Our Politics and International Relations list engages with today’s global challenges and with political change at domestic and international levels. It includes work from across the subdisciplines and reflects the variety of approaches and methods used in political analysis.
Book highlights include the Bristol Studies in East Asian International Relations and Bristol Studies in International Theory series, the Policy & Politics and European Journal of Politics and Gender journals and work from prestigious authors such as Andrew Gamble, Andrew Linklater, Laura Shepherd and Keith Dowding.
Our journals in the area are Policy & Politics, ranked 15th of 49 in Public Administration and celebrated its 50th year in 2022, Global Discourse, the European Journal of Politics and Gender and Global Political Economy.
Politics and International Relations
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This chapter concentrates on addressing the following question: Is the Philippine military socially, politically and economically embedded to the point that civil–military relations cannot be viewed as a gap between civilian and military elements? It argues that the shift of the military’s original reformist stance favouring democratic civilian control towards a more politicized disposition can be explained by two interrelated structural factors. The first is the presence of informal institutions such as the militarization of civilian structures and the traditional reliance on the military regarding security matters. Their competing, substitutive and latent nature profoundly provide political autonomy to the military despite the presence of formal civilian control guaranteed by laws and institutions. The second factor is the erosion of the country’s democratic regime instigated by a populist leader. The chapter discusses how the interaction of these two structural factors influenced the current civil–military imbalance based on different sources, including an original survey of members of the Philippine strategic community comprising uniformed personnel from the country’s security sector as well as government officials, researchers and academics representing the civilian sector. This non-random elite survey reveals the polarized perceptions and evaluations of the respondents on the state of civil–military relations under Duterte.
This chapter explores the political roles played by the Korean People’s Army (KPA) in North Korea. It addresses the main gap between extensive political roles by the KPA and its political weakness and continued loyalty to the Kim family rule by utilizing the Asian military evolution concept. It argues that North Korea is a patrimonial political system in which the single dictator is positioned above the partisan and ideological authorities and exercises unchecked political power. The analysis focuses on how the KPA played the regime’s security role in three of the most important stages that defined North Korea’s political path: (1) Kim Il-sung’s power struggle and creation of patrimonial authority in the 1950s–60s; (2) Kim Jong-il’s Songun politics in the late 1990s; and (3) family succession to Kim Jong-un and his political reshuffle since 2011. The analysis illustrates that the rise and fall of the KPA’s political role does not necessarily reflect its political power position. Rather, it merely reflects the dictator’s ruling method of choice – either ruling the country through the party institutions or through military force – for regime survival.
This chapter argues that there is no civil–military gap – a key concern in civil–military relations scholarship – in Singapore, transcending the civil–military problematique. While the military naturally plays a different role, it does not occupy a different world. Singapore presents a curious case of how its military evolution has been embedded within the operational role of the SAF as opposed to a changing relationship between different worlds. While this edited volume highlights Asian militaries can indeed slowly evolve to defuse disputes between themselves and civilian leaders within Asian democracies to achieve developmental and security goals more synergistically, Singapore is different from this novel conception of the study of civil–military relations. The SAF was already structured at its inception to minimize such disputes and maximize efficiency in reaching national goals. It was an institution designed to fit in with, and not stand apart from, civilian governance. The influence of Singapore’s colonial legacy and how the SAF is embedded socially and politically situates the argument. The chapter concludes by emphasizing that Singapore’s civil–military relations need to be understood in terms of the ‘everyday’ transition between military and civilian roles by members of the SAF.
This book explores civil-military relations in Asia. With chapters on individual countries in the region, it provides a comprehensive account of the range of contemporary Asian practices under conditions of abridged democracy, soft authoritarianism or complete totalitarianism. Through its analysis, the book argues that civil-military relations in Asia ought to be examined under the concept of ‘Asian military evolutions’. It demonstrates that while Asian militaries have tried to incorporate standard, Western-derived frameworks of civil-military relations, it has been necessary to adapt such frameworks to suit local circumstances. The book reveals how this has in turn led to creative fusions and novel changes in making civil-military relations an asset to furthering national security objectives.
