This article examines military law through a socio-legal lens by analyzing the civil–military boundary in emerging democracies. Existing scholarship largely approaches civil–military relations from constitutional, institutional, or security sector reform perspectives, often overlooking the sociological dimensions embedded in military legal systems. This study reconceptualizes military law as a socially embedded institution shaped by power relations, professional military identity, and democratic transition dynamics. Using a qualitative socio-legal research design, the study analyzes legal frameworks governing military jurisdiction, civilian supremacy, and institutional practice, complemented by doctrinal analysis and contextual examination of democratic reform processes. The findings demonstrate that the civil–military boundary is not merely a formal constitutional arrangement but a dynamic sociological construct continuously negotiated within institutional settings. Legal norms regulating the armed forces are internalized, contested, and reshaped through legal culture, professional ethos, and broader political transformations. The study reveals that persistent legal dualism and institutional resistance often complicate the consolidation of civilian control in emerging democracies. By situating military law within the sociology of law framework, this research contributes a deeper understanding of how civilian supremacy is institutionalized or challenged beyond formal legal provisions, offering both theoretical insights and policy implications for democratic consolidation

ABSTRACT Civil–military relations in Pakistan have historically remained tenuous due to persistent military dominance and intervention in civilian affairs. Democratic sustainability and civilian autonomy have remained elusive due to direct military rule for over three decades. The 2013 general elections are considered a milestone in Pakistan’s democratic transition, marking the first peaceful transfer of power from one elected government to another, followed by another transition in 2018. Though these democratic developments signaled civilian supremacy, in theory, the reality suggests otherwise. This paper critically evaluates the military’s continued indirect supremacy through the tutelary model in which the armed forces remained the ultimate arbiter of national affairs. The military’s expanded role in national security, political engineering, economic policymaking, and strategic governance underscores a hybrid authoritarian framework where democratic structures and leadership exist but remain subordinate to military influence. Contrary to the conventional wisdom about democratic consolidation in Pakistan and the diminished role of the military in political affairs, the analysis highlights that the controlled civilian autonomy operates within a militarized model, where it lacks independent and autonomous decision-making on critical issues.

This article investigates how officer esprit de corps was formed in the emerging interwar Finnish armed forces. The Finnish officer corps emerged during a devastating civil war from two competing groups: older Russian-educated and younger and more radical German-trained jaeger officers. Their relationship turned into a serious conflict during the 1920s. Mesolevel institutional cohesion has been sparsely examined in past scholarship, where corps esprit has usually been taken for granted. This article introduces the concept of intramilitary relations and presents seven sociological factors that can affect officer esprit de corps: ideology, identity, patronage, military experience, generation, class, and professional institutions. As intramilitary relations are closely linked to broader civil–military relations, the article also sheds light on to date largely underexplored Finnish civil–military relations. The Finnish case shows that while military institutions are crucial for esprit in the long run, without consensus, institutions can be used as instruments for power struggles and weaken cohesion.

Urban expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa has outpaced state capacity, fuelling a sharp rise in crime, especially in informal settlements where governance remains weak. Namibia stands as a case in point. High youth unemployment, deep poverty, and limited police presence have pushed the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) into civilian policing roles, as seen in operations like Hornkranz and Kalahari Desert. This military involvement has sparked ongoing legal and human rights debates, mainly due to minimal civilian oversight. This study assesses the effectiveness and sustainability of military-led public safety efforts in Windhoek’s Havana informal settlement. The research pursues four objectives: (1) analyse crime rate trends before, during, and after military deployments; (2) investigate public perceptions and lived experiences of military presence; (3) evaluate the legal, ethical, and institutional frameworks guiding military involvement; and (4) identify key challenges and offer policy recommendations for urban security. Using a mixed-methods design, the study combines quantitative data from 356 resident surveys and official crime records with qualitative insights from 41 key informant interviews, focus groups, and household discussions. Civil-Military Relations Theory and Routine Activity Theory inform the analysis. Findings show short-term drops in reported crime and increased feelings of safety, but these gains vanish once the military withdraws. Lasting security improvement demands stronger legal frameworks, clear institutional roles, effective oversight, and real community participation.

