Sunday, March 23, 2008

The military in Venezuela

Deborah Norden, “Civilian Authority Without Civilian Dominance? Assessing Venezuelan Political-Military Relations under Chávez.” Nueva Sociedad 213 (January-February 2008): 170-187.

Full text is public

ABSTRACT: Since taking power, Hugo Chávez has begun a process of transformation within which the military play a crucial role. In order to ensure his control of the military, Chávez has incorporated military personnel into his government, he has promoted loyal officers, given the military new responsibilities on the domestic front, and he has sought to create a series of shared values related to socialism and anti-imperialism. This has enabled him to consolidate a certain authority within the armed forces and maintain civilian control, but his domination must not be overestimated. The Venezuelan political system is undergoing a period of transition and, until it is completed, there can hardly be a truly stable relation between civilians and the military.

Deborah Norden has been researching civil-military relations in Latin America generally, and Venezuela specifically, for quite some time. I find this article particularly insightful because it looks at the convergence between the military’s perception of its role and what it is asked to do.* One might expect the Venezuelan military to be restive given political polarization in the country and its injection into politics, but Chávez has been very skillful at a) purging dissenting officers and b) explaining very clearly to the remaining ranks what their role in the country’s development will be. As she writes, “When the government has well-developed defense and security policies, and these are compatible with military policy goals, then both are likely to be more successful” (p. 171).

She argues that this can be a highly effective strategy, but it entails more “control” than “management” of the armed forces, because Chávez has not worked to establish solid bureaucratic capabilities to manage the military (it should be noted, however, that this latter point is true of almost every Latin American country). One important question is how Chávez’s strategies—especially the explicit inculcation of socialism into the military—would affect a future, non-socialist president.

She does not mention Bolivia, but I think it could provide useful comparative perspective. Despite its interventionist history the Bolivian military has remained firmly behind Evo Morales. So are there parallels between the management styles of the two presidents with regard to the armed forces? In the past few months, I’ve actually received emails from two separate Ph.D. students starting research on the Bolivian military, which remains woefully understudied—the same is true of Ecuador, yet both countries would help us better understand the military side of the political changes taking place in many Latin American countries.


* The divergence of the two helps explain why Chávez and many other officers became disillusioned in the 1980s.

15 comments:

Boli-Nica 12:25 PM  

Chavez control of the military - and political institutions- has a lot of paralells with what Pinochet did in Chile. Both are examples of one individual imposing his will on the military, while controlling the civilian state and political institutions.
Pinochet did it by a gradual process of isolating and excluding the other junta members, and controlling promotions of all the armed forces to make sure he had loyalty.

But, Pinochet did not change key aspects of the institutional character of the Chilean Armed Forces. The military was still theoretically separate from the civilian sectors of the state. Pinochet was fairly strict about that and would rotate high officers out of civilian posts rather quickly. In contrast Chavez has blurred that line, and in the process created personal fiedoms within the state administration. And given the oil boom and world-class lack of accountability and transparency in Venezuela's state high officers are becoming multi-millionaires. And that ultimately is the greater threat to the cohesion of the Venezuelan military.

Greg Weeks 2:30 PM  

The Pinochet comparison works only superficially, but it's a thought-provoking comparison. For example, the Chilean military government sought to impose its vision of a conservative past, which appealed to most--though certainly not all--in the ranks. From a military point of view, there wasn't much radical about it, so unlike with Chavez we wouldn't expect much resistance within the ranks. Yes, the air force made noises from time to time, but nothing compared to the criticisms Chavez gets (e.g. from Baduel).

And as you correctly note, even Pinochet consciously kept as clear a line as possible between civilian and military functions.

Anonymous,  6:56 AM  

Has this transformation been occurring since he first took power, or only in large measures after the coup attempt?

I think it makes a difference, because if its the latter it should be seen as reactive and as a pragmatic security-fix...the ultimate goal being to avoid the military playing an ambivalent role and allowing another situation like the coup.

Greg Weeks 7:46 AM  

No, the transformations began in the 1999 constitution.

boz 7:55 AM  

From the Bolivia perspective, if I remember correctly, Morales ousted two or three dozen top officers early in his term. It created a lot of discontent, but also helped get rid of the old guard who probably would have caused the most problems for him.

For anyone doing the study on Bolivia, I would recommend looking at regional disparities in the officer corps. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Morales was promoting more officers from the western provinces while dismissing or holding back more officers from eastern provinces. It's just an educated guess.

Greg Weeks 10:04 AM  

True, and that even makes me wonder whether the racial composition of the military has changed--Bolivia and/or Venezuela.

Justin Delacour 12:02 PM  

No, the transformations began in the 1999 constitution.

But most of the purges of unloyal officers came after the coup.

Boli-Nica 1:37 PM  

From the Bolivia perspective, if I remember correctly, Morales ousted two or three dozen top officers early in his term. It created a lot of discontent, but also helped get rid of the old guard who probably would have caused the most problems for him.

Bolivia has the precedent of the 52 Revolution. The MNR was ambivalent towards the military. It was founded by Chaco war veterans, and influenced by the post-Chaco War military establishment that had nationalized the oil companies.

