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CHAPTER TWO:

THE MILITARY AND THE STATE

Introduction: The Military and the State
         In the preceding discussion, the phenomenon of military intervention was exam-ined, with particular emphasis on the military which does not disengage from politics, but rather, to varying degrees, maintains its political control of the state.  The military's actions were examined in terms of the political reorganization of the state.  These actions have a powerful influence on the nature of state-society interaction.  Because the military is involved in the restructuring of politics, it also affects the ways societal groups articulate interests and/or relate to the state, and because power is concentrated at the top, it increases the autonomy of the state.  Consequently, the military normally maintains a highly autonomous authoritarian state order.  However, as I have stressed earlier, military authoritarian regimes are not identical.  Their characteristics will vary from regime to regime, as will the degree of authoritarianism, and the extent to which the state structures are autonomous.  

         To gain a better theoretical appreciation of the military’s role in politics, it is necessary to examine concepts that assist in understanding the state -- the ultimate structure of power and dominance in any state-society formation.  Significant here are a number of key concepts relating to the state: the nature of state autonomy; the way power is organized or arranged; the particular forms of the state-society interrelation-ship; and, finally, changes in the patterns of domination or relative autonomy among elements within the state in military-authoritarian orders.

The State, Society, and the Autonomy of the State 
         There is a general tendency, when discussing the state, to apply the term rather broadly.  For example, it is often used interchangeably with a territorially-bounded entity (colloquially, a country, or "nation-state"); a set of powerholders (the ruling regime or government); the bureaucratic machinery, its personnel, and a set of national institutions (executive, legislative, judicial); the overarching structures of power and domination; and so on.  The wide application of the term may be confusing, but all these definitions seem valid, depending on the context. 

         For this purposes of this inquiry, "the state" is defined as an ensemble of power structures, manned and directed by power-holders and officials, situated within an internationally recognized legal-territorial space (sometimes known as the "nation-state"), and dominating another set of structures and relationships: the wider society.  From this standpoint, the state is part of society, and society is part of the state.  However, as Naomi Chazan notes, state and society can be analytically conceptualized as intersecting, interrelated, but potentially independent variables.[1]  The relationship between state and society is a complex, dynamic one.  To better to understand how the state relates to society and vice-versa, it is important to study elements of the state in relation to forces within society, and also the reverse.[2]  In this thesis on military-authoritarian regimes, the military constitutes an important component of the state.

         At the heart of the politics of state-society interaction is the issue of state autonomy, which will be examined next.   An especially well-known position on state autonomy is Karl Marx’s view of the modern state as a committee for managing the common affairs of the capital-holding class, the bourgeoisie.[3]  The state is merely a "loyal agent" of capital.  However, in a review of Marx’s thoughts on the state, Bertrand Badie and Pierre Birnbaum assert that different historical circumstances can produce different outcomes in the nature and development of states.  Thus, although the Prusso-German empire, Switzerland, Britain, and the United States all had in common a capitalist system, the form of the state in each was different.[4]  Marx even argues that under particular circumstances, the state may stand above, and distinct from, society.  In Prussia, residual feudalist influences enabled the landed classes to construct a state that was "oppressive, independent, a sacred force [in no way] degrad-ing itself by becoming a vulgar instrument of bourgeois society".[5]  The Bonapartist state, in Marx’s view, was likewise one which reduced all classes -- including the bourgeoisie -- to a position of subservience, kneeling "before the rifle butt".[6] 

         The view of the s

class=Section2>

tate as autonomous from or independent of society is advanced by Eric Nordlinger in his analysis of state autonomy in democratic states, the United States particularly.[7]  Nordlinger argues that the convention holding that state elites and functionaries (or as he puts it, "state officials") in democracies are "consistently constrained by societal groups" is a distortion of reality.  Even when the preferences of powerful societal actors diverge from those of officials, the latter not only possess, but are able to capitalize on, "autonomy-enhancing capacities and opportunities".  They are able to translate their preferences into public policy.  He maintains that officials do act in ways that assert the state’s autonomy, in disregard of the preferences of society.[8]

         Gianfranco Poggi shares Nordlinger’s views.[9]   He notes that officials in democracies, having secured firm guarantees of tenure, pensions, and "the autonomy of their professional judgement", do assert their independence, and that the increased use of highly technical knowledge in administering a complex economy "leaves the mere citizen nowhere".[10]  Poggi sees public policy increasingly being replaced by bureaucratic interaction among self-regarding state interests and their allies in business (the "privileged parts of society").[11]  For her part, Theda Skocpol notes that all states play a major role in forming and implementing policies, managing economic development, resolving extranational problems, and shaping class formations and social protests.[12]  It would seem, then, that the state everywhere has a high degree of autonomy, and society is somewhat powerless in its relations with the state. 

         The question that arises at this point is: if the state is increasingly autonomous, even in a democracy, how does a democratic state differ from an authoritarian or even "totalitarian" one?  Is there, at bottom, no difference at all in terms of the state’s relative autonomy or independence from society?  If there is, what is/are the differentiating feature(s)?  To answer these questions, we must delve further into the various aspects of state autonomy.

         Extrapolating from Skocpol’s discussion of state autonomy, the concept can be broken down in four ways.[13]  First, the state is autonomous relative to society because it responds to a dominant class, the bourgeoisie, more than to the "public".  This is the conventional perspective of Marx and Marxian scholars in general.  To a degree, it is also Poggi’s.  Second, it is autonomous from privileged segments (the bourgeoisie, traditional notables, landowners, etc.), and responds to the need to achieve higher nationalist or "communitarian" goals.  This is the ideal claimed by nationalists, author-itarians, and recently some Asian/ASEAN leaders.  Third, the state is relatively independent of all classes and segments, and responds mainly to the policy preferences of state officials.  This, more or less, is Nordlinger’s position (and that of Marx the sociologist).[14]  And four, it is relatively not autonomous, but responds to all, because the state is a site of contestation between groups that articulate different and conflicting interests.  This is the view of the pluralist, liberal school. 

         In the context of the autonomy-responsiveness axis, it is possible to consider the phenomenon from another perspective: to what or to whom is the state responsible or responsive?  A useful conceptualization in this regard is Nordlinger’s treatment of the state's autonomy and responsiveness in terms of the autonomy relations of society and the state (and state officials).[15] 
         In Nordlinger's view, state autonomy rests on malleability, insulation, and resilience, among other factors.[16]   Less malleable or non-malleable states are those that are not susceptible or responsive to societal pressures.  "Malleability", in turn, is determined by whether the state is separated by high (non-porous) or low (porous) "walls".  In the former, officials will tend not to respond to, or will ignore, societal preferences.[17]  "Insulation" is an autonomy-maximizing feature.  Nordlinger states that the most extreme type is represented by "sultanism," where the ruler is little concerned with responding to his subjects.  Insulation is high in a state where officials do not depend on society for resources, but rely on coercive measures rather than upon support that is more or less freely given.[18]  "Resilience" is defined as the state’s capacity to counteract potential and actual societal opposition.  The state is resilient when officials possess policy instruments that enable them to use a "carrot-and-stick" strategy to assert autonomy.  The instruments at hand include the granting or withhold-ing of contracts, licenses, and exemptions; other discretionary behaviour, such as the speed or tardiness with which laws are implemented or ignored, the strictness or laxness with which regulations are enforced, and the like.[19]  The state will have a high degree of autonomy from society if the state is low in malleability, and high in insulation and resilience. 

         But the insulation, resilience, and malleability that account for the autonomy of the state are also determined, in Nordlinger’s formulation, by the availability to society of access to the state, and by the depth of a society’s intermediary institutions and associations[20] -- i.e., the way power and state-society relations are organized.  An inference can be drawn that the autonomy of the state and its officials rests, to a large degree, on the existence of these intermediary institutions and associations, their autonomy from the state and its officials, and their ease of access by society.  Where they are nonexistent or not autonomous, and where accordingly their availability to societal forces is limited, the state will tend to be highly autonomous.  Society, conversely, will be relatively non-autonomous vis-à-vis the state.

