Democratic Transformation and civilian control of the military: A configurative comparision of new democracies (1974-2010)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Aurel Croissant
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2008 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 58160427

Building on the insights of the preceding research project, this study analyzes the establishment of civilian control over the military in new democracies in order to answer two research questions: (1) Which structural factors affect the chances for institutionalizing civilian control in new democracies? (2) Which strategies do civilian actors employ to make the military accept civilian control? Theoretical point of departure is the model of civil-military relations developed in the preceding project which argues that civilian control depends on reducing the militarys capacity and disposition to encroach onto the elected officials effective power to decide in relevant policy areas. This is the more likely if the structural context in which civil-military interactions take place provides sufficient resources for civilians to employ robust strategies of control which deeply intrude into the militarys autonomous sphere of influence. The hypotheses derived from the model will be tested in a mixed methods research design that combines a configurative-comparative fuzzy-set analysis of 84 new democracies of the third wave of democratization (1974-2010) with short narrative studies of eight systematically selected cases. At the core of the empirical analysis rests the development of an original dataset of civil-military relations in the third wave democracies. As of now, there is neither a comparable dataset nor any comparative study of this kind. The project, therefore, promises to deliver significant theoretical and empirical insights. Publication goals of the project are a peer-reviewed article in an international journal and an English-language monograph. All data will be made publicly available after the end of the project period.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants