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The intervention of the military in national politics and the everyday lives of citizens is a key question in civil-military relations. This book explains how concordance theory can provide a model for predicting such domestic intervention. Models dealing with the relationship between the military and society are usually based on Western nations with power and influence, and therefore may not be appropriate for the circumstances of non-Western countries. By contrast, concordance theory considers national contexts where the balance of military involvement in civilian life depends greatly on historical circumstances, institutional nuances, and cultural realities. Using five case studies - India, Pakistan, Israel, Argentina, and Post-Revolutionary America - this book challenges traditional views on the role of the military in society, and offers convincing examples for the continual application of concordance theory. It also explores the evolution of the theory from the field of military studies to one of 'corporate concordance'. This book will be of much interest to advanced students of Civil-Military Relations, military sociology, political science and US politics.

This commentary discusses Michael Desch's book The Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security. Desch offers a respectable and important overview of the history of national security within the social sciences from World War I through current times. He focuses on the gradual irrelevancy of political science and particularly the field of international security. Desch, however, neglects the recent university activism and political narratives infusing academic writings and classroom discussions. This review argues that what contributes to the irrelevancy of social science and particularly national security is the new "cult" itself: demands placed on academia and students to become political activists, and not social scientists nor theorists who contribute rigorous academic research affecting domestic and foreign policy. It is the political advocacy narrative itself, embraced by university cultures, that pushes social science and the study of national security down the path of irrelevancy.

In Zulfiqar Ali's article regarding concordance theory in Pakistan, Dr. Ali asserts that concordance theory does not explain domestic military intervention in Pakistan. He also suggests that concordance theory superimposes a Western theoretical model on Pakistan, like Huntington's theory of objective civilian control. In response to Dr. Ali's claims, this article reiterates how concordance theory can in fact explain why Pakistan has suffered from domestic military intervention—the alienation of the Bengali community and subsequent lack of agreement among the three concordance partners being one significant factor. Additionally, Huntington's theory focuses on institutional and dichotomous civil–military relations, grounded in the post–World War II US case study. By contrast, concordance theory views the relationship between military and society from both cultural and institutional perspectives and embraces those indigenous qualities that may encourage or discourage domestic military intervention.