         Skocpol makes a similar point about state autonomy: namely, that it is not a simple phenomenon, nor does it stand alone.  It is closely tied to two main factors.  The first is the situation of state actors.  Their organizational resources and policy instruments, their means of utilizing power, their ideology, and their cohesion will influence their propensity to assert state autonomy.  These, in turn, determine the extent to which the state and its officials are autonomous from society.  The second factor is the strength or weakness of non-dominant segments and/or powerful private interests (especially economic interests), together with their degree of access to the state, i.e., via autonomous and accessibile intermediary institutions and channels to the state.  This will determine the degree to which the state responds to or ignores them, which is indicative of the extent to which the state preserves autonomy from society. 
         As Skocpol puts it, state autonomy is not "a fixed structural feature", but varies with the dynamics of politics.  Those dynamics centre on the question of who, or what, has privileged access to the state and is able to move it in the desired direction.[21]  In other words, state autonomy is largely the function of political interaction or, simply, politics. It is, fundamentally, the way power and politics are organized.[22] 


The Democratic Institutionalization of Political Power  
         Democratic systems occupy one end of the spectrum, representing in ideal-typical form, at the extreme end, a pluralistic system where the state is responsive to society and not very autonomous from it.  As discussed, the autonomy of the state hinges on (1) factors internal to the state, such as organizational resources and policy instruments, ideology or mind-set, cohesion of state elites, and (2) the availability of access to the state by social forces, i.e., the depth and autonomy of Nordlinger's "inter-mediary institutions and associations" that mediate state-society relations and interact-ions. 
         At this juncture, it will be useful to explore, briefly, some of the salient features of the state and how they relate to society.  Skocpol, citing Max Weber, notes that states are compulsory associations claiming control over territories and people within them.[23]  Administrative, legal, extractive, and coercive organizations are the core of any state.  States matter because of the power that enamates from them.  States may formulate and pursue goals that do not reflect the demands or interests of social groups, classes, or society,[24] i.e., they attempt to assert their autonomy from social groups.  However, states are variably structured.  The organizational configuration and structures of states, along with their overall patterns of activities, "affect political culture; encourage some kinds of group formation and collective political actions (but not others); and make possible the raising of certain political issues (but not others)".[25]  Some may be "embedded"[26] in some sort of constitutional-representative system of parliamentary decision-making or electoral contest for key executive and legislative posts, and some others, as implied, may take in various forms of non-parliamentary or authoritarian arrangements.  
         States vary in their structures and the way they function for a number of histor-ical, economic, political and cultural reasons, including, as an important reason, the actions of key elites.  Precisely because states do vary in their structures and in the way which political power is organized, it is possible to place along a continuum states exhibiting varying degrees of state autonomy.  Like democracy and authoritarianism, state autonomy is not an issue of "yes-and-no", but a matter of "more-or-less". 
         In a state where political power is democratically organized and the state is compelled by its own legal requirements to provide social forces with relatively open access to politics and avenues of political influence, and more freedom of political action, the state will be (and is) relatively less autonomous from society, and more responsive to competing social forces.  Poggi's thoughts on how political power is organized in a democratic polity[27] help clarify the patterns of autonomy in different states and regime, which further our understanding of some of the key differences between democratic and authoritarian states. 
         Poggi’s inquiry into the nature of the democratic state begins with the notion that in any state-society order, political power is paramount with respect to other social power.  Power -- the capacity to mobilize the energies of others, even against their will -- is grounded, in the political sphere, upon the possession of coercive capabilities.  The state holds the legitimate monopoly over these.[28]  Since political power directly relates to the state, the way it is organized will define its nature, and thus the measure of its autonomy as well. 
         What characterizes a democratic state is the fact that political power is organized and institutionalized in a particular way.  Present first is what Poggi terms "democratic legitimation": the state’s acknowledgement that it regards the citizens as the foundation of its rule and the "ultimate seat of all powers that it exercises."[29]  Second, he claims that a bond links the populace to the state via the notion of citizenship: a set of general and equal entitlements and obligations vested in individuals with respect to the state, as well as the content of society’s activity and outputs.[30]  Third, "the rule of law" exists.  Law is brought into the "organization of political power [and] the modes of its exercise," establishing what Weber called "legal-rational domination."[31]  Fourth, opposition to the state, debates and contestation over policies, critical orientations, and expressions are legitimized and institutionalized -- indeed, they are regarded as productive.  This in turn is linked to the idea of the public sphere: recognition of the rights of assembly, association, and petition.  Fifth, there is the established institution of representative government based on free and fair elections.[32]  

         An important point about the democratic institution of power is the situation of power-holders and officials.  To coin a phrase, power-holders are "temporary tenants of power": they are required to seek popular mandates in competitive elections.[33]  Also, they are subject to removal by political-legal means if they abuse their power.  Likewise, because officials exercise power on the public’s behalf, they are public servants, not masters.[34]  The state is not the "creature" of rulers and officials: the state is "separated," conceptually and institutionally, from officials and holders of power -- more accurately, from their personal preferences.[35]  In other words, the office is more important than the office-holder. 

         To summarize, the principles and practices of states where political power is democratically institutionalized establish the people (as citizens and electors) as the basis of rule.  Political power is "tamed" and depersonalized.  Citizens are able to protect themselves from the arbitrary exercise of power through legal safeguards and their legitimate right to participate in politics more or less independently of state control.  They are also able to make the state respond, in varying degrees, to their pref-erences.  The state-society interrelationship is monitored and moderated by the legal sphere and legal-rational procedures, binding on both rulers and ruled.  Power is institutionalized in such a way that state power -- and state autonomy -- is moderated by countervailing forces in the public sphere. 
         The above discussion of how power is organized illustrates that how the state is structured affects, among other things, the pattern of autonomy relations between the state and society.  It is wise at this point, however, to be aware that this portrait of the democratic polity, synthesized from Poggi’s work, is only a general conceptual one.  Despite some fundamental similarities, democracies do differ.  They range on the spectrum from the pure liberal democracy model to a more restrictive model of democracy that merges into the most mild form of authoritarianism on the spectrum.  


The Authoritarian Configuration of Political Power
         Historically, polities where political power is, in Poggi's definition, "democrat-ically institutionalized", are relatively new.  By contrast, untamed political power --its arbitrary use and exercise, its manifestation in a mode of domination based on power held by officials or derived from heredity -- has been with mankind since the dawn of recorded history.[36]  It is also more or less the norm in the Third World.  As with democratic systems, and perhaps more so, authoritarian systems vary considerably, from mild near the center of the spectrum to harsh near the totalitarian end. 

         The Third World authoritarian state, including the military-authoritarian state, is one where power is not democratically institutionalized.  It will suffice to say, as dis-cussed in the previous chapter, with reference to Juan Linz, David Beetham, and Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski,[37] that political power and state structures are arranged in such a way that key holders of power, and their power base in the military or the bureaucracy, or both, are largely unaccountable to (and more autonomous from) society, or what might be called the "public".  They are also "insufficiently subject to antecedent and enforceable rules of law".[38]  As Fred Riggs notes, with reference to Thailand,[39] the only meaningful political actors are power-holders and top officials, military and civilians --  an appraisal that could be applied to most Third World "milit-ary" regimes.  The state is quite highly "insulated" from society by a body of officials and power-holders.  Pressures that direct or influence the state come chiefly from within it, via "palace" politics, or by means of intra-military and intra-bureaucratic struggles, with the "public" (or the ruled), having very little say in "public affairs".[40] 

