CIAO DATE: 08/05

The New 'Double Challenge': Simultaneously Crafting Democratic Control and Efficacy Concerning Military, Police and Intelligence

Abstract

Military or security forces today are more likely to endanger democracy by lessening its quality and depth than by threatening its outright and swift overthrow. While the stability of new democracies is certainly not assured, the strongest concern lies with their ability to advance the rule of law and guarantee the basic liberties and needs of their citizens.3 In regard to the armed forces, the police, and intelligence agencies, new democracies are often poorly prepared to face up to a double challenge: developing firm institutions for the democratic control of those services, and turning them into effective tools for the protection and security of their citizens. The source of these difficulties is to be found not only in those services but also, and often primarily, in the inaction, complicit stance or active encouragement of non-democratic behavior by civilian actors in government or political society

Security agencies and military and police institutions inherited from authoritarian regimes were particularly adept at survival and reaccommodation, especially in those new democracies that resulted from negotiated transitions. Security forces retained high levels of autonomy and prerogatives,5 as well as practices that contradicted democratic norms. Developing institutions that rein in these tendencies and assert control is one of the primary tasks of these new democracies.

Full Text (PDF, 22 pages, 116 KB)