Military politics and democracy in the Andes / Maiah Jaskoski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jaskoski, Maiah, 1977-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ecuador. Ejército.

Peru. Ejército.

National security--Peru.

National security.

Politics and government.

Internal security.

Evaluation.

Military policy.

Peru.

National security--Ecuador.

Peru--Military policy.

Ecuador--Military policy.

Ecuador.

Peru. Ejército--Evaluation.

Ecuador. Ejército--Evaluation.

Internal security--Peru.

Internal security--Ecuador.

Peru--Politics and government--21st century.

Ecuador--Politics and government--21st century.

Physical Description:

xv, 288 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Military mission performance in Latin America

The problem

Challenges to security and democratic civil-military relations in the andes

Explaining military mission performance in democratic Latin America

Case selection: a focus on the army in Peru and Ecuador

The data

Overview of the analysis

The context: civil-military relations in democratic Peru and Ecuador

High constraints on Peru's military

Low constraints on Ecuador's military

Post-transition army mission performance in Peru and Ecuador, 1980s-90s

Putting sovereignty before policing

Deviations: contradictions in missions and sovereignty neglect

Alternative explanations

Mission constraint and neglect of counterinsurgency: Peru since 2000

Staying in the barracks

Restrictions on army autonomy

Mission overload and neglect of border defense: Ecuador since 2000

Neglecting a porous border while policing the interior

Overwhelming security responsibilities

Battalions for hire: private army contracts in Peru and Ecuador

Pressures from the top

Local client influence

Limits to client influence

Comparative perspectives on military mission performance

Colombia: tolerance of policing amid ongoing insurgency

Venezuela: mission loss, organizational trauma, and narrow mission beliefs

Bolivia: broad mission beliefs despite trauma

Extreme executive control: recent trends in Venezuela and Bolivia

Reflections on assigning militaries police work

Appendix A. Research methodology.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [249]-279) and index.

ISBN:

9781421409078

1421409070

9781421409085

1421409089

OCLC:

810442359