         Power, furthermore, is usually not de-personalized.  It rests largely in the hands of personal rulers -- to varying degrees, depending upon the ruler's ability to assert his dominance and/or autonomy from subordinate power-holders, the military, and cliques and factions within the ruling circle.[41]  Likewise, in the rest of the system, bureaucratic power is not institutionalized in a  rational-legal mode.  Rather, it tends to be characterized by particularistic, patrimonial relations that obscure the distinction between public and private domains, and between public and private goods.[42]  The state and its power structures are generally "semi-private" property, and are often used (or misused) by power- and office-holders for private gain.[43]   
         There is in such regimes, the removal -- but more commonly, the control and manipulation -- by bureaucratic elites of what Poggi calls the "public space" and inter-mediary institutions and associations: the means by which citizens participate in public affairs, and power-holders are pressured or made accountable.[44]  Subordinate segments ("the masses") are excluded, coercively depoliticized, and deprived of meaningful access to both the political arena and the state.  Owing to such an organizational con-figuration and structures, the Third World military-authoritarian state is, as a rule, quite autonomous, relative to society, but highly responsive to the preferences of state elites – including their private and personal concerns. 
         However, as Linz notes, although authoritarian orders are non-democratic, they are not totalitarian, despite the many similar traits.[45]  As discussed, there is found in authoritarian regimes a certain measure of participatory pluralism.  There often exist political parties -- but usually a "mobilizing" single-party, and sometimes an official party.  Also elections are held, legislatures are "elected" and sit in session, and "legis-lators" might even debate issues.  But the political and participatory pluralism in such regimes, in contrast to that in democracies, is limited, controlled, co-opted, and manipulated, as Linz notes.[46]  In consequence, the relative autonomy of society -- especially its non-dominant segments -- is quite low, in contrast to the state and its managers.  The above discussion on the way power is organized, and how this results in an authoritarian system, illustrates the importance of state structures -- namely, their centrality in shaping state-society politics and the relative autonomy pattern in nation-states. 
         At this point, it is important to note that authoritarian orders are not, as Friedrich and Brzezinski observe, based solely on coercion, repression, or violence.[47]  There also exists some version of consensus.  It is only in the initial stage of their establish-ment, or re-establishment that such consensus tends to be lacking.  Over time, they may develop some responsiveness and generate a viable consensus. (On the other hand, they may become more repressive).  A broad consensus may emerge as the populace becomes accustomed to authoritarian rule, or as some segments are given, or discover, opportunities for personal advancement and gain.[48]  We might add to this list the idea of consensus based on an ideology,[49] such as nationalism; on principles, such as constitutional monarchy; or on a founding constitution that is regarded as legitimate, and which the regime or the ruler might skilfully manipulate.  Owing, therefore, to varying mixtures of coercion, repression, violence, rewards, and consensus, authoritarian orders may prove quite durable.[50] 


The Military-Authoritarian Order and the State Stratum 

         The shift from one order to another, especially from incipient democracies to an authoritarian one, particularly in the Third World, does not occur by accident.  It involves human and political will.  Clearly, the impetus for change tends to arise not among those below, in the mass of the population, but among those who already possess the means to affect change, and also dislike the participation of contending social forces in politics.  In many, perhaps most, cases, it will be the military -- ambitious officers, the top brass, or the military chief -- who will most directly bring about the shift to authoritarianism.  The relocation of political power to the top will involve not only the mobilization and use of coercive agencies, but also the "occupation" by officials (or bureaucrats, armed and unarmed) of institutions that mediate interactions between state and society: representative bodies, political parties, and so on. 
         As Gerald Heeger notes, political roles and position are redefined as roles within the bureaucratic hierarchy.[51]  The net result is the insulation of the state from society by a special, hierarchically-organized collectivity of state officials – the "state stratum".[52]   In the Third World, the state stratum is in some respects a bureaucracy.  It is also, as James Petras suggests, a distinct social entity: a class-conscious, vertically- and horizontally-linked stratum.[53]  In military-authoritarian states, the class comprises both military and civilian officials, as well as government politicians and legislators, and intellectuals in "think tanks" and state universities.  Incidentally, members of the state stratum will comprise a large segment of the "middle class" of Third World societies.  This is the "new class" that Milovan Djilas isolated in the communist and socialist context.[54]  The typical Third World state stratum, like this "new class", achieves greater dominance through its hold over the state, on which it depends for its livelihood and accumulation of wealth.[55]  In this situation, as Clive Thomas notes, the "classic relation of economic power to political power" is reversed.  Economic power is consolidated "after political power and the state is captured".[56]  

         Members of this stratum are differentiated from other strata by various privileges and entitlements.  They are also imbued with a distinctive esprit de corps, often built around a strong "us-against-them" feeling towards the mass of the population.[57]  The existence of this stratum of state functionaries is crucial to the insulation and the non-malleability of the state, and enhances its independence (or autonomy) from society. 


The Personal Ruler in an Authoritarian Order 
         In addition to the distinct stratum of officials referred to, the most prominent feature of Third World authoritarianism (including its military-authoritarian variant) is the phenomenon of personal rule.[58]  It is defined by Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg as a system of rule predominating in a poorly institutionalized political arena.  The system is structured not by institutions but by the political players themselves.  It is a system where the formal rules of the political game do not effectively govern the con-duct of rulers or other political actors most of the time.  Rather,  political actions result more from personal power and private whims than are derived from established proc-edures inside institutions.[59]  Personal rulers are not linked with the "public", but to patrons, associates, clients, supporters and rivals, who constitute the "system".  As such, political power is not checked by institutions and formal rules.  Personal rulers are restrained -- if, and when, they are -- by the limits of their personal authority and power, and that of their patrons, associates, clients, supporters, and rivals.[60] 
         The authors note, however, that although countries with a comparatively low level of social and economic modernization are especially susceptible to personal rule, relatively "developed" states -- even modern, developed states -- are not immune to, as they put it, "personal authoritarianism".[61]  Personal rule is, according to the authors, inherently authoritarian.  It has given rise to "the narrowing of the public sphere and its monopolization by a single ruling party or a military oligarchy", under the direct con-trol, typically, of a dominant personality.[62]   This has transformed the political process into a private struggle for power and place.  It is politics marked by intra-regime fact-ionalism and personal rivalry -- "palace" politics and "court" intrigues -- that revolve around the ruler who exploits, encourages, and manipulates division within a quite narrow circle of key subordinate leaders, so as to maintain both his personal dominan-ce and system equilibrium (or power balance).[63]  

         In authoritarian orders established by military means, it is ordinarily the coup leader -- the officer who has managed to unite the military factions under his leader-ship, often the chief of the armed forces -- who emerges as the head of state.  He is the pivotal player and, as the military regime is consolidated, his role evolves from that of a "military dictator" to the ruler of a more complex (and perhaps legitimate) authoritar-ian order. 

         Further in this respect, it is worthwhile heeding Heeger’s point that in a military regime, the armed forces as a whole seldom rule.[64]  More often than not, the state is "captured" by a military faction or a small group of plotters (in rare cases involving civilian colleagues).[65]  After the capture of the state, in cases where the military has not yet been unified by a strongman, there will tend to follow a period of often-opaque struggle between military factions and aspirants to personal power.  Finally, a winner will tend to emerge; but it is also possible that intense military factionalism may never be effectively resolved, leading to a successor coup or coups, and sometimes to polit-ical disengagement -- a temporary or more enduring return to civilian rule.[66]


The Strongman-Ruler and the Politics of Military Factions  
         After the capture of the state by the military, as a personal ruler dominating an authoritarian order that is well on the way to consolidation, the strongman-ruler will have to "tame the tiger" on whose back he rode to power: the armed forces.  He will need to make it a more pliant instrument, which may involve turning it into a more professional, less overtly politicized body.  This he may accomplish by playing factions off against each other; by appointing loyalists to strategic positions; by restructuring the chain of command; or by removing elite units from the operational control of the top brass.  He will often resort to purges of actual or potential military rivals (usually senior officers, and those with an excess of ability or ambition).  He will also keep top soldiers off balance, by transferring them or by compelling them to spy on each other. 
         The military may also be tamed by the provision of rewards, as noted in the earl-ier chapter.  Rewards for the military as a whole may include bigger military budgets, more modern military hardware, the funding of pet projects, the granting of commerc-ial monopolies and other opportunities to accumulate wealth through the selling or "renting" of influence, bribery, corruption, and extortion.  Officers may be given positions as government politicians, legislators, bureaucratic "czars," and the like, both to keep them busy and divided amongst themselves.  Rewards also tie them more closely to the "great benefactor": the strongman-ruler.  The provision of rewards and opportunities will entrench soldiers more deeply in the structure of power, giving them a personal stake in upholding both the authoritarian system and the preeminence of the ruler-and-benefactor.

