Why Military Regimes Fail: The Perils of Transition

Armed Forces & Society

Volumn 16, Issue 2, 1990, Pages 169-192

  Barkey, Henri J ^a  

^a LEHIGH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84970705845     PISSN: 0095327X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X9001600201     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Alain Rouquié, “Demilitarization and the Institutionalization of Military-dominated Polities in Latin America,” in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, ed. G. O'Donnell, P. Schmitter, and L. Whitehead (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 111.
2. Amos Perlmutter, “The Comparative Analysis of Military Regimes: Formations, Aspirations, and Achievements,” World Politics 33 (October 1980): p. 115.
3. Alfred Stepan, “The New Professionalism of Internal Warfare and Military Role Expansion,” in Authoritarian Brazil, ed. Alfred Stepan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973): p. 58.
4. Guillermo O'Donnell, “Reflections on the Pattern of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State,” Latin American Research Review 13, 1 (1978): pp. 3-38. See also Guillermo O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic Authoritarianism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). The O'Donnell thesis regarding the deepening of the industrial structure came under considerable scrutiny and criticism; see David Collier, The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979).
5. Youssef Cohen, “Democracy from Above: The Political Origins of Military Dictatorship in Brazil,” World Politics 40 (October 1987): pp. 46 and 53.
6. Rouquié, “Demilitarization,” p. 111.
7. Aldo Vacs, “Authoritarian Breakdown and Redemocratization in Argentina,” in Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America, ed. J. Malloy and M. Seligson (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987), p. 17.
8. Robert Kaufman, “Liberalization and Democratization in South America: Perspectives from the 1970s,” in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, p. 91. Even in Peru during the 1968-75 period, where a very deliberate and conscious attempt was made at forging an alliance between the military and the working, peasant, and fringe classes, the soldiers found, much to their surprise, that their efforts did not produce the anticipated public support.
9. Adam Prezworski, “Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy,” in Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, pp. 50-53.
10. Claude E. Welch, Jr., No Farewell to Arms (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), p. 20.
11. Transitions can also be characterized as voluntary or involuntary, the latter case being the result of external pressure and/or internal uprising. See Constantine Danopoulos, “Military Dictatorships in Retreat: Problems and Perspectives,” in The Decline of Military Regimes, ed. Constantine Danopoulos (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), p. 6. Welch distinguishes between abrupt and planned withdrawals; see Welch, No Farewell. The planned withdrawals described in this article, however, entail an element of preparation prior to or immediately after the intervention.
12. Welch, No Farewell, p. 20.
13. Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 93.
14. Rouquié, “Demilitarization,” p. 117.
15. G. O'Donnell and P. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 6.
16. Prezworski, “Some Problems,” pp. 54-55.
17. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, p. 28.
18. James Malloy, “The Politics of Transition in Latin America,” in Authoritarians and Democrats, p. 247.
19. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, pp. 113-114.
20. p. 111. It is also possible that the military have taken advantage of the fact that President Sarney, in addition to having been a supporter of theirs during the dictatorship, was not the Congress's first choice for the presidency and thus enjoyed limited legitimacy. The very popular president-elect, Tancredo Neves, died before assuming office, thus enabling the vice president-elect, Sarney, to become president.
21. David Werlich, “Peru: Garcia Loses His Charm,” Current History 87 (January 1988): p. 15.
22. Paul W. Zagorski, “Civil-Military Relations and Argentine Democracy,” Armed Forces & Society 14, 3 (Spring 1988): pp. 422-428.
23. Rouquié, “Demilitarization,” p. 131.
24. None the less, it should be remembered that a significant number of high-ranking officers were sentenced.
25. P. Constable and A. Valenzuela, “Plebiscite in Chile: End of the Pinochet Era,” Current History 87 (January 1988): p. 29.
26. Alfred Stepan, who conducted extensive interviews in Brazil with ex-President Geisel, the initiator of the abertura process, and Gen. Golbery Do Couto e Silva, the architect and mastermind of the transition, states that he is not clear as to what these officers had in mind as a final outcome. The only conclusion he comes to is that “both had authoritarian tendencies and neither one said he wanted a democracy without restrictions.” See Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, pp. 36-37.
27. In both instances, the soldiers returned power to civilians after brief interludes. The 1960 coup had a liberalizing, long-term effect on the politics of society, although a significant minority of officers wished to continue to exercise power directly to ensure that social reforms would be enacted.
28. In the months preceding the coup, the daily toll of deaths due to terrorism exceeded 20, with the total for the two previous years reaching 5,000, according to General Evren. The latter figure is probably slightly higher than the actual figure.
29. Mehmet Ali Birand, Emret Komutamm (At your command, my commander) (Istanbul: Milliyet Yaymlari, 1984), p. 297. (Unless stated otherwise, all translations of Turkish material are by the author.)
30. In the first year alone, more than 43,000 persons were rounded up, and justice was quickly dispensed in military tribunals. See Lucille W. Pevsner, Turkey's Political Crisis (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 88.
