Concordance Theory in Pakistan: Response to Zulfiqar Ali

Transcription

1 Disputatio Sine Fine Concordance Theory in Pakistan: Response to Zulfiqar Ali Armed Forces & Society 2016, Vol. 42(1) ª The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalspermissions.nav DOI: / X afs.sagepub.com Rebecca L. Schiff 1 Abstract In Zulfiqar Ali s article regarding concordance theory in Pakistan, Dr. Ali asserts that concordance theory does not explain domestic military intervention in Pakistan. He also suggests that concordance theory superimposes a Western theoretical model on Pakistan, like Huntington s theory of objective civilian control. In response to Dr. Ali s claims, this article reiterates how concordance theory can in fact explain why Pakistan has suffered from domestic military intervention the alienation of the Bengali community and subsequent lack of agreement among the three concordance partners being one significant factor. Additionally, Huntington s theory focuses on institutional and dichotomous civil military relations, grounded in the post World War II US case study. By contrast, concordance theory views the relationship between military and society from both cultural and institutional perspectives and embraces those indigenous qualities that may encourage or discourage domestic military intervention. Keywords Pakistan, concordance theory, military coups I applaud Dr. Ali s discussion of concordance theory and its relevance to Pakistan, particularly because Pakistan s geopolitical significance is acutely critical to the United States and international foreign policy. Along with the ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) threat, Pakistan s civil military relations in a nuclearized 1 Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm, Sweden Corresponding Author: Rebecca L. Schiff, P. O. Box 324, Jamestown, RI 02835, USA. rschiff1@msn.com

2 Schiff 227 South Asia should be keeping presidents and prime ministers awake at night. The theoretical and policy discussions here not only go hand-in-hand but are also crucial to the fragile preservation of regional and world peace. I also appreciate Dr. Ali s understanding that separation theory, or objective civilian control, and the imposition of this mossy American civil military relations model on nations with unique histories and cultures is inadequate and irresponsible. I have often written that Samuel Huntington s objective civilian control works well in post World War II America. 1 There is indeed a concordance or agreement among the political elites, the military, and the citizenry that institutional and cultural separation is best for the United States at this time, unlike previous eras such as post Revolutionary America and the United States during World War II. 2 However, application of the US model on other nations like Pakistan and Iraq to name just two has severely hampered successful geopolitical relations in several critical regions, such as South Asia and the Middle East. This irresponsible imposition of Huntington s model, or the normal theory, by policy makers and scholars has resulted in a more dangerous world, not to mention the toll on brave US and international combat troops. In my book The Military and Domestic Politics: A Concordance Theory of Civil Military Relations, I explain why Pakistan, unlike India, has suffered from domestic military intervention. 3 Applying concordance theory, I show that Pakistan embraced the Western separation model in its early years, a political and military tradition inherited from British colonial history. Pakistan, however, like all nations, has indigenous cultural and political realities, including a diverse multiethnic population. The alienation of the Bengali community within the military and throughout the Pakistani society was one significant factor that contributed to a political vacuum neglected by the political elite. The subsequent lack of agreement among the three concordance partners (the military, political elites, and citizenry) resulted in several military coups. Had there been agreement among the three partners over the four concordance indicators (officer corps composition, military recruitment method, political decision making, and military style), domestic military intervention would have likely been avoided. Both institutional and cultural factors play a role in Pakistan s discordance over the role and function of the armed forces. 4 Dr. Ali offers four reasons why concordance theory fails to explain domestic military intervention in Pakistan. First, he suggests that concordance theory takes it for granted that for every society domestic military intervention is undesirable. 5 He then suggests that Pakistan s domestic military interventions (1958, 1977, 2009) reflect a condition of concordance or agreement favoring these interventions. Second, he asserts there are only two concordance partners rather than three: Pakistan and the United States. This partnership he claims is characterized by a patron client relationship. 6 Third, Dr. Ali suggests that the four concordance indicators provide an oversimplified framework for explaining discordance in Pakistan. Finally, he argues that concordance theory, like Huntington s theory of objective civilian control, superimposes a Western theoretical model on Pakistan. 7

