Rethinking democratic consolidation and civilian control of the military: Toward a conceptual model

How can civil-military relations be a zero-sum game during democratic transition and a positive-sum game during democratic consolidation? When the military is political and offensive, civil-military relations is a zero-sum game. However, civilians can increase their autonomy visa-vie the military through mass support for democracy, coalitional stability, and executive leadership. With these power resources civilians increase their capacity to restrict military participation in politics and to redirect the military toward a professional mission. Under this condition civil-military relations becomes a positive-sum game in which civilian autonomy and military professional autonomy have a joint positive effect on the democratic consolidation process. I argue that increases in civilian autonomy and military professional autonomy have a joint positive effect on political stability and policy effectiveness and a joint negative effect on military political autonomy. In turn, political stability and policy effectiveness have a joint positive effect on democratic consolidation and civilian control of the military.