Civil–military relations remain a critical dimension of national cohesion and public trust, and broadcast media increasingly serve as a strategic platform for fostering mutual understanding between civilians and military institutions. This study assessed the impact of Armed Forces Radio programming on civil–military relations in the Federal Capital Territory. Guided by Agenda Setting Theory, the study employed a survey research design using a questionnaire to elicit data from respondents. From a population of 1,693,400, a sample of 400 participants was selected for the study. The findings showed that 79% of members of the public within the AMAC community had regular access to Armed Forces Radio and were allowed to participate in programmes promoting civil–military relations. The study further revealed that Armed Forces Radio programming has a significant positive impact on fostering understanding and collaboration between civilians and the military in real-life contexts, although some audience members remained skeptical about the military’s sincerity in sustaining peace and cordial relations with civilians. These findings indicate that the military has made deliberate efforts through broadcasting to create a platform for strengthening civil–military relations. The study therefore underscores the importance of expanding signal coverage to rural areas and sustaining audience-centered programming to consolidate positive public perception and enhance participatory communication in support of stronger civil–military engagement.

The foundation of democratic stability, institutional legitimacy, and effectiveness of the governance is public trust. In transitional democracies like Pakistan trust on the state institutions is often defined by political turbulence, judicial activism, civil-military relations as well as electoral contestation. The 2023 general elections became the most significant turning point in the history of political direction in Pakistan, which fueled the discussion of the stylistic legitimacy of the institution and trust between citizens. The paper explores the relative trust of the Pakistani population in three major pillars of the Pakistani state the military, judiciary and parliament and determines the socio-political conditions that impact the legitimacy of institutions in the post-election context. The study is based on a cross-sectional quantitative design through the analysis of the survey data of 714 respondents using stratified random sampling of the major urban districts. There was the use of statistical methods such as descriptive analysis, correlation matrices, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression model to examine predictors of institutional trust. The results indicate that there is a strong trust asymmetry with the military receiving the greatest trust rating followed by the judiciary and the parliament correspondingly having lower trust ratings. The outcome of regression indicates that the perceived institutional performance, political polarization, media exposure, and corruption perception are relevant predictors of trust changes. Notably, the paper determines civic efficacy and democratic commitment as moderator factors that can alleviate distrust of representative institutions. The theoretical contribution to research is the synthesis of the Institutional Trust Theory and the Performance Legitimacy Frameworks, which shows that citizens are becoming more perceptive in the outcomes-based criterion instead of constitutional mandates alone when assessing institutional performance. This research finds that to restore confidence in the representative institutions, it would be necessary to introduce visible governance changes, transparency in its procedures and enhancement of accountability measures. Unless institutional balance is restored, chronic lack of trust can increase the weaknesses of democracy and entrench non-representative power. References Ahmed, S., & Asif, M. (2026a). Public opinion on the effectiveness of local government anti-corruption measures: A multi-city survey analysis. International Journal of Social Sciences Bulletin, 4(1), 1189–1201. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18412790 Ahmed, S., & Asif, M. (2026b). Comparative analysis of attitudes toward climate change policies across urban and rural populations. Pakistan Journal of Social Science Review, 5(1), 747–769. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18457821 Asif, M., & Asghar, R. J. (2025). Managerial accounting as a driver of financial performance and sustainability in small and medium enterprises in Pakistan. Center for Management Science Research, 3(7), 150–163. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17596478 Asif, M., Khan, A., & Pasha, M. A. (2019). Psychological capital of employees’ engagement: Moderating impact of conflict management in the financial sector of Pakistan. Global Social Sciences Review, 4(3), 160–172. https://doi.org/10.31703/gssr.2019(IV-III).15 Aurangzeb, Asif, M., & Amin, M. K. (2021). Resources management and SMEs’ performance. Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews, 9(3), 679–689. https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2021.9367 Bartolome, M. T., Fernandez, K., Cutipa-Luque, O., Tiahuallpa, Y., & Rojas, H. (2024). Dynamic interconnections between corruption and economic growth. arXiv. https://arxiv.org Easton, D. (1965). A framework for political analysis. Prentice-Hall. Easton, D. (1965). A systems analysis of political life. Prentice-Hall. Easton, D. (1965). Distinction between specific and diffuse support in political systems. Easton, D. (1965). Expansion of political system theory in modern political science. Easton, D. (1965). Political systems as open systems influenced by environments. Huntington, S. P. (1957). Military institutions and civil–military balance. Huntington, S. P. (1957). The soldier and the state: The theory and politics of civil–military relations. Harvard University Press. Jennings, W. (2017). The decline in diffuse support for national politics. Political Research Quarterly. Khosrowjerdi, M. (2022). Good governance and national information transparency: A comparative study of 117 countries. arXiv. https://arxiv.org La Rocca, M., La Rocca, T., Fasano, F., & Sanchez-Vidal, J. (2023). From the top down: Does corruption affect performance? arXiv. https://arxiv.org Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust and trustworthiness. Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 475–507. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.475 Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust and trustworthiness. Annual Review of Political Science. Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust, participation, and citizen compliance. Shao, J., Ivanov, P. C., Podobnik, B., & Stanley, H. E. (2007). Quantitative relations between corruption and economic factors. arXiv. https://arxiv.org Transparency International. (2003). Accountability and transparency in political finance: Why, how and what for? Transparency International. Transparency International. (2012–2020). Corruption perceptions index methodology. Transparency International. Transparency International. (2023). Corruption perceptions index. https://www.transparency.org Transparency International. (2024). Corruption perceptions index 2024. Transparency International. Transparency International. (2025). Corruption perceptions index. https://www.transparency.org

