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Despite the decline in the number of military coups since the 1960s and 1970s, Militaries continue to be crucial political actors in many world regions. Their impact on the democratic development of nations, however, has been mixed. On the one hand, coups against democratically elected leaders in Mali (2012), Egypt (2013), and Thailand (2014) have spelled doom for these countries' nascent democratic regimes and have ushered in new periods of military dominance in politics. The cases of Portugal (1974), the Philippines (1986), and Tunisia (2011), on the other hand, show that the military's decision not to defend authoritarian leaders against mass protests contributed crucially to the fall of dictatorships and facilitated transitions to democracy. This volume addresses the military's ambivalent role as "midwife" or "gravedigger" of democracy and highlights the often multi-layered and complex relationship between militaries' political behaviour and democratization.
The chapters were originally published in a special issue of Democratization.
List of contents
Introduction: Midwives or gravediggers of democracy? The military’s impact on democratic development David Kuehn 1. Military loyalty and the failure of democratization in Africa: how ethnic armies shape the capacity of presidents to defy term limits Kristen A. Harkness 2. Economic interdependence and post-coup democratization Mwita Chacha and Jonathan Powell 3. Explaining military coups and impeachments in Latin America Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and John Polga-Hecimovich 4. Conditions of military contestation in populist Latin America David Kuehn and Harold Trinkunas
About the author
David Kuehn is Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies in Hamburg, Germany. His main research interests include civil-military relations, democratization, authoritarianism and social science methodology.
Summary
This volume addresses the military’s potential political role as the midwife for democratic transitions, or the gravedigger of democratic rule. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of Democratization.
