Challenges in Comparative Civil-Military Relations

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel examines a variety of research projects directed at the relationship between the public and the armed forces as an institution and how this relationship can shape state interaction, democratic governance, and foreign policy. As democratic backsliding, institutional and normative decay, and political polarization emerge as international challenges in their own right, this panel’s body of research focuses specifically on how the quality of civil-military relations plays a crucial role. The papers use a diverse array of methods and theoretical approaches, breaking new ground by expanding not only our general understanding of US civil-military relations, but by expanding into the comparative space of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa as well. Golby and Feaver assess the durably high level of public confidence in the US military institution while general trust in other areas of government has declined. Using an embedded survey battery, they find that partisanship and perceptions of institutional performance contribute to this divergence amongst the public, with powerful implication for stable democratic governance. Saideman, Hikotani, and Robinson explore similar questions of public institutional confidence in the armed forces in the Japanese case, a political environment with a much different post-war relationship to the military. Using descriptive and experimental survey instruments, they measure perceptions of institutional quality and attitudes on oversight in the case of the country’s Self-Defense Forces, expanding the study of these factors to a state with historical skepticism of the military. Samotin takes this concept of public favor for the military even further, exploring how the resulting “militarization” of society can lead to over-reliance on military solutions by civilian leaders. Evaluating crisis situations from WWII to the present, she places public support for the military and foreign policy choices in a common civil-military frame, discussing the effect of this positive affect on grand strategy. Finally, Lee expands our understanding of citizen-military relations and its effect on military behavior during civil wars and coups. Using the Arab Spring as a central case, she finds that despite the traditional focus on social media, it is the strength of the regime and the composition and politicization of the military that predict responses to internal conflict, whereas social media merely facilitates processes already at work. Together, these four papers draw on American, comparative, and international relations theories of civil-military relations, demonstrating the value that can be gained from cross-subfield dialogue.

Sub Unit

• Division 19: International Security

Individual Presentations

• Grading on a Curve: Why Americans Support the Military Above Other Institutions - Jim Golby, University of Texas at Austin; Peter D. Feaver, Duke University

• Public Attitudes, Civil-Military Relations, and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces - Stephen M. Saideman, Carleton University; Takako Hikotani, Gakushuin University

• Liberation Technologies, Civil-Military Relations, and the Arab Spring - Carrie A Lee, U.S. Army War College

Chair

• Stephen M. Saideman Carleton University

Discussant

• Risa A. Brooks Marquette University