This article examines how Indonesia's presidents have managed Civil–Military Relations (CMR) from the final decade of Suharto's authoritarian rule (1988) to the democratic consolidation of the Joko Widodo era (2024). It argues that presidential strategy – rather than institutional inertia or external pressure – has been the principal driver of the country's evolving civil–military balance. Six distinct strategies are identified across the period: authoritarian absorption (Suharto), disengagement (Bacharuddin Jusuf (BJ) Habibie), confrontation (Abdurrahman Wahid-Gus Dur), neutrality (Megawati Sukarnoputri), institutional balancing (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono-SBY) and technocratic containment (Joko Widodo-Jokowi). The analysis integrates Huntington's concept of subjective control with Schiff's concordance theory to explain why presidential actions varied in their effectiveness. Drawing on 45 elite interviews, legal and policy documents and triangulation with quantitative indices (Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem), Freedom House and Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) - Global Militarization Index (GMI)), the study demonstrates that Indonesia's CMR evolved through negotiated adaptation rather than linear reform. The findings contribute to comparative debates on democratic control of the armed forces in post-authoritarian contexts.

This study discusses the judicialization of politics in Pakistan and whether the superior courts are constitutional watchdogs or political referees that affect the results of the competitive process. The increasing judicial power of the Pakistan hybrid democracy has been observed to increase in times of institutional instability and this has raised the issue of overreach and the separation of powers. The qualitative doctrinal approach and comparative case-study analysis of landmark rulings are used to study the court interventions in parliamentary dissolutions, elections, party discipline, accountability processes and civil military relations. Courts demonstrate the behavior of guardians in the maintenance of constitutional order but become the referees in the politically sensitive cases, especially those related to accountability and intra-parties, transforming political alliances. The power of the judiciary is not that transparent, it is better to have more institutional dialogue and clear restraint to support governance.

This paper explores how military officers interpret responsibilities for protecting civilian populations in volatile environments. Drawing on qualitative interviews with Norwegian military officers, the study examines how officers invoke and contest security references to justify their roles at the intersection of soldiering and policing. Two opposing orientations emerge; one reinforces traditional security constructs to differentiate military and police roles, grounded in binaries including war/peace, internal/external threats, the use/the avoidance of force, and war/crime jurisprudence; the other frames policing as a legitimate extension of military duties, challenging established boundaries and prioritizing contextual flexibility. The analysis draws on sociological theories of boundary-making and the scholarship on civil-military relations and security governance to discuss how categorical distinctions may shape operational decisions. Boundary-making emerges as a cognitive strategy that simplifies complexity but risks reactive rather than proactive responses to civilians under attack. As modern conflicts increasingly involve populations, militaries face mounting pressure to reconcile traditional warfighting roles with broader societal protection mandates. The study calls for further research into how boundary-making logics and competing governance models influence operational decisions and civil-military relations in practice.

Communities in Canada’s North face unique challenges in disaster response due to extreme environmental conditions, geographic remoteness, and limited infrastructure and territorial emergency management capacity. These factors often necessitate federal support, including assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This article examines the role of the CAF, specifically Canadian Forces Northern Area (CFNA) and its successor Joint Task Force North (JTFN), in building a collaborative “whole-of-government” approach to disaster response in the region. Using government documents, after-action reports, media stories, and practitioner interviews, this article examines the effectiveness of JTFN’s primary efforts to strengthen intergovernmental and interorganizational collaboration: by chairing and co-chairing the Arctic Security Working Group, strengthening relationships with territorial and local officials through its liaison officers and the Canadian Rangers, and organizing and facilitating annual large-scale response exercises. We then use several case studies, including the crash of First Air Flight 6560 in 2011, the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 flooding in the NWT and Yukon, and the Iqaluit water crisis – the latter two cases representing the first time that Operation LENTUS deployed to Canada’s territorial North – to evaluate the effectiveness and limitations of these efforts. Although we identify limitations and areas for improvement in these initiatives, we also argue that JTFN has consistently “leaned forward” to build and sustain the collaboration required for whole-of-government disaster response operations, while making broader contributions to the practice of emergency management in the North.

