Intrastate Conflict and Erosion of Civilian Control in Democratizing States

• In Event: Civil-Military Relations

Abstract

When democratic and democratizing states use their militaries in intrastate conflicts, how does it affect civilian control of the armed forces? Existing studies test the effects of intrastate violence on coups but overlook the indicators of weakening civilian control more relevant to democracies. In this paper, I focus on constraints and opportunities for military involvement in politics in democratic regimes. I argue that in democratic and democratizing regimes intrastate conflict weakens civilian control of the military, but it manifests in forms other than coups. Using quantitative analysis, I demonstrate that previous research on military takeovers offers limited insights about civilian control in democracies experiencing intrastate conflict. To fill this gap, I offer a new typology of erosion of civilian control with a wide range of observable indicators relevant to democracies and democratizing regimes. Relying on the new typology, I use process tracing to estimate the effects of intrastate conflict on civilian control in a deviant case – Russia’s First Chechen War. This paper will advance our knowledge on civil-military relations in democratizing states and highlight the effects of intrastate conflicts on political institutions and processes.

Author

• Polina Beliakova, Tufts University