School of International Studies
University of Miami
INS 684
(Civil-Military Relations)
Tuesdays 3:05 - 5:35 p.m.
Room INS 121
Instructor: Felipe Agüero
This seminar aims at introducing students to some of the major topics in the study of the connections between the military, the state, and society. Ultimately, these connections are determined by power relations and often are captured within a focus on the question of control. But the range of issues in this area is obviously larger than that. In this seminar we review the early literature on the topic as defined by Huntington’s seminal work, and explore major aspects of the debate that has taken place in the past decades. We then explore an array of topics, ranging from the military in processes of state formation, to questions of military rule, civilian control, social structures and the military, and modes of analysis of the military-state-society relations in different regions of the world, especially from the angle of problems of democratization.
The seminar format of this course requires thorough preparation of discussion bases on the readings. Evaluation of students will thus emphasize participation. Students will also be required to write a paper that combines focused literature review with research of one particular topic or case. The paper topic should be discussed with the instructor. Finally, there will be a take-home examination. Each one of these evaluation items will count for a third of the total.
Some of the most important readings required are available for purchase at the Book Horizons. Arrangements will be made to make the rest of readings available. The reading list below consists of a blend of required and recommended readings.
January 18 Introduction
January 25 The military, the state, and society: professionalism and politics (the
early literature)
Samuel P. Huntington. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of
Civil-Military Relations. New York. Vintage Books. 1957.
Samuel E. Finer. The Man on the Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics.
London. Pall Mall Press. 1962.
Bengt Abrahamsson. Military Professionalization and Political Power. Beverly
Hills. Sage Publications. 1972.
Amos Perlmutter. The Military and Politics in Modern Times: on Professionals,
Praetorians, and Revolutionary Soldiers. New Haven. Yale University Press.
1977.
Morris Janowitz. The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait. New
York. The Free Press. 1971. (Prologue, Preface, Chapter 1 and Chapter 20)
Government and Opposition, 6, 1, 1971, 5-35.
Michel Louis Martin and Ellen Stern McCrate, Eds. The Military, Militarism and
The Polity: Essays in Honor of Morris Janowitz. New York. The Free Press.
1984. (Chapters by Michel Martin, Moshe Lissak, and Sam Sarkesian).
Question of Civilian Control,” Armed Forces and Society, 23, 2, Winter 1996,
149-178.
Richard H. Kohn, “How Democracies Control the Military,” Journal of
Democracy 8, 4, October 1997.
Charles Moskos, “From Institution to Occupation: Trends in Military
Organization,” Armed Forces and Society 4, Fall 1977, 41-50.
Richard S. Wells, “The Theory of Concordance in Civil-Military Relations: a
Commentary,” Armed Forces and Society 23, 2, Winter 1996.
February 8 The US Model in Crisis?
Richard B. Morris, “The Origin and Framing of the American Constitution,” in
Richard H. Kohn, ed. The United States Military under the Constitution of the
United States, 1789-1989. New York. New York University Press. 1991.
Allan R. Millet, “The Constitution and the Citizen Soldier,” in Richard H. Kohn,
ed. The United States Military under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-
1989. New York. New York University Press. 1991.
Ole R. Holsti, “A Widening Gap between the US Military and Civilian Society?
Some Evidence, 1976-1996,” International Security 23, 3, Winter 1998/99.
of American Civil-Military Relations,” Armed Forces and Society, 24, 3, Spring
98, 407-34.
Michael C. Desch, “Soldiers, States, and Structures: The End of the Cold War
and Weakening of U.S. Civilian Control,” Armed Forces and Society 24, 3,
Spring 1998.
Gregory D. Foster, “Confronting the Crisis in Civil-Military Relations,” The
Washington Quarterly 20, 4, 1997.
Deborah Avant, “Conflicting Indicators of “Crisis” in American Civil-Military
Relations,” Armed Forces and Society 24, 3, Spring 1998.
James Burk, “The Logic of Crisis and Civil-Military Relations Theory: a
Comment on Desch, Feaver, and Dauber,” Armed Forces and Society 24, 3,
Spring 1998.
Andrew J. Bacevich, “Absent History: A Comment on Dauber, Desch, and
Feaver,” Armed Forces and Society 24, 3, Spring 1998.
