Suchergebnisse

Praetorianism has been authoritatively defined as a situation in which 'the military class of a given society exercises independent political power within it by virtue of an actual or threatened use of military force'.1A praetorian state, by elaboration, is one in which the military tends to intervene andpotentiallycould dominate the political system. The political processes of this statefavorthe development of the military as the core group and the growth of its expectations as a ruling class; its political leadership (as distinguished from bureaucratic, administrative and managerial leadership) is chiefly recruited from the military, or from groups sympathetic, or at least not antagonistic, to the military. Constitutional changes are effected and sustained by the militaty, and the army frequently intervenes in the government.2

Militärregierungen in Afrika, noch stark kolonialer Ideologie verhaftet, versuchen bewußt oder unbewußt, den institutionellen Entwicklungsprozeß in ihrem Sinne zu beeinflussen und zu lenken, um dadurch ihre despotische Herrschaft zu festigen. Da die Institutionalisierung einer Politik heute lebenswichtige Vorraussetzung für jede Art von Entwicklung ist, stellt dies den besten Weg zur Machtsicherung dar. Diskussion der wahren Gründe für die meisten militärischen Staatsstreiche. Der Widerstand des Militärs gegenüber sozialem Wandel und Demokratie. Militärherrschaft und die Wiederbelebung des Stammesdenkens. (DÜI-Hlb)

Der Verfasser setzt sich einleitend mit Huntingtons Analyse der zivilen Kontrolle des Militärs auseinander. Eine Schwächung politischer Strukturen und eine starke, autonomie Position des Militärs werden als Voraussetzungen des Prätorianismus in der Moderne herausgearbeitet. Vor diesem Hintergrund analysiert der Verfasser die Position des Militärs in Osteuropa nach dem Rückzug der sowjetischen Truppen aus den Nachbarstaaten und der Auflösung des Warschauer Pakts. Der Einfluß des politischen Wandels auf Kohäsion und kollektive Identität des Militärs in Albanien, Bulgarien, der Tschechoslowakei, Ungarn, Polen, Rumänien und Jugoslawien wird untersucht. Der Verfasser zeigt, daß in allen behandelten Staaten Maßnahmen zur subjektiven zivilen Kontrolle des Militärs im Sinne Huntingtons ergriffen wurden. Die Gefahr des Prätorianismus ist daher nicht akut. (BIOst-Wpt)

The successive constitutional crises that confronted the Pakistani courts were not of their own making. But the doctrinally inconsistent, judicially inappropriate, and politically timid responses fashioned by these courts ultimately undermined constitutional governance. When confronted with the question of the validity and scope of extra constitutional power, the courts vacillated between Hans Kelsen's theory of revolutionary validity, Hugo Grotius's theory of implied mandate, and an expansive construction of the doctrine of state necessity. A more principled and realistic response would have been to declare the validity of extra constitutional regimes a nonjusticiable political question. Besides ensuring doctrinal consistency, a refusal to furnish extra constitutional regimes with judicially pronounced validity may well have discouraged praetorian encroachment upon constitutional governance. A consistent refusal to pronounce upon nonjusticiable political questions might have promoted a democratic constitution building process by implicitly reminding the body politic of its primary responsibility to build and preserve constitutional orders. Furthermore, during the periods when these courts had the opportunity to exercise judicial review under a constitution, they failed to enunciate a consistent and coherent standard of review. By misapplying the political question doctrine, the courts implied that democratically elected legislatures possess unfettered legislative power. By refusing to fashion judicial checks against potential tyranny of the majority, the courts acquiesced in the contraction of fundamental rights and the diminution of federalism during the Fourth Republic. This facilitated the demise of the Fourth Republic following yet another military usurpation of power. A better approach would have been for the courts to invalidate any legislation which jeopardized the basic structure and essential features of the constitution.

Although the army of New Spain exhibited few if any signs of praetorianism or militarism prior to the independence wars, 1810-1821, many observers in the decades following national independence described the military as one of the negative impediments to progress in the young Mexican republic. Clearly, the decade of insurgency, guerrilla warfare, and fragmentation of the old polity caused dramatic changes in the attitudes and behavior of army officers. The present article analyzes the impact of the war on the royalist army, which in 1821 largely transformed itself to declare for independence. To develop effective counterinsurgency programs, officers assumed active political and administrative roles. After years of exercising power, they did not wish to return to their barracks.

In the twentieth century, Argentina has been beset with the problem of praetorianism-a condition in which military officers play a principal or predominant role in the political system. For the last 30 years, civilian governments have followed various strategies for establishing civilian control, with uniformly disastrous results. Since 1983, the Alfonsfn government has instituted a new approach, a strategy of "doctrinal change" within the armed forces; the strategy aims at incorporating the norms of Western military professionalism and respect for democracy. Although the present government has done better than its predecessors, the final prognosis is still guarded.

The past decade marks a watershed in Argentine civil-military relations. The country, an almost classic case of twentieth-century praetorianism, now has an historic opportunity to assert civilian control over the armed forces. This improvement in the prospects for civilian control of the armed forces may not be evident at first since the accession of the current president, Carlos Menem (1989-) was marked by an apparently dramatic retreat in the government's relations with the armed forces. While Menem's predecessor, Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989), pursued a policy which included prosecution of military human rights violators, Menem made an abrupt about-face. He granted a general pardon to those same military officers. However, this trade-off has given the government the freedom to assert a degree of civilian control over the armed forces hitherto lacking in range of important military policies in which the previous government had been largely stalemated by armed forces resistance. The threat of substantial political intervention by the armed forces is now on the wane.

This examination of the military's role in Polish politics and society between the two world wars attempts to fill a gap in our knowledge of civil-military relations across systems. Despite considerable literature on that subject in advanced industrial societies. (.ommunist states, and the less-developed or Third World countrics, an analytical treatment of civil-military relations in the so-called authoritarian svstems, of which prewar Poland is a prime example, has been conspicuously missing. This research was conducted with the help of two analytical frameworks that are frequently referred to as forming the developmental model. The purpose was not so much to test the use of Western social science methodology but mostly to investigate the possibility of making meaningful cross-systemic and longitudinal comparisons. The conclusion that emerged wxas that prewar Poland represents a textbook case of "oligarchical praetorianism" which suggests in turn the possibility of comparing it with other countries falling under similar and/or different systemic rubrics. Such systemic comparisons should add to our knowledge of civil-militarv relations in a global setting.