1,721,016 research outputs found
Evolution of the Argentina Ministry of Defense since 1983: Organizations, norms, and personnel
Get PDFThrough a progressive strengthening of organizational, legal, and personnel attributes, Argentina's Ministry of Defense has become civilianized. The MOD has been strengthened by the addition of new bureaucratic units headed by civilians with the authority to shape and conduct defense policy while also encouraging interactions with military personnel, resulting in better informed policy choices. This article will account for these changes through a detailed analysis of foreign affairs, strategic planning and promotions, production and research, and education. Procedural rules, divisions of labor and civil-military interactions are delineated. Military modernization deficiencies and the need for a permanent civilian staff are noted.Fil: Battaglino, Jorge Mario. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Pion Berlin, David. University of California; Estados Unido
Autonomía militar y democracias emergentes en América del Sur
Get PDFFil: Pion-Berlin, David. Universidad de California. Departamento de Ciencia Política; Estados Unidos.La influencia de las fuerzas armadas sobre las democracias emergentes de América del Sur sigue concitando atención dentro de la comunidad académica. La conclusión de la transición a los gobiernos democráticos cambió necesariamente el centro del enfoque, que pasó de los regímenes castrenses a las relaciones cívico-militares. Si bien las relaciones entre soldados y ciudadanos fueron durante mucho tiempo del interés de los científicos sociales. los cambios políticos que abarcaron la región sudamericana plantean al analista político-militar cuestiones especialmente seductoras e interrelacionadas. ¿En qué medida las relaciones contemporáneas entre los militares y el gobierno trascienden los patrones cíclicos y autodestructivos largamente observados en América Latina? ¿Cómo podríamos saber si la transición ya ha pregonado una nueva era en las relaciones cívico-militares o si prefigura meramente una regresión al pasado? Expresado de una manera diferente, ¿cómo deberíamos evaluar el comportamiento y los motivos de las fuerzas armadas situadas dentro de estas nuevas sociedades democráticas
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The Politics of Military Deployments for Public Security
Get PDF This dissertation sheds light on the causes of military deployments for public security in Latin American democracies. It argues for a need to understand the political reasoning behind them, emphasizing the role of civilian control and the military’s propensity to execute such missions. It employs a multi-method design that draws on original quantitative data, novel uses of existing events data, FOIA-obtained data, and interviews with high-ranking military officers. The first empirical chapter presents the first-ever quantitative analysis of cross-national correlates of deployments. I find that crime rates matter and that civilian control over the military is associated with more deployments. Its interaction with the military propensity to execute such missions also predict deployment levels. The second empirical chapter investigates how the interaction between the civilian and military leadership takes place by explaining large-scale deployments in Brazil, finding those moments of high civilian control are the ones where large-scale deployments take place and that the military’s conduct is explained by their mission preferences and considerations regarding risks – individual and collective – in case collateral damage takes place. The third empirical chapter presents the first-ever quantitative analysis of subnational correlates of deployments. Crime rates are associated with more deployments, but political considerations are at play, and deployments are used as a tool for political support. These findings advance our understanding of the causes of domestic deployment of the military and in particular the role of civilian control over the military and the military’s propensity to execute such missions
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What Difference Does it Make? The Impact of Women in Politics in Costa Rica and New Zealand
Get PDFThis project examines the impact of having fewer or more women in national legislatures. Many scholars believe that as women become a greater presence in legislatures, they will pay more attention to women's interests, proposing legislation that reflects the needs of women. Htun states that "the growth in women's presence in legislatures has coincided with important legal advances in women's rights" (Htun 2001). Laws regarding issues important to women -- such as domestic violence, rape, and remedying years of discrimination -- have proliferated in recent years. While the amount of women's issues legislation has increased, there is a question as to whether the relationship between more women in the legislature and the proliferation of female-friendly bills is an automatic one. Some scholars argue that the number of women in legislatures may increase but "the mere presence of women in positions of power will not automatically produce political outcomes favorable to women's interests"(Htun 2001). Particularly if women continue to constitute only a minority in a legislative body, we should not expect that they would have an overwhelming influence on the political agenda. However, is there a point at which women make up such a large percentage of the legislature that we can assume female-friendly policies will follow? The primary research question of this project is what is the legislative policy impact when women represent a critical minority of 30% or more? Related to the question of what legislative priorities drive women's political decision-making is the question, under which conditions are female legislators most likely to represent women's interests? Existing literature suggests that certain electoral conditions, such as closed-list proportional representation, are most favorable for electing women, but do those same conditions create optimal representation of women? Do women's movements within a country have an impact on legislative policy outputs? These questions will be addressed through an examination of the similarities and differences with regards to women in politics in Costa Rica and New Zealand
