The Comparative Analysis of Military Regimes: Formations, Aspirations, and Achievements Egypt's Uncertain Revolution Under Nasser and Sadat
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Trustees of Princeton University The Comparative Analysis of Military Regimes: Formations, Aspirations, and Achievements Egypt's Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat. by Raymond W. Baker; Coups and Army Rule: Studies in Military Style. by Samuel Decalo; The Military Coup D'Etat as a Political Process: Ecuador, 1948-1966. by John Samuel Fitch; Military Roles in Modernization: Civil-Military Relations in Thailand and Burma. by Moshe Lissak; The Peruvian Experiment: Continuity and Change under Military Rule. by Abraham F. Lowen ... Review by: Amos Perlmutter World Politics, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Oct., 1980), pp. 96-120 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2010257 . Accessed: 27/02/2013 18:34 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and Trustees of Princeton University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World Politics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:34:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MILITARY REGIMES: Formations,Aspirations, and Achievements By AMOS PERLMUTTER* Raymond W. Baker, Egypt's UncertainRevolution Under Nasser and Sadat. Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press, i978, 290 pp.,$16.50. Samuel Decalo, Coups and Army Rule: Studies in MilitaryStyle. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, I976, 284 pp, $4.95(paper). JohnSamuel Fitch,The MilitaryCoup D'Etat as a PoliticalProcess: Ecua- dor, 1948-I966. Baltimore:The JohnsHopkins Press, I977, 243 pp., $12.95. Moshe Lissak, MilitaryRoles in Modernization:Civil-Military Relations in Thailand and Burma. BeverlyHills, Calif.: Sage Publications,i976, 225 pp., $I0.00. Abraham F. Lowenthal,ed., The Peruvian Experiment: Continuityand Change underMilitary Rule. Princeton:Princeton. University Press, I975, 479 pp.,$22.50; add paper. Keith Panter-Brick,ed., Soldiersand Oil: The Political Transformationof Nigeria.London: Frank Cass, I978, 375 pp.,$22.50. Itamar Rabinovich,Syria Under the Ba'th, i963-i966: The Army-Party Symbiosis.Jerusalem: Israel Universities Presses, 1972, 276 pp.,$io.oo. Alfred Stepan, The State and Society: Peru in ComparativePerspective. Princeton:Princeton University Press, i978, 348 pp., $I8.50; $495paper. I. MILITARY REGIMES: CIVILIAN AND MILITARY COALITIONS T HE modernmilitary regime is distinctlyand analyticallya new phenomenon,restricted to thedeveloping and modernizingworld. In i979, therewere fourteenmilitary regimes in sub-SaharanAfrica,' fivein the Arab statesand NorthAfrica, three in SoutheastAsia, one in South Asia, one in East Asia, and nine in Latin America; during the i97os, therealso were militaryregimes in two South and South- east Europeanstates. It is quite likelythat we will see an increasein the totalnumber of militaryregimes in the i98os. A militaryregime is, basically,a systemof managinggovernment by the military.Government can be definedas the administrationof the stateby the legitimatepower-holding group, the instrumentof * I gratefullyacknowledge the help of my colleague William M. LeoGrande, AmericanUniversity. 1 Ruth BerinsCollier, "Political Change in AuthoritarianRule," in PhyllisMartin and PatrickO'Meara, eds., Africa (Bloomington:Indiana UniversityPress, 1977), 229. ? 1980 by The Trusteesof PrincetonUniversity WorldPolitics 0043-887i/8o/oIoo96-25$oI.25/I For copyinginformation, see contributorpage. This content downloaded on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:34:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ANALYSIS OF MILITARY REGIMES 97 societythat centralizes political and legal authority.Military regimes are authoritarianand autocratic,though the degree of authoritarianism variesfrom regime to regime. Though almostall modernmilitary regimes have developmentaland modernizingaspirations in common,certain recognizable variations; are emerging.We can approachour fledglingtypologies with, if not absolutecertainty, at leastsome degreeof confidence-.The typesto be examined here are corporative,market-bureaucratic, socialist-oligar- chic,army-party, and tyrannicalmilitary regimes. Some regimesare a combinationof types,while others more closely approximatethe "ideal" type. However theyare categorized,military regimes are no longerre- gardedsimply as regimesthat are dominatedby themilitary. Not only did the earlyliterature overlook the role of civilianbureaucrats and politiciansin militaryregimes; it also ignoredthe factthat even re- gimesthat came to powerthrough a coup d'etat,or