Chapter One: Setting the Theoretical Framework

Abstract

There is no recipe for democratisation that can be readily applied to all countries. Every country presents unique factors that influence the fate of its democratic reforms, which must therefore be evaluated within their specific socio-political, cultural and historical context.

Building on this premise, this paper examines military reform and democratisation through the experiences of Turkey and Indonesia, two democratising countries with predominantly Muslim populations, secular regimes, and militaries that are deeply involved in politics.

The paper strives to explain why both the Turkish and Indonesian militaries, which have developed a sense of ownership over the state, may be wary of democratic change; how the people perceive the military's traditional role in society; and in which direction societal and military attitudes towards democratic reform have been moving over the years.

In relating these domestic observations to various external factors, it seeks to identify the regional and global trends, events and actors that promote and obstruct the development of substantive democracy in each country, and to draw broader lessons for the study of democratisation and military reform.

Notes

1. Timothy Edmunds, ‘Security Sector Reform: Concepts and Implementation’, report presented to the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces workshop ‘Security Sector Reform: Conceptual Framework and Practical Implications’, Geneva, 20–22 November 2001, p. 5.

2. Jean Grugel, Democratisation: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 2.

3. Ibid., p. 17.

4. Laurence Whitehead, ‘International Aspects of Democratization’, in Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transition from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 8.

5. Ibid., p. 9.

6. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 3.

7. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p. 10.

8. David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 15.

9. Mary Kaldor and Ivan Vejvoda, ‘Democratisation in Central and East European Countries’, International Affairs, vol. 73, no. 1, January 1997, p. 62.

10. Grugel, Democratisation: A Critical Introduction, p. 5.

11. Hans Born, Philipp H. Fluri and Simon Lunn (eds), Oversight and Guidance: The Relevance of Parliamentary Oversight for the Security Sector and its Reform (Brussels/Geneva: DCAF, 2003), p. 13.

12. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil–Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1957), p. 84.

13. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: The Free Press, 1960).

14. Asha Gupta (ed.), Military Rule and Democratisation: Changing Perspectives (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications, 2003), p. 6.

15. Born, Fluri and Lunn, Oversight and Guidance: The Relevance of Parliamentary Oversight for the Security Sector and its Reform, p. 14.

16. Edmunds, ‘Security Sector Reform: Concepts and Implementation’, pp. 1–2.

17. Grugel, Democratisation: A Critical Introduction, p. 91.

18. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century, p. 5.

19. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, p. 66.

20. Theodor H. Winkler, ‘Managing Change: The Reform and Democratic Control of the Security Sector and International Order’, Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Occasional Paper no. 1, Geneva, October 2002, p. 8.

21. Grugel, Democratisation: A Critical Introduction, p. 1.

22. Ibid., p. 67.

23. Emily Goldman, ‘Cultural Foundations of Military Diffusion’, Review of International Studies, no. 32, 2006, p. 70.

24. Yezid Sayigh, ‘Military and State Relationship in the Middle East’, lecture in research seminar, Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, 11 October 2007.

25. A regional approach, as Morris Janowitz has argued, has proven particularly productive for the analysis of civil–military relations. Janowitz, Civil Military Relations: Regional Perspectives (London: Sage, 1981), p. 9.

26. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century, pp. 15–26.

27. Ibid., pp. 45–6.

28. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992).

29. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century, pp. 29–30.

30. ‘Syria: Has He Got Away With It?’, The Economist, 7 April 2007.

31. Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 77–8.

32. Born, Fluri and Lunn, Oversight and Guidance: The Relevance of Parliamentary Oversight for the Security Sector and its Reform, p. 30.

33. Edmunds, ‘Security Sector Reform: Concepts and Implementation’, p. 6.

34. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratisation in the Late Twentieth Century, p. 232.

35. Ibid., pp. 233–43.

36. Ibid., pp. 6–7.

37. Edmunds, ‘Security Sector Reform: Concepts and Implementation’, pp. 9–10.