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Guerrillas Today, What Tomorrow: Transformation of Guerrilla Movements
Get PDFIn recent years, there has become a greater need to understand how rebellious organizations (particularly, guerrilla movements) may transform into new organizations during conflict and following the end of major hostilities. During conflict and following conflict, either rebellious organizations become the new state, cease to exist or they transform into something completely different. In looking specifically at guerrilla movements, one can see many have transformed into other types of organizations including political parties, terrorist organizations, and criminal organizations. This phenomenon leads to the following questions: how do guerrilla movements transform in conflict and post-conflict environments? This study contends this transformation occurs because of the interaction between four independent variables - resources (both physical and human resources), beliefs and associated frames and political accessibility. The manners in which these variables interact are influenced by `who' has the advantage during the conflict - the state or the guerrilla movement and what kind of advantage they have - social, political or resource power advantages. Through the study of two paired comparisons (four individual case studies - the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin [PIRA/SF] in Northern Ireland, and the Spear of the Nation [Umkhonto We Sizwe] and the African National Congress [MK/ANC] in South Africa, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] in Colombia and the Abu Sayyaf Group [ASG] in the Philippines), this work traces the mechanisms and processes that have lead these organizations to transform into political parties and criminal organizations. Using qualitative comparative methodology (i.e., field interviews, archival research and historical analysis of each former guerrilla movement), this study finds that each transformation is a result of the interaction of the four independent variables in a particular way. These interactions influence the relationship between the various subgroups in the guerrilla movements and therefore, these interactions influence changes in the overall structure of the guerrilla movement. Likewise, these new structures take on different means and ends than when compared to their previous guerrilla movement form
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Peace in the Barracks: Military Reconstruction After Ethnic Conflict
Get PDFEthnic conflicts are becoming the most prominent form of conflict in the post-Cold War era and civil wars continue to be the most dominant form of conflict. The past several decades has provided an extensive literature and policy prescriptions for economic, judicial, political, and even social reforms for states as they rebuild. How to address reforms for the security sector, specifically the military, is grossly understudied and undertheorized however. Military reforms are an important aspect to creating peacebuilding reforms as they create an atmosphere of safety and security, allowing other necessary reforms to stick. This project fills this gap by theorizing Military Reconstruction, the creation of a military that represents all major ethnic groups in society and serves all individuals without regard to one’s ethnic group identity. To achieve this, I argue that a state needs to address three individually necessary, jointly sufficient variables: professionalization, integration, and resensitization. I hypothesize that, in addition to my claims of necessity and sufficiency, domestic actors need to be invested in the reforms and take an active part in decision making. To test my hypothesizes, I conduct a focused, structured comparison of three case studies: Rwanda, Sudan, and Bosnia. Each ethnic civil war had different historical backgrounds and different degrees of international involvement. My failed cases, Sudan and Bosnia, failed on different variables which allows me to test my claims of necessity and sufficiency. I find evidence to support my hypothesizes and outline future work that needs to be done on Military Reconstruction
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From International Idea to Domestic Policy: Explaining the Emergence of Same-Sex Partnership Recognition in Argentina and Brazil
