Civil-Military Relations in a Changing Society: Institutions and Interests

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The papers of the proposed panel study how changing identity landscapes interact with civil-military institutions and norms in the United States and across the world. The shifting salience of issues like inequality and ethnic identity receive attention in the study of coups, but similar scholarly attention is not paid to how these factors affect civil-military relations via political parties, bureaucracies, and legislative committees undertaking everyday politics. To address these lacunae, this panel will discuss how broader politically salient issues like redistributive justice, the interactions of politics and bureaucracy, social divisions, partisanship and elections, and personalist politics both affect and are shaped by quotidian civil-military relations.

Regardless of whether a regime is democratic or authoritarian, most politics and policies shaping and being shaped by civil-military relations occur peaceably through the interactions of civil servants, civilian political leaders, and military officers. Consequently, a research focus on coups alone cannot explain why militaries—after the post-Cold War period when they generally withdrew from politics—are increasingly becoming involved in spheres of politics and policy that were hitherto controlled by civilian leaders and officials. Such re-involvement is often at the behest of the civilian authorities, especially after the ways that the Covid-19 pandemic saw the expansion of military roles into health, domestic policing, and social welfare provision. In turn, how does the involvement of the military in civilian political and administrative roles affect party politics, the popularity of leaders, and perceptions of ethnic identity?

Explaining the causes and effects of the quotidian interactions of the military and civilian politicians and bureaucrats also allows us to understand a structural phenomenon in democratic—as opposed to authoritarian—regimes that is elided by a focus on coups. Specifically, how does the military make and implement policies with political ramifications, and what are the ramifications of such involvement for democratic societies? This panel will endeavor to address these questions through discussion of the papers whose abstracts are presented below.

Sub Unit

• Division 44: Democracy and Autocracy

Individual Presentations

• Civilian Praetorianism & Post-coup Personalization - Salah Ben Hammou, Rice University

• Public Views of Military Service in Campaign Advertisements - Heidi Urben, Georgetown University; Michael Robinson, Georgetown University; Risa A. Brooks, Marquette University

• Bureaucratic-Disobedience and Civilian Control of the Military - Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, Harvard University

• Political Polarization and Coups d’Etat - Nicholas John Lotito, Princeton University; Elizabeth R. Nugent, Princeton University

• The Impact of Discrimination Scandals in the Canadian Military on Public Opinion - Stephen M. Saideman, Carleton University; Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, Canadian Global Affairs Institute; Jean-Christophe Boucher, University of Calgary

Chair

• Sean Webeck Defense Security Cooperation University

Discussants

• Vasabjit Banerjee University of Tennessee, Knoxville

• Stephen M. Saideman Carleton University