Since the 1990s, Southeast Asian states have deployed their militaries in UN peace operations. Often couched in terms of ‘Global South’ or Asian solidarity, peace operations have become part of Southeast Asia’s regionally promoted defence diplomacy that necessarily fuses civil and military functions. It is widely assumed that participation in peace operations will further the consolidation of the ASEAN Political-Security Community by creating convergence in national defence policies and personal contacts among security officials. The chapter asks whether Southeast Asia’s peacekeeping activity effectively constitutes such a form of successful security cooperation. The analysis concludes on a cautious note. Given its liberal origins, peacekeeping challenges but is unlikely to change the quintessential norms of ASEAN cooperation such as face saving and non-interference. However, peacekeeping facilitates a non-confrontational discursive diplomatic channel between Southeast Asian militaries and reinforces the civilian nature of the region’s sublime, peace-preserving regional international society in the form of ASEAN.
This chapter describes the process through which Malaysia’s civilian leadership has been able to convince the military to support policies that eschew overly militarized solutions to address changing security challenges domestically and internationally. Thus, the MAF were steered into supporting foreign and security policies in the form of HADR and peace operations in the late 1980s to facilitate national development. It is argued that this strategy has been particularly successful because military subordination ensured the neat execution of a comprehensive civilian strategy as well as the continuation of a stable civil–military relations balance. It is characteristic of the Asian model of military evolutions, however, that the MAF’s apparent apolitical stance has persisted together with the ethnocentric communalism inherent in all facets of the Malaysian state that guarantees Malay supremacy and leadership.
This book explores civil-military relations in Asia. With chapters on individual countries in the region, it provides a comprehensive account of the range of contemporary Asian practices under conditions of abridged democracy, soft authoritarianism or complete totalitarianism. Through its analysis, the book argues that civil-military relations in Asia ought to be examined under the concept of ‘Asian military evolutions’. It demonstrates that while Asian militaries have tried to incorporate standard, Western-derived frameworks of civil-military relations, it has been necessary to adapt such frameworks to suit local circumstances. The book reveals how this has in turn led to creative fusions and novel changes in making civil-military relations an asset to furthering national security objectives.
This book explores civil-military relations in Asia. With chapters on individual countries in the region, it provides a comprehensive account of the range of contemporary Asian practices under conditions of abridged democracy, soft authoritarianism or complete totalitarianism. Through its analysis, the book argues that civil-military relations in Asia ought to be examined under the concept of ‘Asian military evolutions’. It demonstrates that while Asian militaries have tried to incorporate standard, Western-derived frameworks of civil-military relations, it has been necessary to adapt such frameworks to suit local circumstances. The book reveals how this has in turn led to creative fusions and novel changes in making civil-military relations an asset to furthering national security objectives.
This chapter posits that Western models of civil–military relations do not apply in Thailand for three key reasons. First, Thailand’s status as the sole uncolonized country of Southeast Asia has allowed greater continuity with its pre-colonial era political philosophies than in many other states. The end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, in particular, did not extinguish precolonial ideas of kingship and social order. Today, the division between the military and civilians is less important than a hierarchy that places kharatchakan (servants of the king) above businesspeople or other professions, and the military higher than other public servants. Second, visible aspirations for liberal and egalitarian forms of government have been exhibited by disenfranchised groups whose demands for participation in governance have increased over time. Third, the shift in power in international politics, away from the West towards other centres of power, including illiberal and authoritarian states, is reducing the pressure on Thailand to undertake liberal democratic reforms. For these three reasons, this chapter proposes a ‘trialectical’ framework for Thai civil–military relations. While Thailand remains a hybrid state, in which democratic forces continue to wrestle with traditional elites, they are not yet strong enough to force change towards liberal democratic politics.
Civil–military relations in post-Reform China continues to confound Western logic, with the Chinese PLA having steered clear of politics and largely subordinating itself to its CCP master. But given the unprecedented growth of PLA autonomy prior to Xi Jinping’s ascent as China’s top leader at the 18th Party Congress, efforts to enforce greater civilian authority over the Party’s army has seen the new commander-in-chief utilize more intrusive methods of subjective control. Towards that end, the incumbent has evidently drawn inspiration from the regime’s original strongman to assert himself on the Party’s coercive forces to dominate Chinese politics. Despite the incompatibilities between the PLA’s growing professionalism and the civilian leader’s egregious interest in military affairs, the CCP’s control over its armed wing in the post-Deng era has never been stronger.
