Relationship between military’s involvement in and withdrawal

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Chapter 2

Explaining military’s withdrawal from politics

The aim of this chapter is to provide theoretical framework to examine military’s withdrawal from politics. This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part reviews literatures on the role of the armed forces in politics to lay out the spectrum of their involvement in politics. In the second part, a review of literatures that discuss variables that affect military’s withdrawal from politics is made available. Building from those two reviews of literatures, this chapter ends with its own modified theoretical framework to understand military withdrawal from politics within the context of transition to democracy that focus on military interests instead of other variables.

2.1. Review literatures on military’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics

This first part has three components. First, it discusses the relationship between military’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics to military’s professionalism. It then sets the indicators to measure involvement and withdrawal based on previous literatures as well the technique used in this measurement. Finally, this part assesses TNI’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics since 1945 until today to conclude that in the post-Suharto era there has been military’s withdrawal to certain degree.

2.1.1. Relationship between military’s involvement in and withdrawal from politics with military’s professionalism

The role of the armed forces in politics has long been a subject of debate within the study of political science. Their involvement and non-involvement in politics are related to the concept of military professionalism. Two schools of military professionalism hold different view on the role of the armed forces in politics. The “old professionalism school” argues that military should never involve in politics and their sole assignment is defense (Huntington, 1957; Perlmutter, 1977; Alagappa, 2001). “The new professionalism school”, on the contrary, argues that the armed forces are required to play a role in politics especially in maintaining domestic stability (Stepan, 1973, 1988;

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Sarkesian, 1981). Both schools, however, agree that the armed forces must be equipped with skills, with the old school argues that skill should be limited to expertise in managing violence while the new school thinks other skills should also be included, and that the armed forces must have strong corporate attachment.

Two notes should be given to the above debate. First, while the old professionalism school develops their framework from the experience of Western countries, in which the armed forces are distinctly different from society since the beginning of state-making, the new professionalism builds their understanding based on the experience of the Third World countries in which the role of the armed forces is crucial as provider of stability. Those different backgrounds produce different military cultures and, hence, different understandings of themselves and their roles. It should be noted, however, that that understanding is not taking place in vacuum. Sarkesian (1981), for example, warned that due to the interaction between military, democratization, and technology, it will be difficult to maintain the concept of old professionalism as the ideals of military professionalism in the years to come. It does not mean, however, that the shift from an old to a new professionalism is and will becoming a trend worldwide.

On the contrary, which is also the second note, a swing from a new to an old professionalism has been taking place in various countries that experiencing transition to democracy since an old professionalism concept is considered as important feature of democratic society. Therefore, the old professionalism school tends to dominate the ideals of professional armed forces in the current times. The last two waves of this shifting were taking place in Eastern Europe and East Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, since the 1990s. In Southeast Asia, Alagappa (2001) suggested that a shifting toward old professionalism attitudes has taking place in most of its member countries.¹⁸ Mietzner (2011a) debunked Alagappa’s conclusion and instead points out to the fact that there has been a political resurgence of the armed forces in this region. Mietzner’s assertion is partly correct since there is indeed a swing back to the rise of new professionalism due to resistance from majority members of the armed forces.¹⁹ Thailand represents this case. The introduction of democracy that took place in Thailand

18 For reference to the Eastern European case see Edmunds, Cottey and Forster (2006).

19 Mietzner, however, argued that the main reason for such a resurgence, except in Myanmar, is the inability of civilian leaderships to conduct effective governing. In addition, this resurgence does not take place in all countries within the region. SAF (Singapore Armed Forces), for example, remains as non-political entity.

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since early 1990s went to a wrong direction with several taking over of governments by the armed forces. Scholars have attributed these coups to the culture of Royal Thai Forces’ involvement in politics and the weaknesses within civilian camp (Bunbongkarn in Blair 2013, 165-187; Croissant, et.al, 2013; Kocak & Kode in Heiduk, 2014, 83-101).

A closer look to the first factor suggests that there was time when several officers with democratic tendency held relatively strong influence on the government (Bunbongkarn in Blair, 2013, 165-187). The numbers of these officers, however, were relatively small and their ideas were soon to be rejected by majority within the brass. Since then, there has been a lack of continuation of these soft-minded officers within the Royal Thai Forces.

In the case of Indonesia, a closer look on its military history reveals that TNI’s conception of professionalism is closer to the new rather than the old professionalism ideals in most of the times. However, during the reform era, there has been a swing toward the old professionalism. It is worth noting that the old professionalism within the Indonesian armed forces is not a new idea. General Tahi Bonar Simatupang and General Abdul Harris Nasution, for example, were known as the vanguard of an old professionalism ideal, in which they dreamed of and actually took steps to create outwardly-oriented armed forces with high degree of expertise in managing violence and possession of modern weaponry while at the same time refraining from politics (Widjajanto, 2017, interview). While this dissertation has no intention to step into the debate over the essence of military professionalism, it takes military’s withdrawal from politics, and, hence, a swing from a new to an old ideal, as an important feature of military reform and, therefore, it is essential to understand the term military withdrawal at the first place. To be able to do so, a spectrum of military’s involvement in politics must firstly be explained.

Previous works on the role of the armed forces in politics can be summed up as the following. There are basically three roles for the armed forces in politics, i.e. as ruler, as influencer, and as pawn. The two ends of that spectrum can be easily defined since both indicate domination, either by the armed forces or civilian leadership. Condition in which the armed forces become a ruler is also referred as military ruler or military domination, which scholars also termed it as garrison state or praetorian state. On the other hand, condition in which the armed forces serve as pawn to civilian leadership is

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known as civilian control or civilian domination²⁰. In a garrison state, condition in which “the specialist of violence is the most powerful group in society” (Laswell, 1941, 455), or praetoritarian state, a condition “in which the military tends to intervene and potentially could dominate the political system” (Perlmutter, 1969, 383), the power solely belong to the armed forces, while in civilian domination the armed forces have no right and power to make policies. Huntington (1957) further distinguishes the latter into two different types: objective and subjective civilian controls. The subjective civilian control means that the armed forces are under the control of certain groups within the civilian camp. On the other hand, under an objective civilian control, the armed forces pledge their loyalty to the state instead of to certain groups within the state. Coughlan (1998) argued that civilian control of the armed forces in a country which previously ruled by the armed forces could very easily lead to entrenched civilian penetration to military internal affairs which indicates a subjective control. In addition, under such a situation, the armed forces usually are a solid entity with strong political position and hence it requires a strong state to be able to fully control them. Hence, creating a democratic governance of the armed forces is a good and viable option to be taken instead of simply creating civilian control. While both ends of spectrum of military’s involvement in politics can be relatively easy to define, the role in between those two ends is highly contested.