Based on a conference held in Washington, DC, 13-14 Mar 1995.

This book addresses the challenge of reforming defense and military policy-making in newly democratized nations. By tracing the development of civil-military relations in various new democracies from a comparative perspective, it links two bodies of scholarship that thus far have remained largely separate: the study of emerging (or failed) civilian control over armed forces on the one hand; and work on the roots and causes of military effectiveness to guarantee the protection and security of citizens on the other. The empirical and theoretical findings presented here will appeal to scholars of civil-military relations, democratization and security issues, as well as to defense policy-makers.

The continued spread of democracy into the twenty-first century has seen two-thirds of the almost two hundred independent countries of the world adopting this model. In these newer democracies, one of the biggest challenges has been to establish the proper balance between the civilian and military sectors. A fundamental question of power must be addressed—who guards the guardians and how? In this volume of essays, contributors associated with the Center for Civil-Military Relations in Monterey, California, offer firsthand observations about civil-military relations in a broad range of regions including Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Despite diversity among the consolidating democracies of the world, their civil-military problems and solutions are similar—soldiers and statesmen must achieve a deeper understanding of one another, and be motivated to interact in a mutually beneficial way. The unifying theme of this collection is the creation and development of the institutions whereby democratically elected civilians achieve and exercise power over those who hold a monopoly on the use of force within a society, while ensuring that the state has sufficient and qualified armed forces to defend itself against internal and external aggressors. Although these essays address a wide variety of institutions and situations, they each stress a necessity for balance between democratic civilian control and military effectiveness.

This book examines the ways in which European democracies, including former communist states, are dealing with the new demands placed on their security policies since the cold war by transforming their military structures, and the effects this is having on the conceptualisation of soldiering. In the new security environment, democratic states have called upon their armed forces increasingly to fulfil unconventional tasks – partly civilian, partly humanitarian, and partly military – in most complex, multi-national missions. Not only have military structures been transformed to make them fit for these new types of deployments, but the new mission types highlight the necessity for democracies to come to terms with a new image and ethos of soldiering in defence of a transnational value community. Combining a qualitative comparison of twelve countries with an interdisciplinary methodology, this edited volume argues that the ongoing transformations of international politics make it necessary for democracies to address both internal and external factors as they shape their own civil-military relations. The issues discussed in this work are informed by Democratic Peace theory, which makes it possible to investigate relations within the state at the same time as analysing the international dimension. This approach gives the book a systematic theoretical framework which distinguishes it from the majority of existing literature on this subject. This book will be of much interest to students of civil-military relations, European politics, democratisation and post-communist transitions, and IR in 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"--

"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.

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.