This study examines the Nigerian military’s role in internal security operations, analysing the tension between achieving military objectives and adhering to international legal obligations. It addresses the central conflict of this balancing act: reconciling operational demands with compliance to international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights norms. The study assesses how these legal frameworks constrain the Nigerian military’s internal security operations and influence their adherence to principles of restraint. While these norms are crucial, this study argues that internal security operations, especially those involving civilians, create significant compliance challenges that sometimes lead to failure. Drawing on a descriptive historical-legal analysis, this qualitative study utilises secondary data from peer-reviewed journals, government reports, and credible media sources. Findings reveal that established legal guidelines often struggle to keep pace with the complexities of internal conflicts, affecting military effectiveness and civil-military relations. Future research should explore adaptive strategies for legal approaches to better address the realities of complex internal security situations.

Without a doubt, if properly implemented, securitization has allowed for urgent responses to real threats. This has also led to the alliance of recognized powers, the military mobilization of everyday governance, a weakening of police legitimacy, and the exclusion of non-security solutions. Security has remained a major issue in both core and peripheral countries, but it seems to have had its degree of effectvivness that depends on the context behind security challenge. In Nigeria, security seems to have faced more challenges as, over the years, security challenges tend to have progressed instead of regressing. This has caused citizens to question the security sector of Nigeria. Furthermore, the research made use of securitisation theory as a tool that investigates Nigeria's political authorities, security institutions, and public discourse that turned social issues into existential security threats. The focus is on three unified areas: counter-insurgency efforts against Boko Haram, rural violence and the farmer-herder conflict, and urban policing reform. The paper scrutinized the processes of developing a role for the security institution in Nigeria, how it has changed Nigeria's civil-military relations, reshaped policing operations, and its impacts on human rights and governance.

This study offers a critical lens for understanding how intertwined processes of military politicization and political militarization entrench state fragility. Despite achieving statehood, South Sudan has consistently ranked among the world’s most fragile countries. Through content analysis of more than 120 primary and secondary sources, this study argues that the country’s recurrent crises stem less from ethnic or resource-based rivalries than from the deliberate instrumentalization of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) by political elites. Originally a liberation movement, the SPLA evolved into a politicized institution used to secure elite dominance, distribute patronage, mobilize ethnic constituencies, and control oil revenues. These dynamics contributed directly to the outbreak of the 2013 civil war between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, which rapidly escalated into a militarized ethnic conflict causing nearly 400,000 deaths and displacing over four million people. Despite peace agreements in 2015 and 2018, military factionalism persists, security-sector reform remains stalled, and humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate. The paper concludes that meaningful stabilization requires depoliticizing the armed forces, demilitarizing political competition, strengthening democratic institutions, enforcing civilian oversight, combating corruption, and improving regional cooperation. These reforms are essential for addressing South Sudan’s deep-rooted fragility and supporting sustainable peace in post-conflict contexts. Keywords: Politicization of the Military, Militarization of Politics, State Fragility, Civil-Military Relations, South Sudan, Security Sector Reform, Elite Capture, Institutional Weakness.

ABSTRACT The political commissars active in the armed forces of the twentieth century’s socialist states emerged during the Russian Revolution and civil war and spread throughout the world with the growth of the communist movement. Depending on the country and time period, the functions and institutional power of commissars ranged from that of a parallel hierarchy of officers with operational powers, to an integrated part of the officer corps specializing in matters regarding personnel management and education. The commissars’ subsequent development into an essential part of military organization resulted in a distinct system of civil-military relations that differed significantly from that of non-socialist contemporary states. This article provides a condensed overview of commissar-led political instruction as a transnational phenomenon during the first half of the twentieth century. It begins with a brief conceptual discussion of the problem of civil–military relations in the Marxist theory of the state held by the Bolshevik Party. It goes on to argue that the commissar system was an institutional innovation intended to provide a politically acceptable solution to this problem within the context of the Russian Civil War. The article then traces the export of the commissar system through the Communist International, discussing the development of analogous positions among the anti-fascist armed forces of Republican Spain and the Balkan resistance movements. It argues that the commissar form was sufficiently flexible to accommodate a variety of civil–military dynamics reflecting the concrete conditions of each conflict.

