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Civil-Military Relations: Theoretical ExplanationGirotra Vinay
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Civil-military relations generally refer to the interactions between armed forces asinstitutions and the society they belong to. In terms of general definition, the democraticcivil-military relations stand for the efficient management of security based on the principlesof democracy as well as of the governmental agencies associated with the above mentionedfield. Developed states, with a few exceptions have been able to maintain democratic civil-military relations, a system where civilian elites have the power of final decision making.However many third world states have failed to maintain civilian supremacy for longer  periods.
 
In these states, the military constitutes the most obvious power base. It is a force toreckon with more at home than abroad and is used widely by civilian and military elites tostrengthen their position. Scholars and academicians all over the world have provided manytheories which suggest the different ways by which democratic civil-military relations have been maintained in developed states and can also be applied in third world states for bringingcivilian supremacy. Classical liberal thinkers like Huntington, Finer & Janowitz and moderndemocratic thinkers like Feaver & Schiff are the most prominent ones.
Huntington’s Liberal Approach: Civilian Control through professionalism
Liberal theory argues that the first priority of a democratic state is to protect the rightsand liberties of individual citizens. This can be achieved by a social contract in which rule of law is supreme and all the citizens are bound by this contract. However, state has also to dealwith those outside the community who are not party or bound by the contract. In theinternational arena, there is still a state of nature in which conflict is uncontrolled. To retainits authority, the state must protect its citizens from these foreign threats, not least of all bymeans of an effective military establishment.
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It is crucial that the military be strong to protect
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SRF, Dept. of Political Science, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar (Punjab, India).
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the state in a conflict ridden world. Yet the military can not be left uncontrolled by the state.Free from state restraints, the military would pursue the objects of its own passions and posean internal threat to sovereign power. Neither can the military be wholly dominated by thestate-especially not a democratic state representative of civilian society-because then themilitary would be forced to follow the passions of the civilian elites controlling the state, andfollowing these passions might sap military strength by distracting it from its purpose.
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Samuel P. Huntington attempts to solve the dilemma by providing his theory of civilian control through professionalism. He has provided his model of “Objective CivilianControl” in which Civilian control is maintained through entrusting ‘professionalism’ inmilitary corps. Civilians are entitled to dictate military security policy, but would leave themilitary elites free to determine what military operations were required to secure the policyobjectives. The essence of objective civilian control is the recognition of autonomous military professionalism and independent military sphere.
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Huntington distinguishes between a profession and other occupations by the presenceof expertise and responsibility. Professionalism in armed forces sets definite limits to military political power without reference to the distribution to political power among the variouscivilian groups. A highly professional officer corps stands ready to carry out the wishes of any civilian group which secures legitimate authority within the state. Huntington argues thata high degree of civilian control can be achieved in the modern state only by a high degree of differentiation of military institutions from other social institutions and the creation of athoroughly professional officer corps. A professional officer corps, he argues, is jealous of itsown limited sphere of competence but recognizes its incompetence in matters that lie outsidethe professional military sphere and hence is willing to accept its role as a subordinateinstrument of the state. The less professionalized the officer corps, on the other hand, the less
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differentiation there is between military and political roles and therefore the less justificationfor military obedience to political authority.
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Many scholars have disputed this classical liberal theory that professionalism ensuresthe insulation of military from politics. Samuel E. Finer believes that professionalism infactcould thrust the military into collision with civilian authorities, as military elites may seethemselves as the servants of the state rather than of the government and also that armedforces may fall prey to ‘military syndicalism,’ the idea that as specialists only they have thequalification to make decision about defense.
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Abrahamson argues that excessive professionalism creates a powerful, military-social structure. In this structure, if there aredifferences between civilian and military values and objectives, civilian control over themilitary will be impaired.
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However, Huntington believes that professionalism entails thereorientation of the armed forces toward their rightful (external) missions, the elimination of overstaffing and non-military responsibilities and the conferring on the armed forces thestatus and the respect they deserve.
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Janowitz’s Approach: Civilian control through Societal Control
Practical experiences suggest that too many armed forces that were deemed professional, not only by their own standards but also by external evaluation, have engaged invarious endeavors of subverting civilian authority, including coups d’état. This is one major reason why the second chief protagonist in the debate of civil-military relations, MorrisJanowitz understood civilian control in terms of societal control rather than state or institutional control. State or institutes play a secondary role as an extension of society, but“societal control measured in part as integration with society, was Janowitz’s normative andempirical focus.” He links the military intervention with internal characteristics of themilitary such as mission cohesiveness, skill, recruitment, organizational pattern andhierarchical structure. He believed that a military with ‘internally oriented mission,’ for 
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