Civil-Military Relations Beyond Dichotomy: With Special Reference to Turkey

Abstract

For a better grasp of the role of militaries in political systems one should get beyond dichotomous approaches. This study identifies three distinct but interpenetrating realms in a polity: social, political and military. Based on the nature of the military's relations with social and political spheres and actors, it delineates four types of militaries: professional, nation's army, predatory praetorian and popular praetorian. This article also shows that the Turkish military constitutes one of the rare epitomes of popular praetorian military and discusses the current state and prospects of civil-military relations in Turkey.

Notes

Anton Bebler, “Typologies Based on Civilian-Dominated Versus Military-Dominated Political System,” pp. 261–75.

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A. R. Luckham, “A Comparative Typology of Civil-Military Relations,” p. 22.

See also Amos Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times: On Professionals, Praetorians, and Revolutionary Soldiers (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 93–4.

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Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 89.

Samuel P. Huntington, “Civilian Control of the Military: A Theoretical Statement,” in H. Eulau, Samuel J. Eldersveld, and Morris Janowitz (eds.), Political Behavior: Reader in Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1956), p. 381.

Eric A. Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics: Military Coups and Governments (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1977), p. 13.

Parris H. Chang, “The Dynamics of Party-Military Relations in China,” in Claude E. Welch, Jr. (ed.), Civilian Control of the Military: Theory and Cases from Developing Countries (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1976), pp. 123–48.

Roman Kolkowicz, “Military Intervention in the Soviet Union: Scenario for Post-Hegemonial Synthesis,” in Roman Kolkowicz and Andrzej Korbonski (eds.), Soldiers, Peasants, and Bureaucrats: Civil-Military Relations in Communist and Modernizing Societies (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1982), pp. 111–17. The involvement of a nation's army in politics should not be confused with praetorianism because the military may perform political functions under close civilian oversight.

Amos Perlmutter and William M. LeoGrande, “The Party in Uniform: Toward a Theory of Civil-Military Relations in Communist Political Systems,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 76, No. 4 (December 1982), pp. 778–9.

Cited in Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics, p. 16.

Kolkowicz, “Military Intervention in the Soviet Union,” p. 112.

Nordlinger, Soldiers in Politics, p. 3.

Perlmutter, “The Praetorian State and the Praetorian Army,” p. 383.

George Philip, “Military-Authoritarianism in South America: Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina,” Political Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (March 1984), pp. 1–20; J. Samuel Fitch, “Armies and Politics in Latin America: 1975–1985,” in Abraham F. Lowenthal and J. Samuel Fitch (eds.), Armies and Politics in Latin America (Revised Edition) (New York, London: Holmes and Meier, 1986), p. 32.

This type is similar to Perlmutter's “arbitrator-type army” (see Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times, pp. 104–7). However, Perlmutter's typology also rests on the same civilian-military dichotomy and therefore fails to take into account the military's relations with the social realm.

See for instance William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London, New York: Routledge, 1994).

See also Ümit Cizre Sakallıoğlu, “The Anatomy of the Turkish Military's Autonomy,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 29, No. 2 (1997), pp. 151–66.

S. George Harris, “The Role of the Military in Turkey in the 1980s: Guardians or Decision-Makers?” in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds.), State, Democracy and the Military Turkey in the 1980s (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), p. 179; Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military, pp. 316–24; Metin Heper and Aylin Güney, “The Military and the Consolidation of Democracy: The Recent Turkish Experience,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 26, No. 4 (2000), pp. 636–7.

Ahmet Kuru, “State-Society Relations and Military Politics: Changing Patterns in Turkey,” Comparative Politics (forthcoming).

See also Ersel Aydınlı, Nihat Ali Özcan and Doğan Akyaz, “The Turkish Military's March Toward Europe,” Foreign Affairs (January/ February 2006), pp. 77–90.

Zeki Sarıgil, “Deconstructing the Turkish Military's Popularity,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 35, No. 4 (July 2009), pp. 709–27.

Tanel Demirel, “Lessons of Military Regimes and Democracy: The Turkish Case in a Comparative Perspective,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Winter 2005), p. 264.

Aylin Güney and Petek Karatekelioğlu, “Turkey's EU Candidacy and Civil-Military Relations: Challenges and Prospects,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 31, No. 3 (2005), pp. 439–62; Zeki Sarigil, “Europeanization as Institutional Change: The Case of the Turkish Military,” Mediterranean Politics, Vol. 12, No. 1 (March 2007), pp. 39–57.

Tuba Ünlü Bilgiç, “The Military and Europeanization Reforms in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 45, No. 5 (2009), p. 807.

David Romano, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 182.

See Kemal H. Karpat, “The Military and Politics in Turkey, 1960–64: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of a Revolution,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 6 (October 1970), pp. 1656–8.

Dankwart A. Rustow, “The Army and the Founding of the Turkish Republic,” World Politics, Vol. 11, No. 4 (July 1959), pp. 513–52; George S. Harris, “The Role of the Military in Turkish Politics,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 1965), pp. 54–61.

Ayşe Gül Altınay, The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender and Education in Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

George S. Harris, “The Causes of the 1960 Revolution in Turkey,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn 1970), pp. 438–54; Tanel Demirel, “Civil-Military Relations in Turkey: Two Patterns of Civilian Behavior Towards the Military,” Turkish Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 12–17.

Ümit Cizre, “Problems of Democratic Governance of Civil-military Relations in Turkey and the European Union Enlargement Zone,” European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 43, No. 1 (January 2004), p. 119.

Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 194.

Jeffrey W. Legro, “Military Culture and Inadvertent Escalation in World War II,” International Security, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Spring 1994), p. 115.

Kemal H. Karpat, “The Military and Politics in Turkey, 1960–64: A Socio-Cultural Analysis of a Revolution,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 75, No. 6 (October 1970), p. 1655.

Hale, “Foreword,” p. IX.

Cited in Birand, Shirts of Steel, p. 3; also see pp. 52–67.

Cited in Harris, “The Role of the Military in Turkish Politics,” p. 56.

See also Birand, Shirts of Steel, pp. 84–5; Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military, p. 80; Cizre, “Problems of Democratic Governance of Civil-military Relations in Turkey,” p. 107.

Cited in Birand, Shirts of Steel, p. 22.

The speech is available at: http://www.tsk.tr/10_ARSIV/10_1_Basin_Yayin_Faaliyetleri/10_1_7_Konusmalar/2008/org_ilkerbasbug_dvrtslkonusmasi_28082008.html (accessed January 18, 2010).

Tanel Demirel, “Soldiers and Civilians: The Dilemmas of Turkish Democracy,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1 (January 2004), p. 127.

Cited in Birand, Shirts of Steel, p. 44.

Douglas L. Bland, “A Unified Theory of Civil-Military Relations,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol 26, No. 1 (Fall 1999), pp. 9–12.

MetroPOLL Stratejik ve Sosyal Araştırmalar, “Türkiye'de Siyasal Durum Araştırması: Toplumsal Algıda Ordu ve Değişim,” July 2009, http://www.metropoll.com.tr/report/toplumsal-algida-ordu-ve-degisim (accessed January 15, 2010).

See also Ersel Aydınlı, “A Paradigmatic Shift for the Turkish Generals and an End to the Coup Era in Turkey,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 63, No. 4 (Autumn 2009), pp. 581–96.

Cited in Metin Heper, “The European Union, the Turkish Military and Democracy,” South European Society and Politics, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005), p. 41.