         The strongman-ruler may also attempt to keep the military in check by creating new centres of power headed by civilians who are wholly dependent on his favours.  He might even allow the civilian bureaucracy or the governing party a degree of auton-omy from the military, thereby offsetting the military’s role and influence with a net-work of civilian ministers, bureaucratic czars, and governmental party bosses.  Often the ruler will create special intelligence agencies which are given wide powers both to sow fear among the populace and to spy on members of the officer corps. 
         This phenomenon of the shifting relationship between the strongman-ruler and the military is well-documented in the literature on military regimes.  It has, however, been insufficiently theorized.  The gap in the literature seems to derive from a failure to appreciate the changes that occur in the role and status of the strongman-ruler vis-à-vis the military, as he becomes more of a "national" leader and presides over a more complex and mature authoritarian order.[67]


Building Authoritarian Orders: Differing Strategies and Different Outcomes 
         As the pivotal figure in a complex authoritarian order, the strongman-ruler is further prodded to extend and consolidate his personal control and to legitimize the fact of his dominance.  The particular strategy employed will depend on the psycho-logical makeup, skill, and style of the strongman-ruler.  He may choose to construct a new order that is based on soldiers alone.  He will then insert soldiers into the power structure with little regard for the former occupants (that is, civilian officers, techno-crats and previous political appointees). 
         In other cases, military dominance will be "diluted".[68]  For example, the ruler, while reliant on the military, will not only incorporate civilian officials into the new order, but also various technocrats, politicians, notables, and so on.  A wider and more inclusive support base is the intended result.  In the process, civilian bureaucrats may be made into reliable -- if at times coerced and intimidated -- supporters of the reorganized authoritarian order.[69]  In keeping with, as Linz notes, limited political pluralism that marks authoritarian regimes, as discussed, the ruler will build up a constitutional façade -- consisting of political parties, electoral processes, legislative-representative assemblies, and corporatist-style bodies like official trade unions, business councils, trade associations, and a variety of government-sponsored bodies that "represent" peasants, women, and so on.[70]  As the regime "matures," the façade may gain legitimacy, and actually come to function as quite a stable institutional framework for the new order.

         The strategy selected by the strongman-ruler to consolidate his position and routinize authoritarian rule will, I maintain, shape the contours and trajectory of the authoritarian order.  (It must be noted that a mixture of intervening variables -- econ-omic, social, political, external -- is also brought into play; the way the ruler reacts to them will play a large part in this regard.)  Military-authoritarian regimes will therefore vary widely in their structures, patterns of state-society interaction, and relative auton-omy relations, and so on.[71]  
         In some cases, the outcome may be a state that is autocratic, exclusionary, "strong" (in its capacity to repress, at least), and highly autonomous -- but weak in re-solving problems, and unable to win minimal acceptance from the wider society, owing either to poor economic performance, gross injustices, or increasing alienation.  In others, the state may prove to be comparatively strong and stable politically and economically, enduring to, or beyond, the final years of the strongman-ruler. 
         In the longer run, or with the passage of years, however, these states may be faced with potentially serious problems.  In cases where states practice some degree of democracy or where constitutional documents enshrine democratic principles, or rulers employ democratic rhetoric to legitimize their hold on power, the regime will be dependent on continuing and uninterrupted "performance legitimacy" to contain pressures for political liberalization.  In cases where the state is unable to win minimal acceptance, the cost to the regime of maintaining power through coercion, in the absence of legitimacy, can be expected to keep rising.  These potential problems will tend to be deepened by a range of new challenges.  For example, there are those arising from regional or global power re-alignments, changes in society as a result of economic failure or success, growing tensions between rivals power factions in the ruling circle, and the physical or political weakening of the ruler himself.  Also, the regime and the strongman-ruler may also be challenged by a popular, charismatic leader advocating a democratic alternative, or perhaps preaching a fundamentalist religious message that articulates growing popular resentment against (or alienation from) the regime. 

         Faced with these challenges, the entire authoritarian edifice may unexpectedly collapse (as may democratic structures for a different set of reasons).  Alternatively, the military may violently restore authoritarian rule under a new strongman-ruler.  In the absence of a strongman-ruler, there may be a period of coups and counter-coups as factions and aspiring strongmen battle for dominance.  Or political stalemate may result, with neither the military nor the opposition winning a decisive victory.  This can result in protracted struggle until one side achieves victory, or until a compromise of sorts is reached.[72]  

         A crucial point is that since the whole military-authoritarian order is kept in balance by the skill of the strongman-ruler, it is highly vulnerable to a succession crisis.  This could also lead to a crisis in the transition -- a transition from one state order to another.  Since most such orders are not firmly institutionalized and, more importantly, lack established procedures for succession and/or transition, the decline or death of a strongman-ruler can constitute a dangerous political flashpoint.  The crises derive in large part from the personalistic nature of rule: the close identification, over time, of the strongman-ruler with the government, the state, the nation, or because his personal preferences largely influence, or subvert, state policies.  This illustrates the extent to which the state’s high degree of autonomy relative to society, and its low autonomy vis-à-vis the strongman-ruler, can result in system instability, or at least considerable uncertainty. 

The Pattern of Autonomy Relations in Military Authoritarian Regimes 
         The vulnerability of the regime to succession and transition crises suggests that the issue of the relative autonomy of the state is more complex than is sometimes acknowledged.  The complexity suggests that a different category of autonomy relat-ions may obtain in authoritarian orders. 

         In the literature on state autonomy, debates have mainly centred on the degree of autonomy of the state versus society.  They address the relative degree of autonomy of the state, or independence from society granted to state decision-makers, including high-ranking bureaucrats (including military officers where it applies), and technocrats (or techno-bureaucrats) working within the policy-making apparatus of the state (all of whom will, in the proceding passages, sometimes be referred to, for brevity, as "state officials").  It is however assumed that state officials are public servants and that their preferences are bound by the rational-legal, public-oriented norms.[73]  For example, the preferences of presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet ministers are assumed to be policy-related and in the public domain.  Their private preferences and agendas are regarded as marginal to the policy preferences they champion and support.

         It is, however, the view of this thesis that, just as state and society can be con-ceptualized as two intersecting, interrelated, but potentially independent variables,[74] so can the state and its component officials be analyzed along similar lines.  Although officials are of the state, if their private preferences largely determine the content of state outputs (i.e., corruption), then a situation arises where officials or key power-holders, and their preferences do not belong, conceptually, to the "public" state.  In such instances, they can be conceived as being independent vis-à-vis the state.

         In Third World military-authoritarian states in particular, along with other authoritarian orders, a situation often arises in which some segment of officials, espec-ially military, are not the servants of the state, but its masters.  The state's institutions (the executive and legislative branches, the administrative bureaucracy, regulatory and law-enforcement agencies, the courts, and so on), being subordinated to key power-holders or to the top brass, will often reflect the latter's personal preferences.  There-fore, I argue that the relatively autonomous state vis-à-vis society is relatively non-autonomous from the preferences of high officials or the military and its officer class.

         Military-authoritarian regimes and states are distinguished by three interrelated characteristics which illuminate autonomy relations between, on the one hand, the state (and its institutions), and on the other, state officials (who make decisions within the state's institutions).  The first characteristic arises from the transformation of political actors into bureaucratic ones, as some politicians are replaced as representatives or legislators by soldiers (and bureaucrats), as others are excluded or co-opted, and as political parties are banned, manipulated, or neutralized.[75]  An almost completely "depoliticized hierarchy of governmental organizations" is created as a substitute for a more or less autonomous political arena.[76]  The explanation for this state of affairs lies in the distrust of politics that many military and authoritarian leaders exhibit, along with their strong dislike of social conflicts to which politics is held to contribute.[77]  The distrust of political participation extends, as Heeger notes, to regime-sponsored or -sanctioned political parties, and even to its own party.[78]  The latter is usually insulated from decision-making and not permitted to develop as an autonomous institution.  It is used mainly to win votes, manage political participation, and mobilize, theoretically, the "people," -- in fact the regime’s supporters.[79]  Its other function is to manage, manipulate, and control the representative-legislative sphere (which serves also to provide regime with a mantle of constitutional legitimacy). 
         Because the political arena and the institutions that mediate state-society inter-action are neutralized or controlled, the means by which society can influence or press-ure the state are abolished or radically reduced.  The first characteristic contributes to making the state highly autonomous, or less "malleable" - in Nordlinger’s formulation - thereby increasing its "insulation" and "resilience."[80]  This malleability, though, is not as simple as Nordlinger presents it.  In military-authoritarian states – in authoritarian orders more generally – the state is non-malleable only so far as the public is concern-ed.  It may be exceedingly malleable if the private interests of key power-holders are considered: those of the strongman-ruler, the top brass, favored bureaucrats and their patron-cronies, clan members, and so on.