3 228 Armed Forces & Society 42(1) To the first point, Dr. Ali implies that domestic military intervention is welcome in Pakistan by the political elites and the citizens. He recounts the military rule of Pervez Musharraf who states, It was not the army chief who willingly intervened into politics, but it was the call of the President and Prime minister. 8 This interpretation comes from an army general who overthrew Nawaz Sharif in Musharraf, who is currently facing charges of treason in Pakistan, is hardly an objective commentator on Pakistani civil military relations and partnership among the political elites and the military. Dr. Ali also notes that independent polls conducted by various institutions show that the public (citizenry) supported the military coup of 1958 and was therefore in concordance with the military to impose martial law. 9 The citation for the independent polls is a 1965 secondary source article by Wayne Ayres Wilcox, who in fact states in that article: In general the world community was impressed with the quiet efficiency of the new government, and within the country hardly a dissenting opinion was expressed because of strict censorship through the Ministry of Defence. 10 An obedient population under strict censorship is not one in partnership with the political elites and the military, and certainly is not a determinant of national concordance. Even today, when overall literacy in Pakistan hovers around 46 percent, and 26 percent for girls, and when there are reports that prior to the 2013 elections leaflets are appearing that state it is un-islamic for women to participate in democracy, one wonders how informed and expressive the population is allowed to become in this military state a greater indication of discordance or lack of partnering. 11 More recently, The Economist reported that after airing allegations regarding an attack ordered by the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (Pakistan s military-espionage agency), Geo TV (the country s news channel) had its license suspended for 15 days and had to pay a fine. 12 National media openly punished by the military, coupled with the military s abusive influence over voting restrictions, points to discordance between the military and the citizenry. Apart from the 1965 Wilcox secondary article, Dr. Ali provides scant social science evidence that an informed citizenry was in favor of domestic military intervention. In A Concordance Theory of Civil Military Relations, I offer a clear example of the East Bengali citizenry who suffered immeasurable recruitment and social discrimination by the Pakistani government and the military. Despite comprising 60 percent of the Pakistani population, it was only allowed to contribute three battalions (3,000 men) to an army of 300,000. Pakistan also reinforced the traditional martial races theory, which marginalized groups like the East Bengalis. By contrast, India has socially and economically broadened its military ranks since independence. Despite India s tremendously complex social structure, the nation remains coup free largely because of the citizens wide agreement regarding the role and composition of the armed forces and their broad participation in the military. 13 Despite Dr. Ali s assertions, Pakistan encouraged such severe societal alienation from the military and the government that the resulting creation of Bangladesh in 1971 provides abundant reinforcement of discordance among the Pakistani citizenry. 14

4 Schiff 229 Regarding the second point that there are only two concordance partners, Pakistan and the United States, Dr. Ali fails to recognize that civil military relations is about the domestic role of the armed forces, not primarily the geopolitical influence of outside nations. While the United States certainly has important relationships in South Asia, Dr. Ali does not argue convincingly that domestic military intervention in Pakistan results from American influence in South Asia. He states that Pakistan s case study shows that there are two partners, that is, the United States and the [Pakistani] military where the political forces do not turn up as the partner but a client. In this circumstance, military coups are not consequence of discordance but of concordance. 15 Later in his article, Dr. Ali argues that during the coups of 1958, 1977, and 2009, the United States was directly engaged in the region. As a consequence, Dr. Ali states, It demonstrates the fact that direct military intervention in Pakistan is influenced by regional as well as international factors. Under these conditions, US influence is an important factor in understanding civil and military relations in Pakistan. 16 Dr. Ali s line of reasoning is confusing at best. He asserts a patron client relationship between the United States and Pakistan; but it is not clear what patron client means in this context and how this relationship results in both concordance and domestic military intervention. Asserting that Pakistani coups are outcomes of American s role in South Asia without concrete examples of how the United States affects the domestic relationship between the Pakistani armed forces and the overthrow of civilian authority in 1958, 1977, and 2009 provides a tenuous argument at best. It would be just as fallacious to argue, without concrete examples, that America s involvement in South Asia also prevents domestic military intervention in India, another country where America has important regional ties. Regardless of India s relationship with the United States, India has historically worked hard to strengthen institutional and cultural partnership among the political elites, the military, and the citizenry among the key concordance indicators: the officer corps composition, political decision-making process, recruitment method, and military style. 17 Blaming Pakistan s continuous domestic strife on US involvement in South Asia, without specific examples and linkages, is a retreat from geopolitical and domestic reality. Dr. Ali also suggests that the four concordance indicators provide an oversimplified framework for explaining discordance in Pakistan. Finally, he argues that concordance theory, like Huntington s theory of objective civilian control, superimposes a Western theoretical model on Pakistan. I will respond to both points here as they are interrelated, beginning with the second one. Concordance theory was developed in the field in Israel when both American and Israeli scholars were desperately trying to adapt Huntington s theory of objective civilian control to Israel s situation of high external threat, no incidence of domestic intervention, and a democratic government. I spent almost three years in Israel during peacetime and wartime (the first Palestinian Intifada and the first Persian Gulf War). I crisscrossed the country and spoke to hundreds of Israelis and military officers in Hebrew. I kept going back to my University of Chicago and Hebrew

