CIAO DATE: 06/05

Coexistence, Consensus, Competition, Conflict: Interservice Contestation

Abstract

This paper explores one of the lesser-researched aspects of Latin American military politics, namely, relations among the three military services - army, navy and air force. This is done through a study of the Argentine Navy and its relations with the Army and Air Force of that country. The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, the article classifies issue-areas on the basis of four variables: (1) resource and/or prestige implications, (2) symbolic and/or functional importance, (3) zero-sum contestation, and (4) iterative contestations. Second, the article suggests a four-fold typology of inter-service contestation - coexistence, consensus, competition, and conflict - that is closely linked to the nature of the issue-area. Finally, the validity of the typology is tested through the study of four cases: (1) naval management of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA); (2) naval domination of national policy on Patagonia , Tierra del Fuego, the South Atlantic and Beagle Channel islands and Antarctica; (3) the annual inter-service competition over the military budget; and (4) the long-standing rivalry between the Nave and Air Force over military aviation. The four cases studied demonstrate that the taxonomy proposed in this article more than adequately classifies and explains the patterns of inter-service contestation in Argentina, thereby raising questions about its applicability to other military-dominated polities.

Full Text (PDF, 34 pages, 1.97 MB)