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Modernization and Role-Expansion of the Military in Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Moshe Lissak
Moshe Lissak
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
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Extract

Officers in active military service engaged in administrative tasks in the civil service, in the management of economic enterprises, in farming estates, teaching, bank management and other “civilian” tasks are not an unusual phenomenon in countries where the military is the exclusive ruler, or a direct and active partner in the government. The number of officers in this category is increasing also in those countries where the military is only a latent and unofficial partner in the regulation of the different sectors of political, economic and social power. However, even in countries where it is excluded from power, the military as an organization (as opposed to individual officers) takes charge of services which in Western countries are regarded as the domain of the civilian administration, or of other civilian bodies. This issue has received only partial and incidental treatment in the literature devoted to the subject of modernization. The “infiltration” of various military branches into different sectors of society is generally explained, if the issue arises at all, in terms of the conflict preceding the coup, or through other political events. Although this method of explanation is perfectly legitimate, it does narrow the discussion to the political sphere. This results in the neglect of highly significant material for the analysis of what may be termed “improvised” processes of modernization and nation-building. “Improvisation”, in this context, means the utilization of unorthodox means and routes to accelerate the modernization process. Infiltration and usurpation of non-military roles by officers is a case in point, although one should acknowledge that modernization is not always desired by the “infiltrators”.

Type
The Role of the Military
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , April 1967 , pp. 233 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1967

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References

1 See a critical evaluation in the literature dealing with revolutions and coups in Moshe Lissak, , “Selected literature on Revolutions and Coups d'Etat in the Developing Nations” in Janowitz, Morris, ed., The New Military: Changing Patterns of Organization (New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1965)Google Scholar.

2 For this concept and for various examples see Eisenstadt, S. N., “Sociological Aspects of Political Development in Underdeveloped Countries”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 5, No. 4 (July 1957) p. 293CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 303. Millikan, Max F. and Blakmer, Donald L. M., eds., The Emerging Nations. Their Growth and United States Policy (Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown & Company, 1961), pp. 74–75Google Scholar. Spengler, Joseph J., “Theory, Ideology, Non Economic Values and Political-Economic Development” in Braibanti, Ralph and Spengler, Joseph J., eds., Tradition, Values and Socio-Economic Development (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1961), p. 143Google Scholar.

3 Lissak, Moshe, “Social Change, Mobilization and Exchange of Services Between the Military Establishment and the Civil Society: The Burmese Case”, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. XIII, No. 1, Part I (October 1964), pp. 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Is Trust Vindicated?, published by the Director of Information, Government of Burma, 1960, p. 540.

5 Ibid.

6 In this connection see Lucian W. Pye, “The Army in Burmese Politics”, in Johnson, ed., op. cit., p. 246.

7 For a detailed study see M. Lissak, op. cit.

8 Butwell, Richard, “Civilians and Soldiers in Burma” in Sakai, Robert K., Studies on Asia (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska, 1961), p. 80Google Scholar.

9 Kahin, George Me T., Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1952)Google Scholar. Guy J. Pauker, “The Role of the Military in Indonesia” in Johnson, ed., op. cit., pp. 125–290. Lev, Daniel S., “The Political Role of the Army in Indonesia”, Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXVI, No. 4 (Winter 1963/4), pp. 349–364CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Chief of Staff and other senior officers have never declared publicly until recently that they are anticommunist. They have preferred to define themselves as non communists, see Hanna, Willard A., Bung Kama's Indonesia, Part V: “The Indecision of the Military” (American Universities Field Staff, 1961), p. 8Google Scholar. However, the Regional Commanders, especially in Sumatra, have regarded themselves as anticommunists. Anticommunism and the fear of communist influence has served as legitimation for the attempts to withdraw from the Indonesian republic in 1956–8. See: Kroef, Justus M. van der, “Disunited Indonesia”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. XXXVII, No. 4 (April 1958), p. 55Google Scholar.

11 Pauker, op. cit., pp. 194–200. Lev, op. cit., p. 356.

12 Pauker, op. cit., pp. 203–204.

13 Pauker, op. cit., p. 209.

14 Pauker, op. cit., p. 210.

15 For a full description of the revolts and their backgrounds see: Feith, Herbert and Lev, Daniel S., “The End of the Indonesia Revolution”, Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXXVI (Spring 1963), pp. 32–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Van der Kroef, op. cit., pp. 49–53. Hanna, op. cit., pp. 12–13.

16 Pauker, op. cit., p. 210.

17 Van der Kroef, op. cit., pp. 49–54.

18 Pauker, op. cit., p. 213.

19 Pauker, op. cit., p. 214. Lev, op. cit., pp. 354–355.

20 Lev, op. cit., pp. 359–360.

21 For the explanation of this concept and a list of countries included in this category see Janowitz, op. cit., p. 7, Table No. 1.

