The Military and Domestic Politics

One of the key questions in Civil-Military Relations (CMR) theory is: under what conditions will the military intervene in the domestic politics of the nation? Most scholars agree with the theory of objective civilian control of the military, which focuses on the separation of civil and military institutions, focusing on the US case. By contrast, concordance theory offers both an institutional and cultural framework for explaining domestic military intervention, emphasizing agreement among three partners: the political elites, the military and the citizenry.

Rebecca Schiff examines four indicators of concordance:

• social composition of the officer corps
• recruitment method
• political decision-making process
• military style.

If agreement occurs among the three partners with respect to the four indicators, domestic military intervention is less likely to occur. Here this theory is applied to six international historical cases studies: US, post-Second World War period; American Post-Revolutionary Period (1790-1800); Israel (1980-90); Argentina (1945-55); India post-Independence and 1980s; Pakistan (1958-69). Concordance theory offers a better explanation for predicting domestic military intervention than traditional theories and will be a valuable addition to the CMR literature.

The Military and Domestic Politics will be of much interest to advanced students of civil-military relations, military sociology, political science and US politics.