What is Controlled by Civilian Control of the Military? Control of the Military vs. Control of Militarization

Abstract

This article addresses a gap in the scholarly literature. Students of militarism do not link the propensity to use force to the broader issue of what type of civilian control may restrain the use of force. Similarly, even students of civilian control who acknowledge that civilian control and military restraint do not necessarily go hand in hand have not questioned the extent to which we should decouple the two different processes as different modes of control rather than different effects of control. A revised conceptualization of civilian control is therefore offered that distinguishes between two modes of civilian control over military affairs: control of the military, which concerns itself primarily with the military organization, and control of militarization, which draws on the political discourse in which the citizenry plays an active and autonomous role aimed at subjecting the decision to use force to a deliberative process that addresses its legitimacy.