22 Hanna, op. tit., p. 7; part III, p. 5.

23 Hanna, op. cit., part V, p. 5.

24 Pauker, op. cit., p. 196.

25 Pauker, Guy J., “The Role of Political Organization in Indonesia”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 27, No. 9 (September 1958), p. 140CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Lev, op. cit., p. 352.

26 Ibid.

27 Hanna, op. cit., p. 6.

28 Ibid.

29 Lev, op. cit., pp. 362–363.

30 Newman, K. J., “Pakistan's Preventive Autocracy and Its Causes”, Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXXII, No. 1 (March 1959), p. 24Google Scholar, fn. 17. On the shortage of civil servants see: Khalid, Sayeed B., “The Political Role of Pakistan's civil service”, Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXXI (June 1959), p. 137Google Scholar.

31 Although Gen. Mirza should be considered as a civil servant rather than a military man, he doubtless represented at least in this aspect the general attitudes of the armed forces.

32 Marshal C. Burton, “The Military in Pakistan”, unpublished paper, p. 22.

33 The New York Times, 10/9/1958.

34 The Times (London), 9/2/1958.

35 Marshall, op. cit., p. 22.

36 For full details on the conflict between the traditional sector and modernizing groups see Binder, Leonard: Religion and Politics in Pakistan (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961)Google Scholar.

37 The New York Times, 2/6/1957.

38 Quoted in Marshall, op. cit., p. 35.

39 Pakistan Observer, Jan., 31, 1959, p. 78.

40 The New York Times, 10/20/1959, Ibid., 3/23/1959.

41 The Times (London), 9/2/1959.

42 For more details of the “Basic Democracies” see “The Imaginative Experiment of ‘Basic Democracies’”, Far Eastern Economic Review, June 9, 1960, pp. 1784–1785Google Scholar.

43 Pakistan 1957–1958, op. cit., p. 177.

44 Pakistan 1959–1960 (Karachi, Pakistan Publications, 1960), p. 112Google Scholar.

45 For a general and comprehensive description see Wilson, David A., Politics in Thailand (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

46 Rigges, Fred W., The Ecology of Public Administration (Bombay, Asian Publishing House, 1961), p. 89Google Scholar, and Cabinet Politicians in Thailand: A Bureaucratic Elite, paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., 1962, p. 19Google Scholar. Mosel, James, “Thai Administrative Behavior” in Siffin, William J., Towards a Comparative Study of Public Administration (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1957), p. 312Google Scholar.

47 David A. Wilson, “The Military in Thai Politics” in Johnson, op. cit., p. 270.

48 Wilson, Politics in Thailand, op. cit., p. 258.

49 Ibid., p. 270.

50 Mosel, op. tit., p. 307.

51 Wilson, David A. and Phillips, Herbert P., “Elections and Parties in Thailand”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. XXVII, No. 8 (August 1958), pp. 117–118Google Scholar.

52 Wilson & Phillips, op. cit., p. 115.

53 Wilson in Johnson, op. cit., pp. 268–269.

54 Ibid.

55 Thus, for example, some ministers were accused in 1956 of maintaining connection with opium and gold smugglers, see Times (London), March 22, 1956Google Scholar. The most famous scandal is the “Sarit affair”, after whose death it became known that he had been a multi-millionaire.

56 Wilson in Johnson, op. cit., p. 275.

57 The character of modern warfare obviously blurs the distinction between military and civil functions. This applies particularly to Western society. But, because in Western society the distinction between civil and military needs is supposed to be less clear, the principle of separation is emphasized to a greater extent. Considerable deviation from the principle of separation is treated very critically by public opinion.

58 On civil-military relations in Western democracies see Howard, Michael, “Civil-Military Relations in Europe and the United States: A Bibliographical Note”, Archives Europeennes De Sociologie, Tome II, No. 1 (1961), pp. 116–117Google Scholar. On the military in communist China see, for example, Powell, Ralph L., “The Military Committee and Party Control of the Military in China”, Asian Survey, Vol. III, No. 7 (July 1963), pp. 347–355CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gittings, John, “Political Control of the Chinese Army”, The World Today, August 1963, pp. 327–336Google Scholar.

59 This scheme presents only the variations in those countries on one side of the basic dichotomy mentioned above, i.e. the countries in which there has been intensive role expansion of the military.

60 Lucian W. Pye, “Armies in the Process of Political Modernization” in Johnson, op. cit., pp. 73–80. Janowitz, op. cit., pp. 40–49.

61 Pye, op. cit.

62 Finer, op. cit., p. 14.

63 See also an important discussion of this issue in Janowitz, op. cit., pp. 42–43; Manfred Halpern, “The Middle Eastern Armies and the New Middle Class” in Johnson, op. cit., 300–304. Kelly, op. cit., p. 364. Shils, op. cit., pp. 33–34.

64 There are, of course, several intermediate possibilities such as the forcible displacement of the military regime by a civilian elite, as happened in 1964 in the Sudan.

65 Finer, op. cit., pp. 197–204.

66 Eisenstadt (July 1964), op. cit., p. 5.