Military Rule

This piece is a historical account of how military regimes have existed within their states and it provides a great wealth of information based on the evidence we have seen throughout history. It uses examples through different periods of history, specifically post-WWII to illustrate the fragile and occasionally violent nature that military rule can have. 

The article discusses what military rule is, how the regime survives and how it eventually collapses. This is a form of autocratic governance that emerges in the face of foreign threats and government and/or civil instability. Military regimes have a high capacity to commit human rights abuses and is much more likely to instigate civil wars in a struggle to maintain order than other types of regimes. The concentration of weapons and apparent obedience that military individuals have for their superiors make this type of governance have a much higher coercive capacity, especially with a ‘military strongman’ at the top of the ladder. This also extends beyond civilian coercion and develops into overthrowing the government – once control is seized, the military obviously remains in control of the weapons and the men who use them. When the military takes control, they are expected to return power to the government within a few days but it is far more common that this doesn’t happen.

Military rule not only impacts the government but has a considerable effect on the civilians. Because the military has a hierarchy and is mostly (if not all) men, they make different choices surrounding policies and potential conflicts. In some cases, there has been a strong relationship between military rule and repression. However, in others, commanding officers had continued using the democratic legal norms of treating civilians. The difference was in the commanding officers understanding of how effective it was to use violence against the public.

The survival of military regimes depends on a few factors. With such a coherent organisation of people, it seems as if the military has such an internal discipline that they might not face the same internal challenges that other regimes face. These assumptions are in fact, inaccurate. It is quite common among military regimes to have rebellion against the most senior officer and even the inferior leaders contribute to this disobedience. Another factor is external pressures, if there is an economic crisis or active opposition, the military is more likely to cede power back to a civilian government. In terms of integrating the regime into government, military regimes who eventually create a party survive about three times on average than regimes that don’t have a civilian party. This relates well to the 'coop-proofing' section of our lecture discussion - if they successfully make the military play less of a role then they are able to develop into more of a personal or party-based regime.

Essentially, states can rely on the military to solve certain issues but more often that not, these regimes create more problems than they solve. This discourse relates well to lecture discussions about how militaries can constrain rulers to non-democratic regimes. Military intervention generally happens in non-democratic regimes, and they usually end up making it much less democratic.

Bibliography:

Geddes, B., Frantz, E., Wright, J.G. (2014) Military Rule. Annual Review of Political Science 17:1. 147-162