Military Politics and Democracy in the Andes

by Maiah Jaskoski

Overview

Interviews with active-duty and retired military officers in Ecuador and Peru shed light on the evolution of Andean civil-military relations, with implications for democratization.

Military Politics and Democracy in the Andes challenges conventional theories regarding military behavior in post-transition democracies. Through a deeply researched comparative analysis of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian armies, Maiah Jaskoski argues that militaries are concerned more with the predictability of their missions than with sovereignty objectives set by democratically elected leaders.

Jaskoski gathers data from interviews with public officials, private sector representatives, journalists, and more than 160 Peruvian and Ecuadorian officers from all branches of the military. The results are surprising. Ecuador’s army, for example, fearing the uncertainty of border defense against insurgent encroachment in the north, neglected this duty, thereby sacrificing the state’s security goals, acting against government orders, and challenging democratic consolidation. Instead of defending the border, the army has opted to carry out policing functions within Ecuador, such as combating the drug trade. Additionally, by ignoring its duty to defend sovereignty, the army is available to contract out its policing services to paying, private companies that, relative to the public, benefit disproportionately from army security.

Jaskoski also looks briefly at this theory's implications for military responsiveness to government orders in democratic Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela, and in newly formed democracies more broadly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421409078
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	08/15/2013
Pages:	322
Sales rank:	726,915
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Maiah Jaskoski is an assistant professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Acronyms and Abbreviations xiii

1 Military Mission Performance in Latin America 1

Challenges to Security and Democratic Civil-Military Relations in the Andes 3

Explaining Military Mission Performance in Democratic Latin America 5

Case Selection: A Focus on the Army in Peru and Ecuador 18

The Data 20

Overview of the Analysis 20

2 Civil-Military Relations in Democratic Peru and Ecuador 23

High Constraints on Peru's Military 24

Low Constraints on Ecuador's Military 30

3 Army Mission Performance in Post-Transition Peru and Ecuador, 1980s-1990s 37

Sovereignty before Policing 37

Deviations: Contradictions in Missions and Sovereignty Neglect 50

Alternative Explanations 56

4 Mission Constraint and Neglect of Counterinsurgency: Peru since 2000 58

Staying in the Barracks 58

Insecurity in Sendero Zones 59

Predictions of the Legitimacy, Professionalism, and Resource Maximization Hypotheses 64

Army Inaction 73

Restrictions on Army Autonomy 83

Contradiction through Mission Constraint 83

The Source of the Senior Cohort's "Need" for Autonomy 92

Neglect of Counterinsurgency as a Way to Maintain Predictability for Patrols 97

Return to Assertive Counterinsurgency 102

Narrow Mission Beliefs and Minimal Police Work 105

5 Mission Overload and Neglect of Border Defense: Ecuador since 2000 115

Neglecting a Porous Border while Policing the Interior 116

Insecurity in Northern Ecuador 116

Predictions of the Legitimacy, Professionalism, and Resource Maximization Hypotheses 124

Assertive Policing 133

Overwhelming Security Responsibilities 140

Policing to Avoid Obsolescence 140

Contradiction through Mission Overload 150

Managing the Contradiction 155

The Contradiction Escalates 157

Alternative Explanations: Revisiting Legitimacy 161

6 Battalions for Hire: Private Army Contracts in Peru and Ecuador 165

Resource-Hungry Army Units 166

Local Client Influence 168

Limits to Client Influence 181

7 Comparative Perspectives on Military Mission Performance 184

Colombia: Tolerance of Policing amid Ongoing Insurgency 185

Venezuela: Mission Loss, Organizational Trauma, and Rejection of Police Work 194

Bolivia: Policing despite Organizational Trauma 198

Extreme Executive Control: Trends in Venezuela and Bolivia 202

Reflections on Assigning Militaries to Conduct Police Work 205

Appendix. Field Research Methodology 207

Notes 215

References 249

Index 281

What People are Saying About This

J. Samuel Fitch

Jaskoski’s extraordinary field work and primary sources make this book unlike any work in Latin American civil-military relations in the past thirty years. It is an empirical tour-de-force.

From the Publisher

Jaskoski’s extraordinary field work and primary sources make this book unlike any work in Latin American civil-military relations in the past thirty years. It is an empirical tour-de-force.
—J. Samuel Fitch, University of Colorado at Boulder

This is an important book for students of Latin America and for those of the military in general. For the first, it opens the black box of the military as an institution in an unprecedented way. We come to understand the military not as a political actor but as an organizational one. For military-oriented scholars, it provides a fascinating perspective on why soldiers might end up doing little of their supposed main missions and opt for organizational predictability rather than for effective performance. Anyone interested in post-conflict transitions or state capacity should read it.
—Miguel Angel Centeno, Princeton University

All too often, analysts of Latin America pay insufficient attention to the region’s armed forces unless democracy itself is at immediate risk. This well-researched book represents a significant and welcome exception to this tendency. In an instructive and novel comparison, Jaskoski investigates the factors that shape the military’s mission performance in Peru and Ecuador. Her analysis serves as a powerful reminder of why the study of the armed forces remains crucial in the contemporary period.
—Wendy Hunter, The University of Texas at Austin

Wendy Hunter

All too often, analysts of Latin America pay insufficient attention to the region’s armed forces unless democracy itself is at immediate risk. This well-researched book represents a significant and welcome exception to this tendency. In an instructive and novel comparison, Jaskoski investigates the factors that shape the military’s mission performance in Peru and Ecuador. Her analysis serves as a powerful reminder of why the study of the armed forces remains crucial in the contemporary period.

Miguel Angel Centeno

This is an important book for students of Latin America and for those of the military in general. For the first, it opens the black box of the military as an institution in an unprecedented way. We come to understand the military not as a political actor but as an organizational one. For military-oriented scholars, it provides a fascinating perspective on why soldiers might end up doing little of their supposed main missions and opt for organizational predictability rather than for effective performance. Anyone interested in post-conflict transitions or state capacity should read it.

Editorial Reviews

Academically rigorous. . . the specialized work belongs in college and university libraries with significant holdings in comparative politics and Latin American studies.
—Choice

From the Publisher

Academically rigorous. . . the specialized work belongs in college and university libraries with significant holdings in comparative politics and Latin American studies.

Choice