transitionalmilitary regimes,were not organizedby purelymilitary elites. In fact,I have recentlyargued that "modern military regimes are not purelymilitary in composition.Instead theyare fusionist,that is, theyare military- civilregimes."' Linz pointsout thatthe organic-statistmilitary regime in Latin Americais fusionist Not only does the militarydepend on the supportof the techniciansand the bureaucracybut its regimes combine military,technocratic, corporative, and bureaucraticelites. The role,in fact,of the bureaucraticelite in dominatingthe admin- istrationof militaryregimes in Brazil,Peru, and Argentinahas long been underestimated;but it has recentlybeen discoveredby O'Don- nell,4Stepan, Linz, and Lowenthal.Bienen and Fittonare correctin statingthat "observers have abandonedthe dichotomy between civilian and militaryregimes. They have focusedinstead on civilian-military relations" (Panter-Brick,27). In civilian-militaryregimes, govern- mentalauthority resides in a coalitionof the militaryand civilians, bureaucrats,managers, politicians,. and technocrats;the executivearm of a militaryregime is not necessarilycomposed only of militaryor formermilitary professionals. As is the case with all modernauthoritarian regimes, military re- gimesare productsof political,economic, and societalcrises, of social change,and of nationalistand revolutionaryaspirations. Military (and 2 Amos Perlmutter,Political Roles and MilitaryRulers (London: Cass, i980), 238. 3JuanJ. Linz, "The Futureof an AuthoritarianSituation," in AlfredStepan, ed., Authoritarianismin Brazil (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, I977), 233-54. 4Guillermo A. O'Donnell,Modernization and BureaucraticAuthoritarianism: Studies in SouthAmerican Politics (Berkeley, Calif.: Instituteof InternationalStudies, I973). This content downloaded on Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:34:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 98 WORLD POLITICS otherauthoritarian) regimes are mostcommonly found in societies undergoingchange and lackinglegitimate political order and support. Theytend to thrivein unstable,politically underdeveloped, structural- lynoncohesive, and, in mostcases, nonfunctioning or poorly function- inggovernments. Military regimes are established to replaceweak re- gimes,weak executivesand governments,and, especiallyin Latin America,to defendthe state from a communistor extremistrevolu- tionarytakeover. Thoughwe nowpossess a considerableliterature-monographs, dis- sertations,essays-that specifically deals with military regimes, we have notyet established a theory or conceptualframework for a compara- tiveanalysis. As thetitles and topicsof thebooks under review dem- onstrate,they are monographic,dealing with a singlestate; they are country-orientedand not comparative,except on a regionalor geo- graphiclevel.5 However, the studiesunder review are repletewith information,analysis, and interestingtheoretical-comparative infor- mation,and couldserve as preliminaryefforts at a comparativeap- proach.My purposehere is to deduceand extractfrom these well- researchedand informativestudies a preliminarytaxonomy and explanationof modernmilitary regimes. II. FROM "OLD" TO "NEW" PROFESSIONALISM: STRUCTURAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES OF MILITARY MISSIONS Thereare numerous reasons for military intervention; they include anticolonialism,nationalism, opposition to a nationalistcivilian re- gime,anti-oligarchism, the urge to protectthe militaryinstitution fromencroachment and the fearof losingthe military'sautonomy and power,the desire to promotemodernization and economicdevel- opment,and responseto a threatfrom the left. The varietyof reasons for military intervention, however, is insuffi- cientto explain the creation of military regimes that attempt to develop 5 RobertM. Price,"A TheoreticalApproach to MilitaryRule in New States:Refer- ence-GroupTheory and the GhanaianCase," WorldPolitics, xxiii (April 1971), 399- 430; Valery P. Bennett,"The Motivationfor MilitaryIntervention: The Case of Ghana," WesternPolitical Quarterly, xxvii (SummerI974), 659-74;Harold Maynard, "A Comparisonof MilitaryElite Role Perceptionsin Indonesiaand the Philippines," Ph.D. diss. (AmericanUniversity, 1976); Ali A. Mazrui,Soldiers and Kinsmen:The Making of a MilitaryEthnocracy (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1975); David Collier, Squattersand Oligarchs:Authoritarian Rule and Policy Change in Peru (Baltimore: The JohnsHopkins Press, 1976); RichardH. Dekmejian,Egypt under Nasir (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press,1971); Fouad I. Khouri,From Villageto Suburb (Chicago: Universityof ChicagoPress, 1975); P. J.Vatikiotis, Politics