The MNR's syndicalist allies wanted to abolish the military, and empower its own militias. But the MNR instead tried controlling the army, making them swear oaths of loyalty to the MNR, and promoting officers it liked - Barrientos and Banzer were two "stars". Barrientos later ended up overthrowing the MNR government.

But even during the military period, MNR policies were continued. There was growing factionalism. A fairly left wing general took power, who was then overthrown by Banzer, who ruled as a right-winger. There was even the narco-military regime of Garcia Mesa. But in many ways there were certain internal "checks" that stopped behavior that was deeemed too extreme. Even the drug money did not buy the loyalty of many senior officers. Many military officers were key in securing the return to the barracks, where they have remained for 25 years.

MAS is also ambivalent towards the military. Evo is a former soldier, in many pro-MAS social movements and in many indigenous communities, certain positions of leadership and offices are only open to those who have served in the military.

Evo's strategy has been to kick out senior officers, as Boz pointed out, and putting in younger officers to ensure loyalty. Venezuelan money - the infamous "Chavez Checks" have been spread around the military, outside of the official budget. There are allegations that military commanders are being bribed with Venezuelan money (Boz's
"Bags of Money"_). These allegations were around well before the Venezuelan military intelligence officer got caught flying in an off-the-books flight with 900K in cash. That has created some dissent.

And Evo has made mis-steps that really angered senior officers, including attending the 40th anniversary of Che's death -with one of the invading Cubans to boot-, while the military was honoring the Bolivian soldiers who died in that conflict.

The lesson here is that the Bolivian military as an institution predates any political party or movement. It has its own institutional values and culture, and its own version of Bolivian nationalism.
In the past it involved itself in political conflicts, but always seems to end up on the winning side. Even when split by dissent, it always seem to come out ok. Evo can create and buy some loyalty, but he will never have absolute control.

boz 5:43 PM  

Evo is a former soldier...

I didn't know that, but wikipedia confirms it, so it must be true :)

Unless I'm missing someone, that means Morales, Chavez and Ortega are the only Latin American presidents with actual military experience. There's something interesting to that.

Miguel Centellas 8:04 PM  

Evo is a former solider ... because Bolivia has (althought that might soon change) compulsory military service. There are, increasingly, more ways for middle and lower middle class to escape military service (such as by joining high school ROTC type military traning programs), but it is still compulsory. Bolivian males need a military brevet (which proves military service record) for a number of legal purposes.

It should also be noted, to stress Boli-Nica's observation (which is correct) that the post-1952 military was essentially a purged military. The MNR did abolish the army for a few years, relying exclusively on civil-worker militias (my grandmother was in the MNR urban militia in La Paz). The post-1952 army that was reconstituted was based on loyal MNR officers. Which partly explains why all military regimes (from Barrientos through Banzer) followed the same basic macroeconomic policies and developmentalist state model.

There were some waves made by Evo's choices in terms of promotions and cashiering of offices after his 2005 election. But there was already an increasing politization of the military (but also the police, perhaps even more so) in the years prior to. A number of mid-rank officers were more ammenable to Evo, than the older rank-and-file officer corps.

I'm not a civil-military relations person, so it's not something I closely follow. But there are some recent books by Bolivians on the subject, including a very good one on the political history of the police.

boz 9:26 PM  

because Bolivia has... compulsory military service.

Agreed. But what is interesting is that Uribe did not serve (in spite of Colombia's "compulsory" service). Neither did Torrijos (son of military strongman), Garcia, Lula, Zelaya, Colom or Calderon.

Evo's military service may have been minimal, but I have to wonder whether it was significant in some ways as well.

Greg Weeks 9:21 AM  

I agree it's potentially interesting, but the details are important because his experience could easily work in either positive or negative ways.

For example, perhaps his service gives him more confidence dealing with the military leadership, and they recognize that he has at least some amount of knowledge about the institution (and many LA leaders don't).

However, maybe his service led him to distrust the leadership because of corruption, repression of coca farmers, etc.

Those are just off the top of my head--we could easily come up with more.

Miguel Centellas 4:29 PM  

I think a very clear distinction has to be made between conscripts (like Evo) and those who entere the military as a career (like Chavez). Yes, not all LA leaders served in the military (there are always ways to avoid this, particularly among the upper classes). But Evo wasn't an officer, he was a conscript private. Certainly, it can be a formative experience (in Bolivia, it's often seen as a ritual of "coming of age" into manhood). But the experience is different. Just as it was different for a WWII draftee and a West Point officer. Both of my grandfathers served (one in the US doring WWII, the other in Bolivia as a conscript). I'd never describe either of them as "military" men.

Greg Weeks 4:40 PM  

True, but the key here is to ask what effect that has. Conscripts may not be "military men" but they understand the military in ways that others do not, simply by experience.

Anonymous,  9:43 PM  

MAS is also ambivalent towards the military.

Funny, but when I saw Evo speak at Cooper Union, during the entire course of his speech, a member of the Bolivian Navy in dress whites stood behind Evo at attention the entire time.

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