Get PDFThis dissertation examines how the international idea of same-sex partnership recognition (SSPR) becomes enacted into domestic policy in Argentina and Brazil. It begins by looking at how the leading LGBT social movements in each country understand and prioritize the battle for same-sex unions. These understandings ultimately determine how far reaching an enacted law may go. Next, it explains what the current constitutional and statutory law is in each nation today and through which avenues it potentially could be changed. The second half of the work systematically compares how the LGBT social movement organizations have engaged with the three branches of government to advance their goals. What it finds is that Brazilian LGBT groups have long had elite allies within all three branches of government, but these leaders have not had the institutional capacity to affect change. In Argentina, on the other hand, all three branches have significant institutional powers to change the law, but lesbians and gays have had a harder time securing friends in these positions. The result is that movements in both countries have not yet achieved success. However, some recent changes in both of these southern cone nations have made SSPR a real possibility: the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court, with new and expanded powers, may soon decide in favor of stable unions for same-sex couples. Moreover, allies in the Argentine Senate are expected to soon approve a bill granting full same-sex marriage rights. The final chapter concludes with a brief look at how the variables identified in these cases function in three other Latin American countries
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As the Guns Turn Inward: Civilian Management of Security Agents in Internal Armed Conflict
Get PDFWhen internal armed threats emerge, capable of holding territory, threatening the lives of citizens and undermining national sovereignty, every armed bureaucracy of the state becomes relevant. This includes an actor whose internal deployment has historically threatened democracy: the military. This study undertakes comparative analyses of two democracies which have defied expectation, Colombia and Mexico, to understand what civilian governments are able to do once military guns turn inward. I find that the presence of a viable alternatives to the military, which I describe with the term “alternative security forces” curbs military autonomy when this rival agent enjoys the same level of access to the commander-in-chief which the armed forces does. To understand the dynamics between civilian governments, militaries, and alternative security forces, I employ a multi-agent adaptation of the principal agent framework. I find that disputes between militaries and alternative security forces not only provide opportunities for civilians to increase their management over security policy, but also incentivize civilians to become more knowledgeable and proactive over internal security as well
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The Political Economy of Military Industry Reform
Get PDFOwnership and management of defense industry enterprises affords the military power, autonomy, and a claim to economic rents. Why do some countries successfully transfer some or all of these enterprises from military to civilian ownership and management while others fail? This study stresses the joint role of the balances of coalitional and institutional strength between civilians and the armed forces. Civilian and military must surmount obstacles in order to translate their preferences into policy. They must find party and executive allies who can compete on their behalf to craft or defeat legislation that affects their interests, and they must create or develop bureaucratic agencies that can design policy efficiently and effectively. Coalition formation and institution creation become crucial, especially in fragmented polities. When civilians can forge a stronger legislative coalition and can create a defense industry bureaucracy that is stronger than the existing military bureaucracy, enterprises will be transferred; when the military can forge a stronger coalition and maintain a relatively stronger bureaucracy, reform will stall. Firms will be partially transferred when the civilian bureaucracy is stronger but the military coalition is stronger. How civilian and military coalitions and institutions behave and interact and how they form, ossify, or fail to develop is assessed through a comparative analysis of Argentina (1983–1989), Argentina (1989–1997), Chile (1990–2018), Turkey (1983–2018), and Portugal (1976–2018)
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Confronting the Square: Explaining Authoritarian Control Strategies During Civilian Uprisings
Get PDFThis dissertation seeks to explain how and why regimes adopt different control strategies during massive civilian uprisings. The 2011 Arab uprisings saw regimes across the Middle East and North Africa respond to protests against the state using a mix of violence and accommodation to demobilize those in the streets. Some regimes carried out strategies characterized by high levels of lethal violence against those in the streets, while others minimized violence and offered a raft of concessions to protesters; some states adopted a hybrid approach. I argue that authoritarian key control strategies are a product of the interaction between a regime’s past successful dominant control strategies and the level of unity between the executive and the military at the time of the protests. I test this theory by utilizing a small-N, qualitative case study analysis of three Middle Eastern and North African countries that had distinctly different outcomes in terms of their control strategies: Morocco, Tunisia, and Syria. Data was collected from primary and secondary source material, including news reports, scholarly literature, and interviews conducted in Tunis, Tunisia during fieldwork in 2016. I find that regimes tend to adopt historically dominant strategies when civil-military unity exists, however breaks between the military and the executive result in mixed strategies or the termination of the protest phase
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