Abstracts
Panel Title: Civil-Military Relations and the Political Economy of Military Intervention
Civil-military relations in India: Emerging trends
Asha Gupta*
My paper seeks to trace the patterns of civil-military interaction since independence to the point at which India attained the status of a nuclear power in 2008. Soon after independence in 1947, politicians began to view the Indian army with suspicion as the last supporters of the British Raj. Due to this view of the army, they tried to isolate the military from influencing decisions and policies in India.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, and V. K. Krishna Menon, his Defense Minister (1957-62) laid the foundations for civilian control over the military. This was reflected during the war with China in 1962. Operational matters were handled by the army. The politicians’ decision to remain largely uninvolved with the army resulted in a lack of coordination amongst the three wings. Whereas we find some instances of military personnel complaining of civilian interference in matters pertaining to their domain, we also find instances of politicians blaming the military leadership for not being able to resist improper orders.
India is now facing a dilemma about whether to involve the military with nuclear command and control. Unlike Pakistan, the military in India was not associated with the earlier decision-making process regarding India’s desire to become a nuclear power. It was primarily a civilian decision and the Indian armed forces were deliberately kept at bay with regard to this. Though India is still governed by the policy of civilian control over the military, it has become imperative to associate the higher ranking officers in important strategic decision-making issues that are related to safety, security and management of nuclear devices.
Though India has signed no first use treaty, it has to involve the military with the National Command Authority (NCA) to ensure complete safety. This is bound to affect civil-military relations in India in due course. For instance, India’s nuclear deal with the US in 2008 can further widen the chasm between civil-military relations in India.
Besides highlighting emerging trends in civil-military relations in India, an attempt is made in this paper to focus on some of the issues: why does the military operate under civilian control in India and why not in Pakistan? What is the role of civic society in influencing the role of the military within the state and in establishing an external relationship with the outside world? What can we ‘learn’ and ‘unlearn’ from the experiences of civil-military relations in India and Pakistan, etc? The methodology adopted is analytical, comparative and empirical.
 *Dr. Asha Gupta, a former Principal of one of the colleges affiliated to the University of Delhi is currently engaged in post-doctoral research on 'Vocationalization, Internationalization and Privatization of Higher Education in India'. She is a recipient of Shastri Indo-Canadian and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Senior Research Fellowships
A comparative study of the civil-military relations in Turkey and Pakistan: Differences and future trajectories
Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu*
This paper aims to inform literature on military coups in countries with anomalous civil-military relations. It is based on a comparative case study between Turkey and Pakistan, both countries that have strong but politicized militaries known for meddling in politics. However, while the civil-military equation has not normalized in either case, the Turkish military has refrained from coup making since 1980 whereas in Pakistan, a 1999 coup broke a decade of uninterrupted civilian rule. Taking into account numerous shortcomings in both cases that fail to conform to prevalence of civilian authority over the military, the analyses is limited to exploring the causal factors that led to the actual intervention in Pakistan and comparing them with causes responsible for absence of the same in Turkey. The difference is explained by three factors: (i) the Turkish military’s ability to entrench itself constitutionally in a manner that allowed it to dictate terms without taking over government in part thanks to the 1981 constitution; (ii) the military’s successful use of state institutions—such as the National Security Council and the Constitutional Court—to ensure that the civilian leadership cannot challenge its national vision; and (iii) the presence of an external deterrent, namely the European Union factor, that forces the military to exercise caution. Thus, the Turkish military’s constitutional manipulation in the 1980s, its use of the judiciary more recently and Turkey’s EU bid point to the presence of these conditions in the Turkish case are major factors that are analyzed in a comparative manner throughout the paper. The paper contends that the absence of each of these factors provide the explanatory framework to account for the differences across the two cases. Finally, the paper analyzes the possibility of future coups in Turkey and Pakistan.
 * Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science, Boston University, USA. His research focuses on the role of religious and ethnic identities in international relations, and comparative study of Muslim societies.
Civil-military relation and the political transition in Nepal
Bishnu Raj Upreti*
Nepal is at a crucial stage of political transition, shifting from a monarchical to republican, unitary to federal, centralized to decentralized state after 10 years of armed insurgency and the popular people’s movement of April 2006. Civil-military tension was one of the major factors that emerged from the political change. The United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), that waged the armed insurgency and became the largest political party after the election of 2008, was ousted from power in May 2009 due to tension with the military and the party publicly claimed that Nepal’s army was obstructing political change and the consolidation of democracy which is why it was necessary for them to fight for civilian supremacy.
The main objective of this paper is to examine the civil-military relationship with a focus on the relationship between the government-political parties and the army of Nepal. The paper examines the role of the military post 1990, political change and the democratic process and its relationship with political parties and civil society. While analyzing the civil military relationship this paper also examines the public perception, its interpretation and response towards the role of the military during the process of political change. As Nepal drafts a new constitution, the issue of civilian supremacy over the armed forces is being given the highest priority by the Constituent Assembly, civil society and the political parties. Hence, the paper will also discuss the process of how civil-military issues have been tackled by the Constituent assembly and it will attempt to bring to the fore the major issues of contention between civil-military relations and insights about the content and process of the Constituent Assembly to address this issue in the new constitution.
The sources used to develop this paper are empirical data collected from various sources such as policy documents submitted to the Constituent Assembly, newspaper reports, discussions with people concerned and engaged with this issue and the review of theoretical literatures.
 *Dr. Bishnu Raj Upreti is South Asia Regional Coordinator of NCCR North-South. He is a researcher in conflict transformation, civil military relations, security governance and human security issues. He has worked in various national and international organizations.
Comparing military rule with democratic periods in Pakistan: An evaluation of democratic progress
Talat Mahmood*
This paper discusses the dynamics of democratic development in Pakistan from an empirical and qualitative aspect. It will use socio-economic indicators to examine alternating periods of civilian and military rule in the country since Independence in 1947. It will ask questions like why has Pakistan developed into a defective democracy rather than a stable political system including the rule of law. In this paper, institutional weaknesses, bad governance, the role of the economic and the political elites as well as aspects of ethnic diversity will be used as explanatory variables. Questions such as what caused the civilian governments inability to reign in the military, lower corruption and pacify sectarian violence will be posed. The findings of this paper will be explained by theories of democratization, transformation and in particular embedded democracies. Finally, the causes of the interventions of Pakistan’s military will be explored based on the assumption that the international community supported stability rather than promoting the democratic process in Pakistan.
 *Dr. Talat Mahmood is a Senior Fellow, Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
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