31. The liberalization measures, which included a significant devaluation, a slashing of public expenditures, and liberalization of foreign trade and of the banking system, were very successful in boosting exports and redressing the balance-of-payments crisis facing Turkey at the time. The military, by keeping Özal and increasing his responsibilities, signaled Western countries of their commitment to the program and thus avoided any disruption in the flow of necessary external financing.
32. The two warring nations became Turkey's most important customers for its exports. This was in addition to the rerouting of their foreign trade through Turkey. Henri J. Barkey, “The Silent Victor: Turkey's Role in the Iran-Iraq War,” in The Iran-Iraq War: Impact and Implications, ed. Efraim Karsh (London: Macmillan, 1989).
33. While General Evren, riding on a genuine wave of public support, could have easily won a separate vote on whether he should assume the presidency, the NSC chose to have a unified vote on both questions. The council may have wanted to avoid embarrassment caused by potentially differing levels of support for Evren's candidacy and the constitution. In September 1980, Chileans were offered a similar choice; in voting for a new constitution they also voted a nine-year term for Pinochet as president.
34. The Argentine military invoked similar rules regarding party-union connections as that country prepared to go to the polls on 30 October 1983, marking the end of another military regime.
35. Because of such rules, in the latest national elections of November 1987, the Motherland party, with 36 percent of the vote, managed to capture more than 60 percent of parliamentary seats.
36. Yavuz Donat, Buyruklu Demokrasi: 1980-1983 (Istanbul: Bilgi Yaymevi, 1987), p.
37. Despite this, Demirel, of course, would have no part of the government's plans regarding these new parties. Also, the military had a curious interpretation of British Labour party politics and orientation.
38. In the words of one journalist, the Social Democrats had found the leader they needed; “one who is soft-spoken and easy going, not very ambitious, who would not constitute a danger on the left and would not be objected to by many.” Hulusi Turgut, 12 Eylül Partileri (Istanbul: ABC Yayinlari, 1986), p. 191.
39. In fact, so many new political parties applied to the state authorities for the right to organize and contest the elections that Evren, in a series of hard-hitting speeches, criticized the mushrooming of new parties and politicians and warned that, unless they banded together to fashion organizations in accordance with the objectives of the new constitution, he would have the martial law authorities “deal” with them. Turgut, 12 Eylül Partileri, pp. 49-54.
40. William Hale, “Transitions to Civilian Governments in Turkey: The Military Perspective,” in State Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, ed. M. Heper and A. Evin (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), p. 171. The irony was that the Great Turkey party suffered the harshest ban despite the fact that, in the absence of Demirel and his lieutenants, it was led by a retired army general.
41. Turgut, 12 Eylül Partileri, p. 86.
42. Despite its military sponsorship, the fairly respectable second-place showing of the Populist party was primarily due to the fact that it represented the only left-of-center group contesting the elections. Nonetheless, its 30 percent share of the national vote did not compare favorably with the 41 percent zenith reached by the Republican People's party in 1977. The Populist party, after its dismal showing in the 1984 mayoral elections, was absorbed into the newly formed Social Democracy party.
43. In Chile, President Pinochet also seems to have committed the same error of overconfidence as the referendum results of October 1988 demonstrated.
44. The party won 45 percent of the national vote and 53 percent of the parliamentary seats. On the other hand, some of the undesirable right-wing elements that had been part of the pre-1980 problem were included in the new majority party.
45. Yanki (Istanbul), 17-23 March 1986.
46. The only result from which the military establishment could derive some satisfaction was that, of the four ex-party leaders, only Demirel managed to get himself elected in the elections of 29 November 1987, the others having fallen victim to an electoral law stipulating that, in order to get a representative elected to Parliament, a party needed to gather a minimum of 10 percent of the total national vote.
47. Birand, Emret Komutanim, pp. 461-462.
48. George Harris, Turkey: Coping with Crisis (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), p. 170.
49. The years between 1949 and 1960 were the exception. Then, the Ministry of Defense had the responsibility to manage the armed forces and make all the appropriate appointments.
50. The widely accepted interpretation of Özal's first term in office was that while he primarily concerned himself with economic issues, the NSC and the military dealt with security and even some foreign policy issues.
51. The decision was announced only 72 hours before the transfer of command was scheduled to take place, and the reason given-the slaughter of villagers by Kurdish separatist forces in the southeast-while serious by any standards, was unusual by Turkish ones, according to which civilians traditionally do not openly criticize the military's shortcomings.
52. Nokta (Istanbul), 1 November 1987.
53. Yanki (Istanbul), 19-25 March 1988.
54. One example is particularly telling: when the minister of defense left for a NATO conference, Evren vetoed the routine appointment of a minister without portfolio as acting defense minister during that short absence. This, in turn, was interpreted as a slap in the face of the ruling Motherland party and its leader.
55. In other words, Demirel was attacking Ozal, his old collaborator-turned-enemy. Yanki (Istanbul), 20-26 October 1986.
56. This is despite the fact that Evren kept stressing that he was not bothered by the criticism directed at him. Yanki (Istanbul), 24 February-2 March 1986.