5 230 Armed Forces & Society 42(1) University academic advisers relaying to them that Huntington s theory is institutionally and culturally out of context and does not adequately explain the Israeli case study. The Israeli scholars understood my cultural perception and theoretical concern, but they invoked Huntington to keep the Israeli case part of the mainstream academic literature. Many American political science scholars, with some notable and important exceptions, did not appreciate cultural fieldwork because it was considered unscientific; few wanted to cross Huntington s theory despite the culturally sterile approach to civil military relations; and some scholars had particular views regarding Israel and the American Israeli political relationship. Despite all the academic/political issues, I saw Israel (and later the post Revolutionary United States, Pakistan, India, and Argentina) as a terrific case study that allowed me to do what the prominent scholars told me to do challenge the current theory and create a new one. Despite the less-celebrated initial case study, the Israeli cultural and institutional context challenged objective civilian control and inspired a new theory. Scholars and students of civil military relations appreciate concordance theory because its aim is not to superimpose a Western theoretical model on other nations. Civil military relations and international security studies are still hungry for a theory that institutionally and culturally embraces nations on their own terms. Concordance theory postulates that focusing on agreement explains more about a country s military domestically than does focusing on one nation s civil military reality of separation. US civil military separation works in the post World War II United States and can be explained by concordance theory because there is strong agreement among the political elites, the military, and the citizenry that institutional and cultural separation is best. But that has not always been the US experience. For example, during the post Revolutionary period and World War II, the three partners agreed on overlapping civil military boundaries and not separation. 18 Concordance theory frees scholars and their nations of study from being pigeonholed into the current American model, a model that often does not even apply to the United States. Regarding the conceptual constructs of the three partners and four indicators, my intent was to view the relationship between military and society through the lens of an entire nation rather than dichotomous institutions. Therefore, the three partners (including the larger population) meant that the political elites, the military, and the citizenry would engage in partnership or agreement on the role and function of the armed forces. This is not culturally biased since all nations possess these partners in some indigenous form. Dr. Ali also asserts that Schiff s tripartite scheme is too narrow. For, it fails to notice that the judiciary, recently media, and international actors, especially the United States, play a major role in domestic military intervention. 19 Several case studies I have offered and those of other scholars utilizing concordance theory have acknowledged the usefulness of the three partners. 20 Nevertheless, if a subset or facet of one partner, or an additional entity, such as the judiciary, significantly affects the domestic role and function of the armed forces, then I agree that it should be recognized and embellished according to the merits of the case study. However,

6 Schiff 231 as argued earlier, citing the United States as a de facto partner affecting domestic military intervention in another nation, simply because it influences a region, lacks scholarly rigor and weakens Dr. Ali s argument regarding the possibility of additional concordance partners. Regarding three of the indicators officer corps composition, political decision making, and recruitment method all have been identified by leading scholars of civil military relations as key determinants of military function and role in most societies. 21 As I stated in A Concordance Theory of Civil Military Relations, the structure and form of these four indicators, which are found in all militaries, are different depending upon the particular political structure and culture of each nation. 22 Regarding the military-style indicator, this is unique to the field because many civil military relation scholars ignore it, and it rarely becomes integrated into a cohesive theory. As I have written previously, military style refers to the external manifestations and inner mental constructions associated with the military. Distinguished sociologists such as Morris Janowitz and Charles Moskos understand the importance of dealing directly with the human and cultural elements of the armed forces. How the military looks, the overt and subtle signals it conveys, the rituals it displays these are all part of a deep and nuanced relationship among soldiers, citizens, and the polity. 23 All four indicators and the three partners find unique meaning in most nations and can thereby serve to inform the role and function of the armed forces without superimposing one nation s values or culture. Concordance theory is grounded in deductive causation and postulates agreement among the three partners over the four concordance indicators. The theory utilizes deductive causation or generalizations about the world that can be tested empirically while incorporating the values and culture of a particular society. 24 The theory s causal limitation, as I have noted previously, is that concordance does not explain why it is that some nations can or have achieved concordance while others have not. The reason for this limitation results from the cultural aspect of the methodology. 25 Why one nation is able to achieve concordance and another is not surely is not dependent on separate versus overlapping boundaries, but results from the indigenous historical, institutional, and cultural realities of each nation. Dr. Ali does understand that culture and history matter. American policy makers know that even more profoundly today after trying to impose Huntington s normal separation model on Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Frank Hoffman concurs, We need to reject an outdated normal theory of civil military relations to a more historically grounded model that accounts for the overlapping and reciprocal interrelationship of ends, ways and means that leads to strategic success. 26 While Dr. Ali prefers to group me with Huntington and his followers, concordance theory directly opposes the view that institutional analysis grounded in Western and American culture is appropriate for all nations and can explain their civil military relationship. However, it is not surprising that Dr. Ali assumes concordance theory is prescriptive, because for decades separation theory was transformed from the one explaining post World War II US civil military relations into a model that was