         Viewed from this angle, the authoritarian state does not seem to have much autonomy, which leads us to a second characteristic of this type of regime: the erosion of the bureaucracy’s organizational integrity and autonomy.  After the military’s seiz-ure of power, as politicians are replaced by bureaucrats, the bureaucracy --military, administrative, and political -- is increasingly brought under the personal control of the strongman-ruler, who holds all meaningful power.  As a consequence, impersonal, rational-legal bureaucratic norms are displaced by operational modes and relationships based on patrimonial reciprocity, patronage bonds, personal obligations, and loyalty to immediate superiors -- above all, to the strongman-ruler. 

         A third characteristic follows from the second.  With the whole bureaucracy becoming less rational-legal oriented, more patrimonial, personalistic, and particular-istic,[81] the state’s policy outputs come increasingly to reflect the personal-patrimonial preferences (of state officials), rather than preferences bounded by rational-legal norms and a public-oriented agenda.  The state then becomes the "creature" of the strongman-ruler and, to a varying extent, trusted subordinates (together with their respective personal networks and connections).  The relative autonomy of the state is eroded to reflect the interests of those who exercise key power within it.

         Due to these three characteristics, then, there obtains a pattern of relative auton-omy in which the state is (a) autonomous from society, and (b) more or less "captured" by, and made more malleable to, or non-autonomous from those who hold power or high state and/or military positions.  The pattern of state autonomy in military-authoritarian orders is therefore more complex than it seems.   

         In military-authoritarian states, the pattern of relative autonomy relations are thus shaped by the shifting dynamics between three elements -- the state, state officials (or key power-holders), and society.  As a consequence, the pattern of autonomy relations will differ not only from those in democracies, but among, and also within, a particular military-authoritarian order over time.  It will vary according to the ways in which the three elements -- the state, officials or power-holders, and society  -- relate to one another within the system. 

Military Intervention: The Questions, Concepts, and the Arguments
         The inquiry into the military intervention phenomenon is chiefly prompted by concern (echoed by scholars like Kennedy, Louscher, and Crouch[82]) about the unsatis-factory exploration and explanation of the great variety of roles the military may play, and the diverse political and socio-economic circumstances military actors find them-selves in after the state is captured.  More plainly put, the study primarily examines what happens after the military seizes power.  They are, first, why the military decides to stay on to rule and to reorganize political power;   second, how (in what ways) the military decides to reorganize power;  third,  what kind of military authoritarian pattern emerges when the military chief becomes the state strongman-ruler; and fourth, how differences between, and within regimes, over time, are to be explained? 

         To help in the search for answers to these questions, I have constructed a theoretical framework built around existing concepts on military intervention and the state, state autonomy and relative autonomy; the organization and reorganization of political power in democratic and non-democratic polities; authoritarianism and milit-ary regimes, and authoritarianism and personal rule.  I have, on this basis, synthesized a conceptual framework that looks into three interrelated issues (and questions pertin-ent to them):  (1) the military and the politics of military intervention as they relate to the reorganization of power in the state;  (2) the pivotal role of, and strategies employ-ed by, the military strongman in the reorganization of political power (and long-term outcomes), the relationship between the ruler and his power base in the military; and  (3) the nature of military authoritarian orders, their structures (or organizational con-figuration); autonomy relations; the degree of authoritarianism exercised, and the dom-inance (or otherwise) of the military, in the countries examined -- Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand.

         Utilizing this framework, I will show that military intervention is a complex, often protracted phenomenon involving the engagement and the use of the armed forces to change the way power is organized.  The intention, as noted, is usually to render the state more authoritarian, reinforcing its autonomy vis-à-vis society.  The result is what we ordinarily term "military regimes," and the implicit assumption we make is that military regimes are similar enough that they are hardly worthwhile distinguishing. 
         I maintain, however, that despite the common features of military intervention and backing, these regimes do differ significantly.  They vary in terms of the way the state is run, its nature and goals, the extent to which the military participates in governance and dominates the political sphere, and the pattern of relative autonomy relations.  They also vary in the degree they are authoritarian: some may be highly authoritarian, some less so, and some may even be quasi-democratic (broadly defined). 

         The exact form of the reorganization of state structures and institutions in a military-authoritarian order will vary widely.  This is because much depends on the goals, political will, and astuteness of different strongman-rulers who oversee the process in their respective countries.  The degree of autonomy exhibited by the state will also largely depend on the varied systems of governance and control put in place by the strongman-rulers.

         The strongman-ruler who assumes power with military backing indeed has a unique relationship with the military – he is, after all, its chief.  But over time, he will tend to be transformed into a "state" ruler, and his bond with the military will almost invariably slacken.  Accordingly, he will need to take action to maintain his dominan-ce over the military.  At the same time, for the sake of legitimacy, it may be necessary or desirable for the ruler to "separate" himself from the military.  It is not uncommon for a military-authoritarian regime to be converted into a "civilian"-led, military-backed regime, headed by the military ruler now clad in mufti.  The significance of this change varies according to the goals and capabilities of the strongman-ruler.  It may be purely cosmetic, or it may lead to efforts to subordinate the military in its political role, while at the same time seeking to avoid incurring its wrath.

         If successful, the ruler’s attempts to subordinate and personally dominate the military will result in the latter becoming a safely co-opted, quiescent elite body.  The military and its personnel will often be rewarded with positions in the state or in representative-legislative bodies (including perhaps the government-sponsored political party).  If they are abundantly rewarded with budgets, projects, economic opportunit-ies, and the like, the military will likely accept without demur some reduction in its political role and influence.  This will obtain provided that the ruler retains his mani-pulative skills and political savvy, and the military does not perceive itself as being "pushed out" in ways that injure its corporate interests and self-image as protector of the nation.  

         Further, in order to dilute the influence of the military, the strongman-ruler may attempt to co-opt other groups into the ruling circle, or recruit new supporters from among elite segments of society: technocrats, bankers, professionals, businessmen, local notables, and so on.  Over time, as the state's structures changes shape, this may reduce the state’s autonomy vis-à-vis societal and economic elite, though this conseq-uence is often unintended and unforeseen.  And attempts may even be made by the strongman-ruler and his subordinates (including those in the military) to obstruct and restrict the "opening" of the state sphere to individuals, groups and sectors outside its parameters.

         It is possible that in the long run, the autonomy of the state may decline in military-authoritarian regimes and states.  To test this and other arguments advanced in these preliminary chapters, I turn now to an examination of three Southeast Asian countries where the military has been politically active and prominent: Burma, Indonesia, and Thailand. 



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E N D N O T E S ---------------------------------------

 CHAPTER TWO:

 THE MILITARY AND THE STATE

 



[1]  Naomi Chazan, "Patterns of State-Society Incorporation and Disengagement in Africa", in Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 121-148.

 

[2]  Vivienne Shue, The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 25-29.  Shue speaks of looking at politics as a process, i.e., the "patterns of flux and flow" among elements that constitute and animate the polity itself, including interactions between elements of the state (bureaucracy, army, party, etc.) and elements of society (elites, village communities, families, and so on).

 

[3]  Cited in Bertrand Badie and Pierre Birnbaum, The Sociology of the State (Chicago: Chicago Univ-ersity Press, 1983), p. 10.

 

[4]  Ibid., p. 4. A formulation more recent than Marx's in this vein is Moore’s thesis, whereby the posit-ion of the feudal class (the landowning class) vis-à-vis the bourgeoisie is posited as determining the two paths of capitalism: the parliamentary democratic path, or dictatorship. See Barrington Moore, Jr., The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lords and Peasants in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966), esp. Ch. 7 (pp. 413-432).

