Military Corner

Civil-Military Relations: Theoretical Explanation

Girotra Vinay?

Civil-military relations generally refer to the interactions between armed forces as institutions and the society they belong to. In terms of general definition, the democratic civil-military relations stand for the efficient management of security based on the principles of democracy as well as of the governmental agencies associated with the above mentioned field. Developed states, with a few exceptions have been able to maintain democratic civil-military relations, a system where civilian elites have the power of final decision making. However many third world states have failed to maintain civilian supremacy for longer periods. In these states, the military constitutes the most obvious power base. It is a force to reckon with more at home than abroad and is used widely by civilian and military elites to strengthen their position.

Scholars and academicians all over the world have provided many theories which suggest the different ways by which democratic civil-military relations have been maintained in developed states and can also be applied in third world states for bringing civilian supremacy. Classical liberal thinkers like Huntington, Finer & Janowitz and modern democratic thinkers like Feaver & Schiff are the most prominent ones.

Huntington’s Liberal Approach: Civilian Control through professionalism

Liberal theory argues that the first priority of a democratic state is to protect the rights and liberties of individual citizens. This can be achieved by a social contract in which rule of law is supreme and all the citizens are bound by this contract. However, state has also to deal with those outside the community who are not party or bound by the contract. In the international arena, there is still a state of nature in which conflict is uncontrolled. To retain its authority, the state must protect its citizens from these foreign threats, not least of all by means of an effective military establishment. It is crucial that the military be strong to protect the state in a conflict ridden world. Yet the military can not be left uncontrolled by the state. Free from state restraints, the military would pursue the objects of its own passions and pose an internal threat to sovereign power. Neither can the military be wholly dominated by the state-especially not a democratic state representative of civilian society-because then the military would be forced to follow the passions of the civilian elites controlling the state, and following these passions might sap military strength by distracting it from its purpose. 

Samuel P. Huntington attempts to solve the dilemma by providing his theory of civilian control through professionalism. He has provided his model of “Objective Civilian Control” in which Civilian control is maintained through entrusting ‘professionalism’ in military corps. Civilians are entitled to dictate military security policy, but would leave the military elites free to determine what military operations were required to secure the policy objectives. The essence of objective civilian control is the recognition of autonomous military professionalism and independent military sphere. 

Huntington distinguishes between a profession and other occupations by the presence of expertise and responsibility. Professionalism in armed forces sets definite limits to military political power without reference to the distribution to political power among the various civilian groups. A highly professional officer corps stands ready to carry out the wishes of any civilian group which secures legitimate authority within the state. Huntington argues that a high degree of civilian control can be achieved in the modern state only by a high degree of differentiation of military institutions from other social institutions and the creation of a thoroughly professional officer corps. A professional officer corps, he argues, is jealous of its own limited sphere of competence but recognizes its incompetence in matters that lie outside the professional military sphere and hence is willing to accept its role as a subordinate instrument of the state. The less professionalized the officer corps, on the other hand, the less differentiation there is between military and political roles and therefore the less justification for military obedience to political authority. 

Many scholars have disputed this classical liberal theory that professionalism ensures the insulation of military from politics. Samuel E. Finer believes that professionalism infact could thrust the military into collision with civilian authorities, as military elites may see themselves as the servants of the state rather than of the government and also that armed forces may fall prey to ‘military syndicalism,’ the idea that as specialists only they have the qualification to make decision about defense. Abrahamson argues that excessive professionalism creates a powerful, military-social structure. In this structure, if there are differences between civilian and military values and objectives, civilian control over the military will be impaired. However, Huntington believes that professionalism entails the reorientation of the armed forces toward their rightful (external) missions, the elimination of overstaffing and non-military responsibilities and the conferring on the armed forces the status and the respect they deserve. 

Janowitz’s Approach: Civilian control through Societal Control

Practical experiences suggest that too many armed forces that were deemed professional, not only by their own standards but also by external evaluation, have engaged in various endeavors of subverting civilian authority, including coups d’état. This is one major reason why the second chief protagonist in the debate of civil-military relations, Morris Janowitz understood civilian control in terms of societal control rather than state or institutional control. State or institutes play a secondary role as an extension of society, but “societal control measured in part as integration with society, was Janowitz’s normative and empirical focus.” He links the military intervention with internal characteristics of the military such as mission cohesiveness, skill, recruitment, organizational pattern and hierarchical structure. He believed that a military with ‘internally oriented mission,’ for instance was more likely to get involved in internal politics than a military with clear external role and orientation. 

Janowitz believed that the main issue after World War-II was how to preserve the ideal of the citizen-soldier in an era when the changing nature of war no longer required mass participation in military service but did require the state to maintain a large standing force of professional soldiers. To this end, he argued for an explicit program in political education to connect professional military training to national and transnational purposes. He observed that changes in technology, society and mission had led to an inevitably more political role for the professional soldier than that suggested by Huntington. Janowitz contended that it was the professional socialization of the military through its relationship with and sympathy for the values of the society it serves that ensures civilian control over the armed forces. Where Huntington offers a static ideal type, Janowitz posits a dynamic professionalism changing with different sociological conditions. Janowitz admits of a politically aware officer corps with overlapping functions and expertise with civilian counterparts. Janowitz expands Huntington’s professional ethic to include “a sense of self esteem and moral worth,” but he still relies on it to secure civilian control. 

Read the rest of this entry »