This article aims to describe the reasons behind institutional discrimination towards the Rohingya in Myanmar during the National League for Democracy (NLD) government headed by Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016-2021. The 2015 general election victory of the NLD sparked great optimism for reforms across several sectors in Myanmar, particularly regarding the improvement of conditions for the Rohingya ethnic minority. By using qualitative method, this article examines the relationship between the government of the NLD Party and the military 'Tatmadaw' by assessing four cultural and institutional indicators using concordance theory by Schiff (2008). Inequality in civil-military relations is demonstrated by the lack of agreement (discordance) in military style, recruitment methods, the role and social composition of the armed forces, and political decision-making processes. This disparity played a pivotal role in the Rohingya ethnic cleansing operations in 2016 and 2017, and in the ongoing discrimination against the Rohingya as a whole. Over the years, discrimination against the Rohingya has been fueled by propaganda supported by influential monks, which succeeded in creating anti-Rohingya sentiment among the population. This factor is a form of institutional discrimination that significantly fueled animosity towards the Rohingya throughout the NLD Party government's tenure.The longstanding systematic discrimination against the Rohingya has facilitated the Tatmadaw's military operations in Rakhine.

The current paper addresses the intersection between the tasks assigned to the armed forces and the political control over the military. While the literature on civil–military relations tended to establish a close connection between weak political control over the military and domestic deployment, recent works challenged it. The paper contributes to this debate by exploring the role played by military identity in the relations between tasks performed by the armed forces and the political control over the military. It is argued that the military’s willingness to broaden its realm of action and engage in political interferences, as well as the way it responds to civilian efforts to expand the spectrum of tasks assigned to the armed forces and to bring the military into political disputes, are rooted in the military institutional identity. The argument is developed through the Brazilian case.

Abstract This article explores the effects of coup leaders' signals of ideological preferences on political violence. Leveraging a new, original data set on coup ideology, the article's findings show that successful coups d’état performed by ideologically inspired military personnel significantly increase chances for future political violence, evidenced in torture, political killings, and repression. Programmatic statements amid military takeovers of power establish expectations for future policy directions and set the stage for creating winners and losers in society beyond renegotiating elite coalitions at the time coups occur. Empirical findings provide robust support for this theory and help explain why military coups increase political violence. Understanding the logic of programmatic coups offers a valuable contribution to multiple research programs, including civil–military relations, authoritarian regime change, and political violence.

This article examines civil–military relations in Nigeria through an integrated application of civil–military relations theory and the Limited-Access Order (LAO) framework. Despite the formal institutionalization of democratic control since 1999, military effectiveness and accountability remain constrained by neopatrimonial politics, elite bargaining, and weak oversight. Drawing on 23 elite interviews and document analysis, the study shows that constitutional mechanisms for civilian control are undermined by politicized appointments, institutional fragmentation, and regional disparities in governance. By synthesizing normative theories of civilian oversight with a political-economy perspective, the article explains how authority is produced and negotiated within hybrid political orders. It argues that reforming Nigeria’s civil–military relations requires addressing both institutional weaknesses and structural incentives sustaining elite cohesion, which undermine institutions under the LAO. The findings advance comparative debates on democratic consolidation and security governance in postcolonial and limited-access contexts.

ABSTRACT Scholars often present Thomas Robert Bugeaud as one of the first French commanders to pursue pacification, especially in his role as Governor General of Algeria. Covered in their works are accounts of marches based on mobility and morale, raids targeting spouses and supplies, torture through asphyxiation and mutilation, but also Arab Offices (Bureaux Arabes) making maps and translations, liaising with local leaders, collecting taxes and grievances, and monitoring mosques and mujahedin. While some English-language publications employ French-language sources, virtually none refer to Italian-language manuscripts. Taking inspiration from the work of Federico Cresti, this paper is based on consular dispatches sent to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, stored in the State Archives of Naples (Archivio di Stato di Napoli). Using 47 handwritten Italian-language letters sent from Algiers to Naples during Bugeaud’s governorship of Algeria, along with recently published French-language accounts, the paper presents new evidence that corroborates the arguments of Porch and DeVore that Bugeaud’s command was characterized by a militarized form of governance and poor civil-military relations.

This article examines the evolution of academic studies in civil-military relations, discussing how research on the subject can be divided into three distinct, yet interrelated, generations of scholarship. Building on the first, archetypal wave of civil-military relations studies on military interventions in politics, the subject has progressively branched out into a second, more nuanced generation of studies, which explored civil-military dynamics between the armed forces and a country’s civilian institutions beyond the scenario of a military coup, focusing on the differences between civilian and democratic control of the armed forces. Lastly, the article explores how the emergence of a third, 'functional' generation of civil-military studies has built on existing academic research to advance our understanding of how the civil-military interface can affect the military's effectiveness.