 

[5]  Badie and Birnbaum, The Sociology of the State, pp. 4-7. 

 

[6]  Ibid., pp. 5, 7-8.  The authors, however, note that in most of his writings on the state, Marx aband-oned "the subtlety of his earlier arguments" and reverted to a mechanistic, reductionist vision.

 

[7]  Eric A. Nordlinger, On the Autonomy of the Democratic State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981).

 

[8]  Ibid., p. 40. Officials achieve state autonomy by either transforming divergent societal preferences into non-divergent ones (what is termed Type II autonomy), or by ignoring, neutralizing or overcoming societal constraints (Type I autonomy).  For Type II and Type I, see pp. 99-117, 118-143, 144-181. Type III autonomy occurs where there is no serious divergence between the preferences of the state (public officials) and society (see pp. 74-98). 

 

[9]  Gianfranco Poggi, The State, Its Nature, Development and Prospects (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990), esp. Ch. 8, pp. 128-144. 

 

[10]  Ibid., pp. 131-32. 

 

[11]  Ibid., pp. 134-36, 142, also 173-196 (Ch.10).

 

[12]  Theda Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In: Current Research", in Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (London: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 3-37.

 

[13]  For a brief overview of the various positions on state autonomy, see Ibid., pp. 4-7.

 

[14]  At this point, a clarification is called for concerning the preferences of state officials, mentioned in (among other discussions) Nordlinger’s and Poggi’s presentation of the preferences and relative autonomy of state officials. Here, the underlying implication is that (a) state officials are public serv-ants as understood in the West and generally in academia; and (b) their preferences are related to policies in the public domain, not personal and private considerations. (Nor are they shaped by pat-rimonial relationships, structures, and modes of operation.) The authors are more or less silent about instances where state officials are only marginally "servants of the public" – as in the many Third World states – and where their preferences tend more towards the personal than the public.

 

[15]  Eric A. Nordlinger, "Taking the State Seriously", in Myron Weiner and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Understanding Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1987), pp. 353-390.

 

[16]  Ibid,, p. 372.

 

[17]  Ibid., pp. 373-376 (on malleability).

 

[18]  Ibid., pp. 376-78 (on insulation and cohesion). Officials in a cohesive state can ignore societal support if they control abundant military, paramilitary, and police forces. These enable them to dis-suade opponents from actively challenging them, or to repress opposition. The author concedes that a less cohesive or "divided" state may also opt for repressive rule. Because it is divided, it will choose repression as a means of self-preservation.

 

[19]  Ibid., pp. 379-82 (on resilience) 

 

[20]  Ibid., p. 388.

 

[21]  Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In", pp. 14 and 16.  In support of Skocpol’s point about state autonomy, it should be noted that in the Third World, the state is "insulated" ("separated") from society by a state stratum, as discussed later in the chapter. However, it is not autonomous from (and is highly responsive to) the interests of those who control and manage the state or are linked to the state – powerholders, officials, and those linked in turn to them by patrimonial bonds.

 

[22]  Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In",  p. 25.

 

[23]   Ibid., p. 7.

 

[24]  Ibid., p. 7, 9.

 

[25]  Ibid., pp. 21-22.

 

[26]  "Embedded" is the term used by Skocpol (Ibid., p. 7).

 

[27]  The conceptual and organizational framework presented here as underlying democratic states and polities (despite numerous variations) is based on Poggi, The State, Its Nature, op. cit., and Gianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978).

 

[28]  For a comprehensive discussion of social power (including political power), and an argument that political power is paramount in the state-society formation, see Poggi, The State, Its Nature, pp. 3-18 (Ch.1).

 

[29]  Ibid., p. 28. The notion that power legitimates itself, and can be used arbitrarily by those holding power, is anathema to notion of democratic governance and politics. As for legitimacy, a comment by Weber can be applied to most Third World states. According to Weber, a system of domination that is protected by the obvious community of interests among state elites -- and where the populace has no say -- is one where even the pretense of legitimacy is unnecessary. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 214. 

 

[30]  Poggi, The State, Its Nature, p. 28. It must be noted, however, that the notions of democratic leg-itimation and citizenship are "universal" in the sense that they have, in one form or another, been adopted by all contemporary states, including authoritarian ones – at least formally, in that they are constitutionally enshrined in many authoritarian, even totalitarian, states. 

 

[31]  Ibid., pp. 29-30. The state creates a separate, independent sphere of law and a legal process, to which all, including agents of the state, submit.

 

[32]  Ibid., pp. 55-6. Representation via free, fair, and competitive elections gives a concrete reality to the notion that power comes from the people as electors. It also gives meaning to the notion that the people somehow rule or govern themselves. The fact or perception that elected representatives are controlled by the party leadership, or are unduly influenced by monied or powerful interests, does not totally negate  this notion: citizens are empowered periodically as voters to elect new representatives, or to put a new party in power.

 

[33]  Poggi’s concern about the trend towards reduced citizens’ participation in the public sphere, esp-ecially in elections, is quite valid. It stems, as Poggi also notes, from the emphasis of television and other media on "noise" rather than information; the reduction of issues to "sound bites"; "media circus-es" and sensationalized trivia; messages urging mindless consumption; and so on. In addition, job and family pressures, the complexity of policy decisions and problems (along with a lack of accurate infor-mation available to the public), and a variety of other factors have led to the increased "privatization of concerns" and decreased citizen participation in the public sphere. Poggi, The State, Its Nature, pp.136-138. 

 

[34]  Since they are not "masters," politicians and government functionaries in democracies are nowadays not accorded reverence as superiors; indeed, they are regularly subjected to satire, usually with impunity (consider television shows such as "Saturday Night Live" and "Yes, Prime Minister", as well as cari-catures in newspapers). The deference and reverence that not only national leaders but the lowest bur-eaucrat may expect in non-Western countries is perhaps the most crucial difference between these soc-ieties and their Western counterparts. This may reflect both culture and its offshoot, "political culture." One should not underestimate the success that Third World governments and elites have had in social-izing the ruled into a superior-inferior relationship, and the extent the political-socioeconomic elites have benefitted from neo-traditional values and structures. For an insightful portrayal of the successful "re-traditionalization" of society in Southeast Asia, see Niels Mulder, Inside Southeast Asia: Thai, Javanese and Filipino Interpretations of Everyday Life (Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1992).

 

[35]  To clarify: although state officials operate in the public domain, they also have private preferences. In many non-democratic states, or states that are pervaded by patrimonial norms and structures, there arises a situation where (a) officials’ preferences are often more private than public; (b) the state’s public offices and power structures are used by state officials (especially those at the apex of the hierarchy) to advance their private agenda. This leads to a situation where the private preferences of officials (especially the personal ruler or the military ruler) become policies of state – a situation that contradicts the "public" nature of the state, or the concept of the state as a public institution. In practice, there is no firm "boundary" (or strong institutionalized distinction), or at best a very fuzzy one, between state officials and the state in terms of the preferences they display. Private preferences effectively become state or public policies.

 

[36]  For a comprehensive account of ancient bureaucratic empires (Egyptian, Roman, Persian, Chinese, etc.), see S.N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (London: Macmillan, 1963).

 

[37]  Juan Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes", in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W.Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science: Macropolitical Theory, Vol.3 (London: Addison-Wesley Publish-ing Company, 1975), pp. 175-411;  David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (London: Macmillan, 1991); and Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (New York: Frederick A.Praeger, 1965). Friedrich and Brzezinski dispute Lenin’s claim to have created a "new type of state," and argue that although the Soviet state represents "a radical departure from the traditional and hereditary autocracy," it is only "a new species of autocracy" (p. 3).The authors use the term "autocratic" for non-democratic, authoritarian regimes. They include in this category, military dictatorships and related forms of emergency rule, and the modern personal regimes of Francisco Franco of Spain and Charles De Gaulle of France (op cit., p. 8). 

 

[38]  Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, p. 4, 8-9.

 

[39]  Fred Riggs, Thailand: The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1966).

