Institutionalising Civilian Control of the Military in New Democracies: Theory and Evidence from South Korea

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.Abstract This paper aims to answer the question of how and under what circumstances civilian control can be established in newly democratised nations. To do this, I propose a new theoretical argument that conceives of the process of institutionalising civilian control in new democracies as a series of power struggles between the democratically elected civilians and the military leadership. The outcome of these power struggles depends on the respective bargaining power of civilians and the military, which is in turn a function of (1) the willingness of civilians to challenge the military's institutional prerogatives and the military's willingness to defend them and (2) each party's ability to bear the costs of a civilmilitary conflict. To illustrate and assess the argument, I derive a number of propositions about the expected development of civil-military relations after the transition to democracy and the possible outcomes of civil-military power struggles, subsequently testing them via an in-depth case study of civil-military relations in post-transition South Korea.

“Defection-Proofing” the Military and Authoritarian Regime Survival

“…The military may come out as a soft-liner in the game when it decides not to repress, while the dictator as a hardliner when he presses for punishing the protesters and is concerned about his own fate (Scharpf, 1997;Kuehn, 2016). The more the military accumulates resources and power, the more protective it gets.…”

Addressing the Issues in Democratic Civilian Control in Ukraine through Updating the Refresher Course for Civil Servants

“…The above implies that there is a need for developing mechanisms to fulfill the commitments. Using educational measures to address the problems related to establishing cooperation between civilian institutions and the military to allow the former to control the activity of the armed forces has been proven to be a feasible option (Kuehn, 2016;Tagarev, 1997). Although there is literature on the evolution of civilian control and civil-military relations in post-soviet Western European and Middle East countries, the Ukrainian case is underrepresented in research (Demir & Bingöl, 2020;Kuehn et al, 2017).…”