The Politics of Internal Security: Relations Between Civilians, the Military and Police

Abstract

This research examines the politics of internal security in countries facing prolonged domestic conflict. It builds upon existing theories of civil-military relations for democracies and recognizes police roles in the security matters that challenge nations. The central research question addresses the separation between civil-military and policing theories and investigates the effects of long-term domestic conflicts on the relationship between civilian politicians, the military and police. Recognizing the weaknesses of existing structural research in civil-military relations, a combined structural-cultural approach is applied to provide insight into the balance of power in internal security operations. The independent variables of structural capability in domestic defense missions and cultural attitudes toward military and police actions are analyzed. Comparison of country-specific research on domestic conflicts in Israel, Colombia and the United Kingdom's Northern Ireland provides insight into the central research question. The results demonstrate the value of augmenting existing structural theory on civil-military relations with cultural considerations to explain the politics of internal security. In the cases studied, long-term domestic conflict forced each state to choose between utilizing police or military forces in internal defense; structural capabilities of the military and police forces as well as cultural opinions about the way in which internal security operations should be carried out ultimately affected the decisions. In addition to lending some credibility to the proposed model of civil-military-police relations, these findings provide important implications for policy-makers evaluating courses of action to improve civil-military relations and solve long-standing security conflicts in democratic nations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 07, 2000
Accession Number
ADA381839

Entities

People

  • Sunchlar M. Pilkey

Organizations

  • University of Oklahoma

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Employment
  • Geography
  • Governments
  • Law
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Governments
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personnel Management
  • Political Science
  • Political Systems
  • Security Personnel
  • Terrorists
  • War Colleges

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.
  • Theoretical Analysis.