Search

This paper attempts to understand how domestic security threats shape state institutions and regime structures. More specifically, it discusses the impact of insurgency movements on the nature of civil-military relations and democratic openings in a country. This is an important theoretical question with great policy relevance. For centuries, civilian leaders have struggled with the problem of subordinating militaries to their authority. The lack of civilian control has become a major factor that blocked the consolidation of democracies in numerous countries. Political science literature has, so far, failed to provide a well-developed answer to this research question. Although the majority of the scholars believe that domestic security threats inevitably lead to an increase in the political involvement of the armed forces (Huntington, 1962; Stepan, 1976; O’Donnell, 1979; Hunter, 1997; Desch, 1999; etc), similar levels and types of internal security threats have, in fact, divergent effects on civil-military relations and broader regime-related questions. To understand the causes of this variation, I conduct a comparative case study by focusing on two countries, namely Turkey and Peru, which have fought against Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Shining Path insurgents, respectively, from the 1980s onwards. With this study, I intend to show that the presence of an internal threat is not a sufficient condition to account for changes in civil-military relations and regime structures. Instead, I discuss the importance of strategic interests and calculations of civilian governments and their armed forces, as well as the silent bargaining process between these actors in explaining this research question. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]