Peter D. Feaver, “Modeling Civil-Military Relations: A Reply to Burk and
Bacevich,” Armed Forces and Society 24, 4, Summer 1998.
Micheal C. Desch, “A Historian’s Fallacies: A Reply to Bacevich,” Armed Forces
and Society 24, 4, Summer 1998.
February 15 The military, war, and state formation: Europe
Brian Downing. The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of
Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe. Princeton. Princeton
University Press. 1992.
Princeton University Press. 1975.
Samuel E. Finer, “State- and Nation-Building in Europe: The Role of the Military,” in Charles Tilly, Ed. The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton. Princeton University Press. 1975.
Thomas Ertman. Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge. Cambridge university Press. 1997.
Bruce D. Porter. War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of
Modern Politics. New York. The Free Press. 1994.
February 22 The military and state formation: Latin America
George Philip. The Military in South American Politics. London. Croom Helm.
1985.
Alain Rouquié. The Military and the State in Latin America. (Translation).
Berkeley. University of California Press. 1987.
Brain Loveman. For la Patria: Politics and the Armed Forces in Latin America.
Wilmington, Delaware. Scholarly Resources Inc. 1999.
Brian Loveman. The Constitution of Tyranny: Regimes of Exception in Spanish
America. Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh university Press. 1995.
Tulio Halperin Donghi. The Contemporary History of Latin America.
(Translation). Durham. Duke University Press. 1993.
Romana Falcón, “Force and the Search for Consent: The Role of the Jefaturas
Políticas of Coahuila in national State Formation,” in Gilbert M. Joseph and
Daniel Nugent, Eds. Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the
Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico. Durham. Duke University Press. 1994.
Jeremy Adelman, “Spanish-American Leviathan? State Formation in Nineteenth-
Century Spanish America,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 40, 2,
1998.
Miguel Angel Centeno, “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America,” American Journal of Sociology 102, 6, 1998.
Stephen Peter Rosen. Societies and Military Power: India and its Armies. Ithaca.
Cornell University Press. 1996.
Rebecca L. Schiff, “Civil-Military Relations: A Theory of Concordance,” Armed
Forces and Society, 22, 1, 1995.
Harold Crouch, “Civil-Military Relations in Southeast Asia,” in Larry Diamond et
al., Eds. Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies: Themes and Perspectives.
Baltimore. Johns Hopkins. 1997.
March 2 Society, citizens and military service
Margaret Levi. Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. Cambridge University Press.
1997.
Eliot A. Cohen. Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service. Ithaca.
Cornell University Press. 1985.
March 9 The military and politics: Africa
Samuel Decalo. Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Motivations and Constraints.
New Haven. Yale University Press. Second edition, 1990.
Samuel Decalo. The Stable Minority: Civilian Rule In Africa 1960-1990.
Gainesville. FAP Books. 1998.
Robin Luckham, “The Military, Militarization and Democratization in Africa: a
Survey of Literature and Issues,” African Studies Review,
March 23 Eastern Europe and the USSR, and Russia
Timothy Colton and Thane Gustafson, Eds. Soldiers and the Soviet State.
Princeton. Princeton University Press. 1990.
Dale Herspring. Russian Civil-Military Relations. Bloomington. Indiana
University Press. 1996.
Anton Bebler, Ed. Civil-Military Relations in Post-Communist States: Central and
Eastern Europe in Transition. Westport, Connecticut. Praeger. 1997.
Zoltan Barany, “Democratic Consolidation and the Military: The East European
Experience,” Comparative Politics, October 1997.
Zoltan Barany. Soldiers and Politics in Eastern Europe 1945-90: The case of
Hungary. New York. St. Martin’s Press. 1993.
Réka Szemerkényi, “Central European Civil-Military Reforms at Risk: Progress
in establishing democratic controls over the military has not been sustained,”
IISS, Adelphi Papers No. 306, 1996.
Mark Kramer. Soldier and State in Poland: Civil-Military Relations and
Institutional Change After Communism. Rowman and Littlefield. 1999.
March 30 Authoritarianism and regime crisis: problems of military rule in Latin
America
Alfred Stepan. The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Brazil. Princeton.
Princeton University Press. 1971.
Karen Remmer. Military Rule in Latin America. Boston. Unwin Hyman. 1989.
Alfred Stepan. The State and Society: Peru in Comparative Perspective.
