Crafting civilian control in emerging democracies: Argentina and Venezuela

On February 4 1992 army multitudes led by members of an elite parachute regiment attempted to overturn the democratically elected government of Venezuela. Despite achieving sway of four of Venezuela's largest cities, the rebellious officers failed to upset the administration of Carlos Andres Perez Loyalist military officers, including the entire military high command, worked with the civilian administration to defeat the coup attempt. For many who cogitation of Venezuela as a consolidated democracy, the 1992 coup attempt, the first in three decades, came as a full surprise. To those who knew that the democratic regime was deteriorating, however, it was more surprising that the coup did not succe (Trinkunas 1999 298-306) Military desert moreover, has not successfully recurr since; and the leader of that rebellion, Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez, did not advance to power until 1999, following independent and fair elections. Since then, he has swept away or reformed many of the institutions of the previous democratic regime. greatest in quantity notably, he has chosen to dismantle the mechanisms for civilian direction established after the 1958 transition to democracy, that debared the success of his rebellion in 1992

How is it that a certain quantity of civilian governments achieve and maintain the loyalty of their armed forces, flat in the face of reaching far down and troubling political, economic, and social problems? on what account can some civilian governments exercise authority above the armed forces and bar them from politics, while many cannot? More important, by what means did these governments establish this step of authority, and under what circumstances? In other words, what is civilian rule of the military, and in what manner do governments achieve it?

Until newly the subject of civilian superintendence of the armed forces in the developing world was virtually unstudied, despite the dramatic events associated with its failure. Although the literature upon both developing states and democratization tenders numerous analyses of civilmilitary relations, scarcely any studies examine the process by dint of which civilian control over the armed forces becomes established. (One of the first to do for a like reason was Aguero 1995.)

Institutionalized civilian rule of the military is what allowed the democratic regime to survive in Venezuela in 1992 greatest in quantity of the democracies that have emerg in the past 25 years, however, will not support unless they, too, establish civilian mastery over their armed forces. Civilian mastery is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for consolidating democracy (Karl and Schmitter 1993 45) Historically, democratization has been a cyclical proces with each wave producing alone a few consolidated democracies. The large majority of democratic regime failures can historically be attributed to military intervention. Between 1948 and 1977 notably, 304 in vain and 238 successful irregular transfers of power took place around the world (Taylor and Jodice 1983 86-93) Kebschull cites 12 felicitous and 26 unsuccessful coups d'etat worldwide from 1990 to 1992 alone (Kebschull 1994 568) flat though more than 70 countries have experienced transitions to civilian command in the last two decades, many of these novel regimes appear fragile at best, chronically unstable at worst (Diamond 1996 26)

Military intervention is more than a danger to the survival of these regimes. The threat of this intervention provides outgoing authoritarian elites with the capacity to impose limits upon the scope and quality of the of recent origin democratic institutions. "Reserved" domains and military vetoes upon government policymaking call into question the stage of regime consolidation in countries similar as Chile and Peru (Valenzuela 1992) however some countries with long histories of military intervention or influence, similar as Greece, Portugal, and Spain, have reduc military jurisdiction above state activities in a short time and have established mechanisms of civilian authority above the armed forces. By excluding military interference from political processe these regimes have managed to consolidate replete democracy; they have achieved civilian direction

Emerging democracies often lack the leverage, legitimacy, and institutional capacity to constrain the armed forces to accept civilian sway Nevertheless, transitions to democracy create an opportunity to disentangle civilian control, especially when they are characterized through high levels of mass mobilization and civilian elite unity in favor of consolidated democracy, disunity among authoritarian elites, and a fragmented hierarchy in the armed forces. This article will argue that democratizers who act strategically to exploit the opportunity created by means of a transition can maximize their leverage above the armed forces.

Democratizers' weakest strategies involve appeasing military commanders, trading not upon civilian control of the armed forces in favor of short-term regime survival. The greatest in quantity robust strategy combines high horizontals of civilian supervision of defense activities with sanctions against military rebellions and dissident officers. The combination of opportunity and lucky civilian strategies creates regime leverage above the armed forces, leverage that can be used to eliminate military prerogatives and confine the armed forces to strictly professional tasks.