Military Rule Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Military rule has been quite frequent, widespread, and endemic throughout history. Sixty countries (twenty-two in Africa, nineteen in Latin America, thirteen in Asia, and six in Europe) have experienced military rule, including Egypt, Fiji, Myanmar, Libya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Thailand. Military intervention in politics may take different forms, ranging from a one-party regime to a facade of democracy.

Military intervention must be distinguished from militarism. Military intervention means the constrained substitution of military personnel for civilian authorities; militarism means the acquisition of dangerous and sophisticated weapons. Militarism is a universal phenomenon, whereas the influence of the military differs from society to society, from minimal to total displacement of a civilian government with military rule.

In some cases, the military actually controls the political institutions; in others, it does not assume power directly. To establish military rule, the armed forces may carry out a coup to form a government whose main executive is a military officer. Much depends upon the relationship of the armed forces to the institutions. Under military rule, army leaders become the supreme decision makers.

The military can be classified into three types—personalistic, corporate, and socialist. Personalistic regimes center around a strong man, such as a caudillo (a Spanish word for an authoritarian political-military leader) in Latin America. In some Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Chile in the early 1960s, the military leaders were able to institutionalize their role by casting the political leaders as ineffective and corrupt. In the socialist type, in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt (1956–1970), for instance, leaders aligned with the interests of the lower class rather than with those of the corporate world.

E. Finer, a renowned political scientist and the author of The Man on Horseback (1962, 3) identified four roles of the military in politics—“influence,” “blackmail,” “displace,” and “supplement.” In the first and the second roles, the military works through the civil authorities and remains in the background. In the third, it replaces one set of civilians with another. In the fourth, the military sweeps away the civilian regime and establishes its own rule.

The Military’s Evolving Role

Once the military regime settles, it finds itself confronting the same problems its predecessors faced—dealing with the same political groups and forces and shuffling the same limited policy options. Depending upon its political objectives, it may function as a constitutional caretaker, as a backer of civilian government, or as a reformer or revolutionary. For example, the military tried to set conditions for a civilian government in Brazil, was a constitutional caretaker in Syria, and was a revolutionary force in El Salvador.

Where the public attachment to civilian institutions is strong, military intervention in politics is rare. Military intervention takes place in societies with low political culture, where there are few widely accepted political values and where there is a division of opinion on the legitimacy of the regime or incumbents. In such regimes, military interventions take place because there are no moral constraints to prevent them. Usually, the governments are highly dependent on military support.

Samuel P. Huntington made an interesting statement about the evolving role of the military in consonance with socioeconomic and technological changes. To him, the role of the military changes as society does. In an oligarchy, a soldier is a radical; in the middle-class world, he becomes a participant and arbiter; and in a mass society, he becomes the guardian of the status quo. According to Huntingdon, “The more backward a society is, the more progressive is the role of military” and vice versa (1962, 221).

However, many scholars have challenged Huntington’s statement that military professionalism inclines the military toward a low political posture. Finer, for instance, maintains that the very nature of professionalism often leads to the military’s collision with civil authorities. To put a check on the military, a society must have firm faith in civil supremacy. Similarly, Bengt Abrahamsson found that the Algerian coup in 1961 was carried out by some of the most professional elements in the French army.

Because military personnel are disciplined, organized, and have the best training possible, they can become the main agents of modernization. As a societal system, the military can also provide a framework in which traditionalism and modernism can be suitably blended. In a fragmented society, the military can serve as a focus of solidarity and nation building. Through the military, developing countries may receive new ideas, values, skills, techniques, and strategies for political change.

However, sociologists such as H. D. Lasswell have challenged the idea that the army can be an agent of modernization. They feel that military regimes without civilian support are likely to reach an impasse sooner than civilian ones and to polarize soldiers and civilians. Moreover, modernization cannot be equated with Westernization.

Bibliography:

Abrahamsson, Bengt. Military Professionalization and Political Power. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1972.
Clapham, Christopher. Third World Politics: An Introduction. London: Croom Helm, 1985.
Finer, S. E. Comparative Government. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1970.
The Man on Horseback:The Role of the Military in Politics. London: Pall Mall Press, 1962.
Huntington, Samuel P., ed. Changing Patterns of Military Politics. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962.
Janowitz, M. The Political Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1960.
Khan, Iftikhar, and Ahmed Hassan. “Military Rule Causes Polarisation: PM.” Dawn. May 30, 2008. www.dawn.com/2008/05/30/top2.htm.
Lovell, John P., and C. I. E. Kim. “The Military and Political Change in Asia.” Pacific Affairs 40, no. 1/2 (Spring/Summer 1967): 113–123.
McKinlay, R. D., and A. S. Cohan. “Performance and Instability in Military and Non-military Regime Systems.” American Political Science Review 70, no. 3 (September 1976): 850–864.
Pye, Lucian. In The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries. Edited by J. J. Johnson, 69–70. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962.
Raghavan, B. S. “Is Military Rule More Efficient?” The Hindu Business Line. January 7, 2008. www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/01/07/stories/2008010750280800.htm.
Von der Mehden, Fred R. Politics of the Developing Nations. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1969.

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