Civil-Military Relations in Europe: Learning from Crisis and Institutional Change

This new book illustrates how democracy cannot develop or endure unless military and security forces are under the full control of democratic institutions, and all the necessary safeguards, checks and balances are in place.

The contributors show how contemporary European states manage the following issue: how does a society, primarily through its legitimate, democratically elected political leaders and their appointed officials, control the military, that same state institution that has been established for its protection and wields the monopoly of legitimate force?

Twenty-eight case studies are selected from key countries: the Czech Republic, Germany, Georgia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland, and the Ukraine. The key subjects of these cases vary from corruption to military incompetence, disobedience towards civilian superiors, to unauthorized strikes and accidents. The focus is on the relationship between political, civilian and military actors while identifying problems and dangers that can emerge in those relations to the detriment of effective and legitimate democratic control.

This is essential reading for students of civil-military relations, democratization, European politics and security studies in general.

Hans Born, Marina Caparini, Karl Haltiner, Jürgen Kuhlmann