 

[40]  Ibid., pp. 197, 212, 326-361, 378-381. To better appreciate the relationships between  (a) the state, (b) state elites (or officials and functionaries), and (c) citizens (or society), it is instructive to examine Riggs’ schema of the dynamics of four basic components of a polity – the people (society), state elites or officials (the state), political parties (power organizations), and assemblies (political institutions) – as they are configured in different polities. In a democracy, citizens (society) are the basis of rule, since they exert control over officials and policies (the state and its outputs) via parties (power organizations) and assemblies (political institutions). By contrast, in a party-tutelage system, essentially authoritarian in character, the single party (a specialized power organization) or its leaders, constitutes the basis of rule. The party controls assemblies, officials (the state), and society. In a bureaucratic tutelage system, which is also authoritarian, officials (the state) are the basis of rule; they control citizens/society via the manipulation or control of parties and assemblies (op cit., esp., pp. 181-182).

 

[41]  Friedrich and Brzezinski note that an autocracy need not be ruled by a single person. The rule may also be collective, as with rule by bureaucrats – including "armed bureaucrats." See Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, p. 8. The term "armed bureaucrats," applied to soldiers, is found in Edward Feit, The Armed Bureaucrats (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973). Feit argues that military takeovers are propelled by a perceived threat both to order and to the state, by political interference in military affairs, and by the military’s principled interest or goal – to regenerate society and reconstruct the polity along "just" lines (p. 18). 

 

[42]  Guillermo O’Donnell, "Transitions, Continuities, and Paradoxes", in Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O’Donnell, & J. Samuel Valenzuela, eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democratization in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), pp. 17-56 (esp. p. 39). The author also discuss similarities, in some respects, between contemp-orary authoritarian-patrimonial domination in Latin America and that in ancient patrimonial societies (pp. 36, 39, 50). See also Max Weber, Economy, pp. 774, 776, 784.  On the patrimonialization of Third World bureaucracies and states, see Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics: An Introduction (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 44-60.

 

[43]  In this sense, the state, its offices and agencies – for example, the military – are all transformed into semi-private (if not private) "property" of powerholders/officials, who "rent" it out. See Richard Tanter, "Oil, IGGI and US Hegemony: The Global Pre-Conditions for Indonesian Rentier-Militarization", in Arief Budiman, ed., State and Civil Society in Indonesia (Monash University: Monash Papers on South-east Asia, 1988), pp. 51-98.

 

[44]  See Poggi, The State, Its Nature, pp. 145-72. The above conceptual map of a state-society con-figuration where political power is not democratically institutionalized, is synthesized from Poggi’s discussion of the contemporary democratic state, and of what he calls "a new type of state", i.e., authoritarian (communist) states. My framework here is also derived from a more specific study of Third World authoritarianism: Clive Y. Thomas, The Rise of the Authoritarian State in Peripheral Soc-ieties (London: Monthly Review Press, 1984), esp. pp. 49-112. 

 

[45]  Juan Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes", pp. 241-242. 

 

[46]  Ibid., pp. 265-266, 269-274. 

 

[47]  Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy,  pp. 10-12 (the authors discuss the use of violence and terror and interrelated "autocratic cycle" and "violence cycle").   

 

[48]  Ibid., pp. 12-13.

 

[49]  See Feit, The Armed Bureaucrats, p.18-19. Feit argues that the military will be unable to achieve its goal of building "national unity". It can only build what he calls “cohesion without consensus,” owing to its inability to formulate a unifying ideology, and because of its distrust of other groups in society, and hence unwillingness to work with them, except on its own terms. However, there are, it might be added, rare military leaders, like Thailand's General Prem -- also perhaps, Chaovalit, a general-turned-politic-ian (and the current Thai Prime Minister) -- who deeply appreciates the need to bargain with and accommodate politicians and other interest groups, and do not feel the urge to impose the military's version of "unity" over the whole society. All societies are generally pluralistic, if not ethnically, then at least in terms of interest and concerns.

 

[50]  Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, pp.12-13. It might be added that the transition from a simple military regime to a more complex authoritarianism order is usually mark-ed by the "civilianization" of the military dictator and his close subordinates. This is often accompanied by the adoption of the military regime of a new constitution, and in some cases, the holding of "success-ful plebicites", (as in Burma in 1974) or a post-constitution "elections" (in Thailand in 1969 by the Thanom and Praphart military regime, Indonesia in 1971, after Golkar was formed).

 

[51]  Heeger, The Politics of Underdevelopment, pp. 117-118.

 

[52]  The term "state stratum" will be used interchangeably with "a stratum of state officials (or state managers)". Here, it describes a collectivity of officials and power-holders who are in more or less "permanent occupation" of the state’s structures of power. "State stratum" avoids the problems inher-ent in the terminology common among Marxist and neo-Marxist scholars: "state petty bourgeoisie" (Clive Thomas), "bureaucratic bourgeoisie" (Issa Shivji), "state bourgeoisie" (Nicos Poulantzas), and so forth. The problem is that "bourgeoisie" is used to cover all those who are not peasants or the "proletar-iat". It is also an imprecise term that covers a range of population segment that own "property" (very widely defined). See Clive Thomas, The Rise, pp. 59-60; Issa Shivji, "Tanzania: The Silent Class Struggle", in L. Cliffe and J.S. Saul, eds., Socialism in Tanzania, Vol. 2 (Nairobi: East African Publish-ing House, 1973), pp. 304-330; and Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Class (London: New Left Books, 1973), p. 334. The problem of "who rules" in Third World states, in class terms, has been much debated. The most commonly-cited works in this regard are Hamza Alavi, "The State in Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh", New Left Review, 71 (January-February, 1972), pp. 59-81;  John Saul, "The State in Post Colonial Societies: Tanzania", The Socialist Register 1974, pp. 349-72; and Colin Leys, "The ‘Overdeveloped’ Post-Colonial State: A Re-evaluation", Review of African Political Economy (January-April 1976), pp. 39-48. 

 

[53]  See James Petras, "State Capitalism and the Third World", Development and Change, 8 (1977), pp. 1-17.  Concerning the distinctiveness of the state stratum, in the Third World context (notably in South-east Asia, except Singapore), even the lowest state employees are regarded by the lower strata and peasants as "superior" beings. State employees, in turn, tend to view non-officials as "inferior", and often, as unrefined, ignorant. It is not uncommon to see peasants humbling themselves before a lowly township clerk, even in an unofficial social context. Moreover, in recruitment processes, those connect-ed to state employees by kinship or other ties are likely to do better in entry exams than those lacking them. As such, the state stratum is not as open and meritocratic as it would seem. Nor does it owe its cohesion to official functions or roles. The social and cultural context, especially patrimonial-kinship factors, are factored in.

 

[54]  Milovan Djilas, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System (New York: HJB Book, 1983), first published 1953. 

 

[55]  The discussion of the state stratum in authoritarian Third World polities draws on Djilas’s analysis (The New Class, pp.37-48).  Clive Thomas’s work on the "state petty bourgeoisie", is also referred to. See Thomas, The Rise.

 

[56]  Thomas, The Rise, pp. 61-2. As Djilas puts it, it is also a situation where necessary administrative functions may coexist with parasitic functions in the same person.  See Djilas, The New Class, pp. 39-40. Tanter’s discussion on the “renting” of state and public offices by their holders for private gain is a good example of the parasitic nature of the state stratum. See Tanter, "Oil, IGGI".

 

[57]  They are socialized into, or ascribe to, a statist ideology (so that their prime loyalty is to the gov-ernment); speak the same "language" (although they may actually speak a variety of tongues); live in special housing estates; and enjoy better amenities, facilities, and usually enjoy a higher standard of life. In many Southeast Asian countries, officials even dress differently – in Western or military-like garb with badges, insignias, etc., in contrast (sometimes sharply) to the peasants, comprising the population majority, who wear traditional garbs. This suggests the need, consciously or otherwise, of many author-itarian rulers to awe the ruled with pomp and splendour, and to mystify both power and their hold on power. Or alternatively, the drawing of a sharp line between officialdom and the populace may be the legacy of colonialism in part, and in part inherent in the hierarchical traditional culture and political culture. Owing to the quite obvious distinction drawn between those belonging to the "state stratum" and those outside, it is more or less appropriate to attribute to the state stratum the same "distinctiveness" accorded to socio-economic classes or communal groups. Often, the shared "affinities" and interests between officials of different ethnic groups may be stronger than those they have in common with the majority of members of their respective ethnic groups. In many respects, the identity-formation process of most Third World "state stratum" are quite similar to those of national-identity formation, as discuss-ed by Benedict Anderson: a common "language," a shared space (or "territory"), a shared "history" and "tradition," regular contacts, communication, and so on. For an excellent discussion on the construction and birth of national identity, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).