7 232 Armed Forces & Society 42(1) imposed on nations quite dissimilar from the United States. The normal theory, which is code for American separation theory, is indeed a mirage because all nations, including Pakistan, are in fact normal and possess their own indigenous institutional and cultural realities that may or may not reflect or perhaps blend aspects of Western culture. 27 Those unique realities, described by concordance theory, in turn influence the evolving relationship between military and society. Concordance theory provides abundant evidence that domestic military intervention in Pakistan is explained by the lack of agreement among the political elites, the military, and the citizenry. In contrast to India, Pakistan s troubled civil military relationship has resulted in multiple coups and outright secession of over half of its original nation and the creation of Bangladesh. What is more troubling is Pakistan s nuclear arsenal and capability in an unstable civil military relations environment that could encourage loose nukes, posing a threat to key regional actors such as India and China. Overall, I applaud Dr. Ali s understanding that Western models often do not apply to nations with unique and indigenous cultures. Nevertheless, concordance theory shows time and again that Pakistan s longtime condition of discordance makes it more susceptible to domestic military intervention. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Notes 1. Rebecca L. Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics: A Concordance Theory of Civil military Relations (New York: Routledge, 2009), 33-35; Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and The State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957). 2. Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics, Ibid., Ibid., Zulfiqar Ali, Contradiction of Concordance Theory: Failure to Understand Military Intervention in Pakistan, Armed Forces & Society 40, 3 (2014): Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 558; Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), Ibid., Wayne Ayres Wilcox, The Pakistan Coup d Etat of 1958, Pacific Affairs 38, 2 (1965): 143.

8 Schiff Tracy McVeigh, Pakistan s Women Face Battle for the Right to Vote, The Observer, May 4, 2013, Sharif versus Sharif, The Economist, June 14, 2014, 35., news/asia/ prime-ministers-hopes-confining-his-generals-barracks-take-knocksharif-versus-sharif 13. Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics, Ibid., Ali, Contradiction of Concordance Theory, Ibid., Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics, Ibid., Ali, Contradiction of Concordance Theory, Nilufer Narli, Concordance and Discordance in Turkish Civil military Relations, Turkish Studies 12, 2 (2011): ; Zolatan Barany, The Soldier and The Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 272, 24; Jimmy D. Kandeh, Civil-military Relations, in West Africa s Security Challenges: Building Peace In a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics, 40; Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957); Samuel S. Finer, The Man on Horseback, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988); Stephen P. Cohen, The Indian Army (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002); Stephen P. Cohen, The Pakistan Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (New York: The Free Press, 1964). 22. Ibid., Ibid., 47; Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, A Social and Political Portrait (New York: The Free Press, 1964); Charles Moskos as cited by R. Williams, Military, Civilians Follow Difference Callings (American Forces Press, U.S. Department of Defense, November 25, 2007); Charles Moskos, From Institution to Occupation: Trends in Military Organization, Armed Forces and Society, 4 (1977), Schiff, The Military and Domestic Politics, Ibid., Frank Hoffman, Dereliction of Duty Redux? Foreign Policy Research Institute, November 2007, Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: The Free Press, 2002), 4. Author Biography Rebecca L. Schiff received her doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago. Her recent publications include The Military and Domestic Politics: A Concordance Theory of Civil Military Relations, New York:

9 234 Armed Forces & Society 42(1) Routledge, 2009; Concordance Theory, Targeted Partnership, and Counterinsurgency Strategy, Armed Forces & Society 38, 2 (April 2012). Her current interests include civil military relations, NATO and American foreign policy, Hannah Arendt, and ethics in military organizations. She has taught at the US Naval War College, Newport, RI and has lectured at the Swedish National Defence College. She serves on the NATO HFM-RTG-226 research technical team entitled Civilian and Military Personnel Work Culture and Relations in Defence Organisations. Rebecca also serves as a council member for the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. She is a Director of Development at Harvard Medical School, and is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Swedish National Defence College, Stockholm.