Military Politics and Democracy in the Andes

Maiah Jaskoski

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781421409085
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• 1 Military Mission Performance in Latin America
• 2 Civil-Military Relations in Democratic Peru and Ecuador
• 3 Army Mission Performance in Post-Transition Peru and Ecuador, 1980s-1990s
• 4 Mission Constraint and Neglect of Counterinsurgency: Peru since 2000
• 5 Mission Overload and Neglect of Border Defense: Ecuador since 2000
• 6 Battalions for Hire: Private Army Contracts in Peru and Ecuador
• 7 Comparative Perspectives on Military Mission Performance
• Appendix. Field Research Methodology
• Notes
• References
• Index