 

[58]  Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), esp. pp. 5-8, 14-21, 22-31, 37-38, 64-65, 73-82. The authors’ examination of personal rule in Africa is broadly applicable to polities dominated by a paramount leader in other Third World areas. For analyses of personal rule in non-Third World polit-ies, focused mainly on "totalitarian dictators" like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, see Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship, esp., pp. 31-44. See also Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994).   

 

[59]  Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule, pp. 11-12. 

 

[60]  Ibid., p. 19.

 

[61]  Ibid., pp. 21.Examples the authors give of relatively "developed" Asian countries where "personal authoritarianism" is found, are Singapore, and Taiwan (in the 1970s). The modern, developed countries they cite are Italy, Germany, and Yugoslavia (before its partition in the early 1990s). However, as Linz points out and history shows, even regimes that might be regarded as firmly institutionalized such as Nazi Germany, experienced personal rule. In such instances, personal rule is, according to Linz, owed to a "committment to an indisputeable ideology that expresses inexorable laws of history". See, Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes", p. 207.

 

[62]  Ibid., p.23-24.  

 

[63]  Ibid., p. 24. 

 

[64]  Heeger, The Politics of Underdevelopment, p. 108.

 

[65]  In this respect, it might be noted that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was a party-man (of the Ba’ath party), not a military officer. The military became his power base and instrument of rule only after he attained power. Such instances are rare in the Third World -- though not so rare as in the Second or First World, where a party or a movement (rather than the armed forces) serves as a vehicle for the consolidation and maintenance of the dictator’s personal dominance. 

 

[66]  In earlier analyses, military cohesion – or the lack of it – after the seizure of power was seldom attributed to the presence or absence of a unifying military strongman.  For example, Martin Needler discusses the breakdown of military cohesion in terms of disagreements between hardliners and soft-liners. See Martin C. Needler, "Political Development and Military Intervention in Latin America," in Henry Bienen, ed., The Military and Modernization (New York: Atherton, 1971), pp. 79-101 (esp. pp. 86-94). Claude E. Welch, Jr., and Arthur K. Smith also discuss military cohesion, and see low military cohesion as the cause of frequent counter-coup attempts, and unstable and ineffective military rule more generally, as in Thailand (1947) and Nigeria (1966). The authors view cohesion as a function of the social origins of the officer corps; the military socialization process; and the autonomy of the military, among other factors.  See Claude E. Welch, Jr. and Arthur K. Smith, Military Role and Rule: Persp-ectives on Civil-Military Relations (Belmont, California: Duxbury Press, 1974), pp. 14-15, 240-41.

 

[67]  The inadequacy of most theorizing about changes in the relationship between the strongman-ruler and the military is understandable, since "men in green" are conspicuous in military-authoritarian states. Further confusion is sown by what could be called the "civilianization" phenomenon, whereby the strongman-ruler and governing or political generals take off their uniforms. As Heeger points out, at the other extreme this has given rise to contentions that the regime is no longer a military one [The Politics of Underdevelopment, p. 129 (fn.24)]. Heeger is, however, one of the few who discusses the establish-ment of primacy over the military junta by "a particular military leader". He appoints close aides, loyalists, friends to high military position, purges and transfers rivals, and occupy the position of president, defence minister, and armed forces chief  (op cit., p.117). He is a military leader who, in this thesis, is termed the "strongman-ruler". 

 

[68]  In some cases, the military will be returned to the barracks after the strongman becomes the ruler of the state. This was the case in Thailand under Pibul, Sarit, and Thanom and Praphart.

 

[69]  It must be noted that it is relatively easy for authoritarian rulers to obtain the loyalty, or at least the compliance and deference, of state personnel – regardless of where their real loyalties or preferences lie. Civil servants are, so to speak, the “captive audience” of whoever controls the state. They are dependent on it for their livelihood, sense of self-worth, identity, and so on. In interviews with active and retired civil servants, as well as retired military officers, in Burma, Chiangmai, Bangkok, Singapore, and Jakarta, I found that although many state officials may harbor a deep dislike for authoritarianism in general and military rule in particular, they were fearful of losing the privileges they enjoy, no matter how meagre. Most felt that there was no alternative but to support the regime in power, however personally distasteful they found it.

 

[70]  The constitutional facade may be fashioned out of a constitution drawn up by the new regime or drafted by a "constitutional convention" created by the military. This has been the case in Thailand and Burma, as will be shown. Alternatively, the existing constitutional framework may be modified or man-ipulated by the military strongman-ruler and his close advisors and loyalists -- as in Indonesia. The 1945 Constitution of Sukarno’s “old” order has been manipulated both to stabilize and to legitimize Suharto’s new order.

 

[71]  Needless to say, these strategies are not mutually exclusive. The more politically sophisticated and skilful rulers will employ a range of strategies, perhaps using one more than others, depending on the strength and weakness of the opposition, the complexity of the situation, or the dictates of expediency.

 

[72]  The possible outcomes and scenarios will be outlined and discussed in the country chapters. Here again, the probable scenarios and outcomes are not mutually exclusive. This is all the more so since the strategy selected and implemented depends on a set of complex motives and situations.

 

[73]  See Nordlinger, "Taking the State Seriously", pp. 353-390, for an insightful discussion of state autonomy in highly-institutionalized polities where the preferences of state officials are related to public policies – that is, institutional rather than private interests.

 

[74]  See Chazan, "Patterns of State-Society Incorporation and Disengagement in Africa", pp. 121-148, and the earlier discussion.

 

[75]  Heeger, The Politics of Underdevelopment, pp. 110, 112.

 

[76]  Ibid, p. 118.

 

[77]  Ibid, pp. 109-112.  As Heeger notes, the military’s goal is to impose an "apolitical calm" and national unity, interpreted as a state of "one-ness" and the absence of social conflicts. For a similar view, see Manuel Antonio Garreton, The Chilean Political Process (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp. 68-72. For his part, Huntington sees political participation in rapidly-modernizing Third World societies in terms of societal groups that are mobilized into politics in the absence of firmly-established institut-ions that serve to lend order to political participation and politics more generally. Military interventions constitute both a form of direct military participation and a reaction to "praetorian politics" -- politics where, in Huntington’s words, "the wealthy bribe, students riot, workers strike, mobs demonstrate, and the military coup." Huntington,  Political Order, pp. 79-92, 195-196. 

 

[78]  Heeger, The Politics of Underdevelopment, pp.121-22

 

[79]  Ibid., pp. 117, 122.

 

[80]  Nordlinger, "Taking the State Seriously".

 

[81]  Heeger, The Politics of Underdevelopment, pp. 116-118, 119, 122, 126-127.  For observations of the "personalization of executive authority" and the spread of patrimonialism in West Africa – an analysis that can also be applied to other Third World states – see Aristide Zolberg, Creating Political Order: The Party-States of West Africa (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1966), pp. 110-111, 136, 141-42, 143-44. For Zolberg, these phenomena attest to the growing salience of traditional or neo-traditional relationship structures and practices.  See also Alain Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 29-35. Although Rouquié deals with patrimonial relationships and structures in the Latin American context, his analysis is likewise applicable to most Third World states, societies, and political cultures.

 

[82]  Charles Kennedy and David Louscher, "Civil-Military Interaction: Data in Search of a Theory," in Charles Kennedy and David J. Louscher, eds., Civil-Military Interaction in Asia and Africa (Lieden: E.J. Brill, 1991), pp.1-10; and Harold Crouch, "The Military and Politics in Southeast Asia," in Zakaria Haji Ahmad and Harold Crouch, eds., Military-Civilian Relations in Southeast Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 287-317.