ABSTRACT
Introduction Armed forces have a long history as strictly hierarchical, utterly disciplined, (semi-) total institutions, vested with a deep sense of professional identity and exercising broadly defined operational autonomy. These characteristics fostered the image and the culture of an inward-looking, self-contained organization. As a rule, an elite-like leadership preferred to keep the politicians and the public at bay, while conducting its core-business. At the same time however, in modern states the military could be looked upon as a model-bureaucracy, bowing to Government as the highest authority in exercising the monopoly of violence. In democratic societies this kind of vertical external control is strengthened and deepened by parliaments controlling the decisions made by the executive branch. One step further down the line the electorate gets a chance to have its say – with the vote as the ultimate arbiter of decision-making. So in the end one might contend that the external control of the armed forces rests with the people. Surely both images – the one stressing utter professional autonomy, the other emphasizing strict democratic control – are simplifications which do not do justice to the complexities and the varieties of civil-military relations. Over time and across nations, a lot of different practices occur, reflecting different historical experiences and defense-strategies as well as different political and military cultures. Also schools of thought and scholarly debates have addressed without pause how best practices might look. How can we reconcile the room military professionals rightfully claim for effectively running their organizations and their operations, with the axioms of political control, democratic accountability and public transparency? In this chapter we address the question how shifting patterns of external control can be understood in the context of ‘legitimacy’ and ‘surveillance’. We start out with a brief sketch of classic debates about the external control of the armed forces. Typically these debates focus on the dynamics of vertical control of military establishment by civilian bureaucrats and elected politicians. Notwithstanding the depth of change we will talk about, one way or another vertical control remains essential. Politicians cannot and should not shun their
responsibilities, while soldiers will always need to cultivate a professional posture, fitting in with democratic decision-making. The latter part of this equation emphasizes the importance of internal-or self-control – of the military. While this is not the main topic of his chapter, we will regularly run into it as an essential cornerstone of democratic civil-military relations (Born 2003: 159). After having recapitulated the default tools of vertical control – old and new – we will then turn to developments which stand for a rise, if not a surge, in horizontal control of armed forces. A multitude of stakeholders outside the traditional political-military nexus has become involved in monitoring the performance of armed forces and the whereabouts of its soldiers. Perfectly in line with other fields of public policy and private enterprise, the legitimacy of military institutions and military operations has evolved into a precious resource. It is under constant scrutiny, and surveillance has become the name of the game. In the words of Martin Shaw: ‘the gaze of all over all, even if some gazes are more influential than others’ (Shaw 2005: 58). Figure 3.1 contains a rough and schematic line-up of actors, all stakeholders of sorts that are somehow involved in the surveillance of the military, its legitimacy very much included. As Shaw suggests, these stakeholders are unequal in terms of influence and even more, we might hypothesize, when it comes to external control. Certainly the democratization of surveillance and the horizontalization of control do not level out differences in power between people, professions, institutions and states.
