Political Institutions and Military Change

Even powerful states face disaster if their armies do not adapt military doctrine to meet new challenges. Comparing the cases of the United States Army in Vietnam and the British Army during the Boer War and the Malayan Emergency, Political Institutions and Military Change offers an account of the conditions that help shape doctrine within military organizations.

Drawing on the new institutional economics, Deborah D. Avant assumes that actors at every level will seek to enhance their political power. Military organizations will thus respond to civilian goals when military leaders expect rewards for their responsiveness. Tracing the evolution of civil-military relations in the United States and Britain, Avant highlights that a nation's political structure has a major impact on the structure of military organizations and their formation of military doctrine.

Political Institutions and Military Change discusses how the structural differences between the British and US governments resulted in very different biases within the two armies, and how their political conditions and systems contributed to the relative ease with which the British Army adapted to new peripheral threats and the reluctance with which the US Army responded to change in Vietnam.

Deborah D. Avant is Distinguished University Professor and Sié Chéou-Kang Chair for International Security and Diplomacy at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. She is the author of The Market for Force and coeditor of Civil Action and the Dynamics of Violence in Conflict and The New Power Politics, and.

Deborah Avant's book provides a creative and useful application of institutional political economy to a new field-the development of military doctrine in demo- cratic states.

Deborah Avant's innovative study applies an understanding of institutions derived from the new economics of organization to the problem of military adaptation. Her work has significant theoretical as well as empirical value.

This slim volume packs some powerful arguments which Avant presents clearly and convincgly. This book is also most pertinent with policy-makers now requiring militaries to make peace instead of war. Avant's model provides the best tool yet for predicting which militaries are likely to shape up to these new tasks.

Avant tells an interesting set of stories from a unique perspective. She has made an important contribution to the development of civil-military relations theory, proving through her careful analysis that it makes sense to integrate the new institutionalism into the subfield, particularly by focusing on budgetary and hiring procedures.