Binding militaries to democratic concepts: the role of civilian policymakers in Brazil and Chile
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2025
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Abstract
In this article, we argue that civilian deference to the military in security policymakingis a key factor contributing to faulty threat assessment and declining militaryeffectiveness. Civilian participation in defence policymaking is vital tooperationalizing both governmental normative orientations and conceptualinnovations in security thinking into the policy domain; in their absence, military-led policy documents eventually reflect the corporate interests of the military ratherthan a democratically defined national interest. We highlight the inadequacy ofinstitutionalist accounts using recent literature on role conceptions, effectivenessand organizational learning. We probe our claim by examining two diverse casesfrom Latin America: Brazil and Chile. In Brazil, the civilian leadership relies on themilitary for threat assessment. The military is still beholden to a dated version ofanticommunism and has focused on internal enemies, leading to inadequatedoctrinal responses to external threats and diminished operational effectiveness. InChile, on the other hand, civilians have succeeded in defining an updated, broadersecurity agenda which has gradually become part of the military’s self-understanding. This study advances the literature by conceptualizing a concretemechanism of how civilian involvement in security policymaking safeguards militaryeffectiveness, demonstrating that civilian control is beneficial to both sets of actorsinvolved
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Civil–military relations, Civilian control, Armed forces, Military effectiveness, Brazil, Chile