Princeton. Princeton University Press. 1978.
J. Samuel Valenzuela and Arturo Valenzuela. Eds. Military Rule in Chile.
Dictatorship and Oppositions. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1985.
Paul W. Drake and Iván Jaksic, Eds. The Struggle for Democracy in Chile:1982-
1990. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. 1991.
Guillermo O’Donnell. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Argentina, 1966-1973, in
Comparative Perspective. Berkeley. University of California Press. 1988.
Felipe Agüero, “Debilitating Democracy: Political Elites and Military Rebels," in
Louis W. Goodman et al. Eds. Lessons of the Venezuelan Experience. Washington,
D.C. The Woodrow Wilson Center Press and The Johns Hopkins University Press.
1995.
Felipe Agüero, "Crisis and Decay of Democracy in Venezuela: the Civil-Military
Dimension," in Jennifer McCoy et al., Eds. Venezuelan Democracy Under Stress.
New Brunswick, N.J. North-South Center Press, Transaction Books. 1995.
Roderic Ai Camp. Generals in the Palacio: The Military in Modern Mexico.
Oxford. Oxford University Press. 1992.
April 6 The military in democratic transitions
Felipe Agüero. Soldiers, Civilians, and Democracy: Post-Franco Spain in
Comparative Perspective. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1995.
John P. Lovell and David Albright, Eds. To Sheathe the Sword: Civil-Military
Relations in the Quest for Democracy. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press. 1997.
Felipe Agüero, "The Military and the Limits to Democratization in South
America," in Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell and Samuel Valenzuela,
Eds. Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American
Democracies in Comparative Perspective. Notre Dame. University of Notre Dame
Press. 1992.
April 13 The military in new democracies: competing approaches in Latin
America
J. Samuel Fitch. The Armed Forces and Democracy in Latin America. Baltimore.
Johns Hopkins University Press. 1998.
Guillermo O’Donnell, “Modernization and Military Coups: Theory, Comparisons
and the Argentine Case,” in Abraham F. Lowenthal and J. Samuel Fitch, Eds.
Armies and Politics in Latin America. New York. Holmes and Meier. Revised
Edition. 1986.
José Nun, “The Middle-Class Military Coup Revisited,” in Abraham F.
Lowenthal and J. Samuel Fitch, Eds. Armies and Politics in Latin America. New
York. Holmes and Meier. Revised Edition. 1986.
Felipe Agüero, "Democratic Consolidation and the Military in Southern Europe and
South America," in Richard Gunther, Nikiforos Diamandouros and Hans-Jürgen
Puhle, Eds. The Politics of Democratic Consolidation in Southern Europe.
Baltimore. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1995.
Felipe Agüero, "Toward Civilian Supremacy in South America," in Larry Diamond
et al., Eds. Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies. Baltimore. The Johns
Hopkins University Press. 1997.
April 20 The debate: Argentina and Brazil in comparative perspective
Wendy Hunter. Eroding Military Influence in Brazil. Politicians Against Soldiers.
Chapel Hill. University of North Carolina. 1997.
Jorge Zaverucha, “Sarney, Collor, Itamar, FHC e as Prerrogativas Militares 1985-
1998,” Paper presented to the International Meeting of the Latin American
Studies Association, Palmer House, Chicago, September 1998.
Felipe Agüero, “Legacies of Transitions: Institutionalization, the Military, and
Democracy in South America,” Mershon International Studies Review 42, 2,
November 1998.
David Pion-Berlin. Through Corridors of Power: Institutions and Civil-Military
Relations in Argentina. University Park, Penn. Penn State Press. 1997.
Philip J. Williams and Knut Walter. Militarization and Demilitarization in El
Salvador’s Transition to Democracy. Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh University Press.
Deborah L. Norden. Military Rebellion in Argentina: Between Coups and
Consolidation. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. 1996.
Patrice McSherry. Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in
Argentina. New York. St. Martin’s Press. 1997.
David R. Mares, “Civil-Military Relations, Democracy, and the Regional
Neighborhood,” in David R. Mares, Ed. Civil-Military Relations: Building
Democracy and Regional Security in Latin America, Southern Asia, and Central Europe. Boulder, Co. Westview Press. 1998.
Michael C. Desch. Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security
Environment. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1999.
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