Civil-Military Relations: The State and Organized Violence, Fall 2012

Short description:

This PhD course has five purposes:
First, to offer a comprehensive introduction to and discussion of central concepts, issues, and areas of research within the field of civil-military relations.
Second, to introduce participants to the latest research and debates within the field.
Third, to facilitate new bonds and contacts between scholars with common academic interests.
Fourth, to offer an opportunity for the participants to write a scholarly paper on topic of civil-military relations that is based upon the premises and framework of the course that will be the basis for a chapter in an edited volume to be produced by the group.
Fifth, to receive feedback from senior scholars on work-in-progress

Lecturers: Dr. Gary Schaub, Jr. (Senior Researcher, Centre for Military Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen), Dr. Daniel Hughes (Professor, Air War College, USA) & Dr. Deborah Avant (Professor, Sié Chair and Director of the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy, University of Denver)

Description:

Civil-military relations concerns the interaction of the military and the state or, more broadly, between armed forces and society. The relationship between civil authority and the military has evolved along with the nature of states, societies, war, and the military profession, but the basic dilemma remains the same: ensuring protection by and from the armed forces.

Modern polities are governed by states, which possess a monopoly over the legitimate use of force within a defined territory to enforce its edicts on the population. The armed forces embody that monopoly and serve three primary purposes: external defense, internal security, and promotion of patriotism through indoctrination and provision of public goods.

This five day course seeks to develop this argument, exploring the social, political, historical, cultural, and strategic influences that have determined the ways and degrees to which societies have used institutions to tame violence and achieve internal and external security. As such, it is interdisciplinary in scope and method.

We invite PhD students from a variety of fields of research―including strategic studies, sociology, political science, military history, anthropology, public administration, and development studies―to submit a statement of their interest in the topic of civil-military relations and the development of state institutions that will form the basis of their paper for the course. The paper will be due one week prior to the commencement of the course so that all participants can read and comment on it. Length may not exceed 10.000 words including references and notes

Agenda:

The PhD course presents an argument about the institutionalization of violence in societies that is developed over the course of five days:

Day 1: Theories and Concepts of Civil-Military Relations

• How have scholars characterized relations between societies and their armed forces?

• What institutions, both formal and informal, govern these relations in different societies and polities?

Day 2: The State and the Military in Historical Perspective

• What is the relationship between state building, the military, and war?

• What is the relationship between states, mercenaries, militaries, and police forces?

Day 3: The Institutionalization of Violence

• How is it that civil control of the military came to be seen as a positive norm?

• What is the relationship between regime type and civil control of the military?

Day 4: The Professionalization of Civil-Military Relations

• What is the profession of arms?

• How is it related to civil control of the military?

• Is there a civil (or civilian) counterpart to the profession of arms?

Day 5: Civil-Military Relations and Strategy

• How do the dynamics of civil-military relations relate to the initiation and termination of war?

• How do these dynamics affect success and failure in armed conflict?

Tentative reading list:

Day 1: Theories and Concepts of Civil-Military Relations

• Schaub, Jr. Gary. “Civil-Military Relations,” in The Encyclopedia of Political Science, Volume 1. (Washington: CQ Press, 2011), pages 238-239.

• Feld, Maury D. The Structure of Violence: Armed Forces as Social Systems. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1977).

• Feaver, Peter D. “The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of Civilian Control,” Armed Forces and Society 23, 2 (Winter 1996).

Day 2: The State and the Military in Historical Perspective

• Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital, and European States: AD 990-1992. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990).

• Downing, Brian M. The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

• Dolman, Everett C. The Warrior State: How Military Organization Structures Politics. (New York: Palgrave, 2004).

Day 3: The Institutionalization of Violence

• Miewald, Robert D. “Weberian Bureaucracy and the Military Model,” Public Administration Review 30, 2 (March/April 1970).

• Avant, Deborah. “From Mercenary to Citizen Armies: Explaining Change in the Practice of War,” International Organization 54, 1 (Winter 2000).

• Kemp, Kenneth W. and Charles Hudin. “Civil Supremacy Over the Military: Its Nature and Limits,” Armed Forces and Society 19, 1 (Fall 1992).

• Lasswell, Harold D. “The Garrison State,” The American Journal of Sociology 46, 4 (January 1941).

• Perlmutter, Amos. “The Praetorian State and the Praetorian Army: Toward a Taxonomy of Civil-Military Relations in Developing Polities,” Comparative Politics 1, 3 (April 1969).

• Welty, Gordon. “A Critique of the Theory of the Praetorian State,” Nature, Society, and Thought 3, 1 (1990).

• Brooks, Risa A. “Militaries and Political Activity in Democracies,” in Suzanne C. Nielsen and Don M. Snider, editors. American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).

Day 4: The Professionalization of Civil-Military Relations

• Abbott, Andrew. “The Army and the Theory of Professions,” in Lloyd J. Matthews, editor. The Future of the Army Profession. (Boston: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing, 2002).

• Burk, James. “Expertise, Jurisdiction, and Legitimacy of the Military Profession,” in Lloyd J. Matthews, editor. The Future of the Army Profession. (Boston: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing, 2002).

• Huntington, Samuel P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957).

• Teitler, G. The Genesis of the Professional Officers’ Corps. (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1977).

• Diamond, Larry and Marc F. Plattner, editors. Civil-Military Relations and Democracy. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

Day 5: Civil-Military Relations and Strategy

• Brooks, Risa A. Shaping Strategy: The Civil-Military Relations of Strategic Assessment. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).

• Peter J. Roman and David W. Tarr, “Military Professionalism and Policymaking: Is there a Gap at the Top? If So, Does it Matter?” in Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn, editors. Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), pages 403-428.

• Strachan, Hew. “Strategy or Alibi? Obama, McChrystal, and the Operational Level of War,” Survival 52, 5 (October-November 2010).

• Nielsen, Suzanne C. “Civil-Military Relations Theory and Military Effectiveness,” Public Administration and Management 10, 2 (2005).

Maximum number of participants: 15

Papers:

Please, observe concerning your paper that it should be sent no later that Nov 9  to: paper@polforsk.dk:

- it should be in PDF-format,
- the file name should start with YOUR SURNAME and include the titel and number of pages.
- there should be NO BLANKS or special characters (parantheses, ö, æ, ø, å, é, etc) in the file name
- example: doe_john-politics_of_lazyness-12_pages.pdf