as peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, and the often-troubled relationship between the humanitarian and military intervening actors. It presents a new analytical framework to examine these relationships based on identification theory, which illuminates how the interveners represent those they have been deployed to engage, as well as their own identity and role. As such the book offers an enhanced understanding of the challenges related to civil-military cooperation in international interventions, as well as a theoretical contribution to the study of interventions, more generally. This book will be of much interest to students of international interventions, military studies, peacekeeping, security studies and International Relations.

The Military and Domestic Politics

The Military and Domestic Politics
Author: Rebecca L. Schiff
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2008-08-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135978050

The intervention of the military in national politics and the everyday lives of citizens is a key question in civil-military relations. This book explains how concordance theory can provide a model for predicting such domestic intervention.Models dealing with the relationship between the military and society are usually based on Western nations wit

The Routledge Handbook of Civil-military Relations

The Routledge Handbook of Civil-military Relations
Author: Thomas C. Bruneau
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 0415782732

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.

Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring

Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring
Author: Holger Albrecht
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2016-12-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812248546

Armies and Insurgencies in the Arab Spring explores the central problems concerning the role of the armed forces in the contemporary Arab world.

Manifest Ambition

Manifest Ambition
Author: John C. Pinheiro
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2007-03-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0313027285

This is not another chronological retelling of the Mexican War. Instead, it examines civil-military clashes during the war in light of Jacksonian politics and the American citizen-soldier tradition, looking at events that shed light on civilian authority over the military, as well as the far reaching impact of political ambition during this period (specifically, presidential power and the quest for the presidency). By 1848, Americans had come to realize that in their burgeoning democracy, generals and politicians could scarcely resist the temptation to use war for partisan gain. It was a lesson well learned and one that still resonates today. The Mexican War is known for the invaluable experience it provided to future Civil War officers and as an example of America's drive to fulfill her Manifest Destiny. Yet it was more than a training ground, more than a display of imperialism. Significantly, the Mexican War tested civilian control of the military and challenged traditional assumptions about the role of the army in American society. In so doing, it revealed the degree to which, by 1846, the harsh partisanships of the Jacksonian Era had impacted the American approach to war. This is not another chronological retelling of the Mexican War. Instead, it examines civil-military clashes during the war in light of Jacksonian politics and the American citizen-soldier tradition, looking both at events that shed light on civilian authority over the military and at the far reaching impact of political ambition during this period (specifically, presidential power and the quest for the presidency). In addition to politics, a host of others factors marred civil-military relations during the war, threatening U.S. victory. These included atrocities committed by Americans against Mexicans, disobedient officers, and inefficient U.S. military governors. In the end, as Manifest Ambition shows, Polk's ability to overcome his partisan leanings, his micro-management of the war effort, and his overall strategic vision, helped avoid both a prolonged occupation and the annexation of All Mexico. By 1848, Americans had come to realize that in their burgeoning democracy, generals and politicians could scarcely resist the temptation to use war for partisan gain. It was a lesson well learned and one that still resonates today.