IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v76y1982i04p778-789_18.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Party in Uniform: Toward a Theory of Civil-Military Relations in Communist Political Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Perlmutter, Amos
  • LeoGrande, William M.

Abstract

This article is an effort to establish a comparative theoretical framework for the study of civil-military relations in communist political systems. Although the literature on civil-military relations in polyarchic and praetorian polities is theoretically as well as empirically rich, theories of civil-military relations in the field of comparative communism are still at the preliminary stage of development. It is argued that civil-military relations, like all the fundamental dynamics of communist political systems, derive from the structural relationship between a hegemonic Leninist party and the other institutions of the polity. Although the party directs and supervises all other institutions, its political supremacy is necessarily limited by the division of labor among various institutions. The relative autonomy of the military and its relations with the party vary from one country to another and can be described as coalitional, symbiotic, or fused. These relations are dynamic, changing over time in each country in response to contextual circumstances. The role of the military in politics is complex and variegated: on ideological issues, there is usually little conflict between party and army; on issues of “normal politics,†the military acts as a functionally specific elite engaged in bargaining to defend its perceived institutional interests; and in crisis politics, the military is a political resource that various party factions seek to enlist against their opponents.

Suggested Citation

  • Perlmutter, Amos & LeoGrande, William M., 1982. "The Party in Uniform: Toward a Theory of Civil-Military Relations in Communist Political Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 778-789, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:76:y:1982:i:04:p:778-789_18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400189609/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abel Escribà -Folch & Tobias Böhmelt & Ulrich Pilster, 2020. "Authoritarian regimes and civil–military relations: Explaining counterbalancing in autocracies," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(5), pages 559-579, September.
    2. Tobias Böhmelt & Abel Escribà -Folch & Ulrich Pilster, 2019. "Pitfalls of Professionalism? Military Academies and Coup Risk," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(5), pages 1111-1139, May.
    3. Sheng, Yumin, 2023. "Patronage and authoritarian co-optation of the military: Theory with evidence from post-Mao China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    4. Armando F. Mastrapa, III, 1999. "Evolution, Transition and the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces," Annual Proceedings, The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, vol. 9.
    5. Zamira A. Akhmetyanova* & Gelyusa Kh. Garaeva & Olga N. Nizamieva, 2018. "Civil Legal Capacity of Minors," The Journal of Social Sciences Research, Academic Research Publishing Group, pages 25-28:5.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:76:y:1982:i:04:p:778-789_18. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.