1. Constitutionally sanctioned role of the military in politics.
2. Military relationship to the chief executive
3. Coordination of defense sector
4. Active-duty military participation in the cabinet.
5. Role of legislature
6. Role of career civil servants or civilian political appointees
7. Role in intelligence
8. Role in police.
9. Role in military promotions
10. Role in state enterprises
11. Role in legal system
A combination of all these prerogatives and contestations results in four different coordinates of civil-military relations: 1) Unequal civilian accommodation: This coordinate reflects low military contestation and high military prerogatives, a vulnerability to a possible coup, and a non-democratic civilian-headed garrison state. In this stage, lack of autonomy can deligitimize the new democracy in the eyes of civil and political society (Stepan 122); 2) A near untenable position for democratic leaders: This reflects high prerogatives and high contestation. Here the democratic regime is in peril, but could lead toward a construction of a civil-military alliance reducing prerogatives and conflict (122); 3) An unsustainable position for military leaders: As this demonstrates low prerogatives and high contestation; it implies de facto and de jure control of civilians, plus favorable power position to reject conflict by changing military leaders; 4) Civilian control: This scenario reflects low contestation and low prerogatives. Here, the military does not represent a threat to democratic regimes, despite the ever-present likelihood of conflict (99-103).
Stepan developed this framework to measure civil-military relations in the Southern Cone during the initial phase of democratization experienced from 1985 to 1987 in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Even though this scheme was developed to measure civil-military relations in these new democracies, it will be adopted in this work to measure the Venezuelan military participation in state areas (prerogatives) throughout President Chávez’s administration (1999-2003). Also, this study draws on several other works to shed light on the question of why Venezuelan politics militarized under Chávez’s governmet. For example, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan in their work The Breakdown of Democratic Regime focus on the types of political systems and their effects on democratic governance and on democratic breakdown. They also consider political party systems as either an independent variable or an intervening factor in the crisis of democracy. The character of party systems and party competition has tremendous consequences for democratic stability (Linz & Stepan 24). Michael Coppedge suggests that independent from the institutional character of the Venezuelan party system, the leaders of the two dominant political parties, Acción Democrática (Democratic Action) and COPEI (Independent Electoral Political Movement), established their own hegemony, working from a position of power (Coppedge, Strong Parties 193). Even though both parties became very pragmatic and learned to seek consensus, they became, by far, the largest parties and shared from 80 percent to 90 percent of the vote from the early 1970s until the early 1990s. As a result, an excluding party system evolved in Venezuela. Coppedge stresses that the legacy of hegemony persisted for the “establishment” parties jointly arranged over the political life at the expense of nonparty organizations, which led to charges of “partidocracia” (partyarchy, from the words partido y democracia, party and democracy) (193). The terms of this partyarchy include: a) inclusive representation; b) electoral competition; c) party discipline; and d) consensus-seeking (Coppedge, Venezuela: The Rise and Fall 4-5).
Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully note that institutionalized party systems encapsulate major social organizations - including unions, students groups, and neighborhood associations – by their ongoing presence among them (12). According to Mainwaring and Scully, the institutionalization of a party system depends on the longevity of the competing parties. Competing parties that have more than forty years of foundation are institutionalized (15). Those parties survive because they captured long-term loyalties of some social groups, which have, in the long run, facilitated encapsulation and exclusion of other political competitors. Mainwaring and Scully note that political parties have been the central actors in Venezuelan democracy since its inception in 1958. They are institutionalized, disciplined, and centralized. The Acción Democrática (Democratic Action) party was founded 57 years ago and COPEI (Independent Electoral Political Movement) was founded 47 years ago. These two parties controlled the process of candidate election and were the key actors in political campaigns (17-18), thus generating an encapsulation of social classes that may result in political violence.
James Malloy, in his work Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America (1977), explains the concept of “corporatism.” This is a type of state and society arrangement characterized by the effort to eliminate spontaneous articulation, and instead create a small number of recognized groups that interact with the governmental apparatus on a regular basis. These groups organize themselves in vertical, rather than horizontal, categories. Corporatist groups form, in turn, powerful local elites known as the oligarchy that manage the prime economic activities of the country. The oligarchy creates thus a pattern of elite control that is vertically organized as patron-client networks, based on the dominance of the former and the dependency of the latter (5). These principles of corporatism and clientelism illustrate the political structures of Venezuelan party system when the first military uprising occurred in 1992.
For his analysis, Malloy came up with a theoretical framework to analyze the Mexican political system that, in his viewpoint, is a major example of corporatist arrangement: Authoritarian Political Control. It is worthwhile to review his scheme and discuss its explanatory quality and virtues in light of Venezuela’s political structure. This will help illuminate the phenomenon of military intervention in state affairs. Such a system is characterized by: Centralization of Power; that is the centralization of authority in the executive. The legislative and judicial branches are powerless. Limited Pluralism: Interests groups are limited and exclusive. Business groups are the most autonomous given their independent resources and organizational skills. There is no incentive for political participation and there is no trust in the institutions. Low Mobilization: There is virtually no political consciousness, nor activism, among masses. There is high tendency toward passive citizenship, thus allowing political leadership to exert great power and freedom of action. Patrimonial Rule: there is tendency to personal and hierarchical relationships (patron-client), rather than universal and egalitarian. This is the type of system that encourages high levels of corruption, or, as Malloy puts it, the “petitionary style” (Malloy 194-197). In politically developing societies - such as the Venezuelan - with additional economic strains, a call for military intervention in politics is likely to emerge in order to rescue the so-called national interest.
Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan bring about the question of legitimacy, efficacy, and effectiveness of political systems. They argue that political violence is an important cause of democratic breakdown (14). It is caused by the failure of three crucial factors: legitimacy, efficacy, and effectiveness of democratic governments. According to the authors, democratic regimes are based on these prime factors and when they start to collapse, military intervention is likely to occur. In crises situations, any group in the society challenges the authority of the government. Those in authority make use of force, asking others to risk their lives – and take the lives of fellow citizens – in the defense of the political order (16). However, it is unlikely that military leaders would turn their arms against the government unless they felt that a significant segment of the society shared their lack of belief. The use of force, hence, does not mean legitimacy of democratic governance. It diminishes it. This criterion serves the study of the 1989 Caracazo riots and the 1992 coup attempts, when president Carlos A. Pérez instructed the Armed Forces to impose order in the streets by means of force.
Linz and Stepan define legitimacy as “the belief that, in spite of failures, the existing political institutions are better than any others that might be established and that they, therefore, can demand obedience. It means that when rulers who hold power constitutionally demand obedience, citizens voluntarily comply with their demand. In short, the legitimacy of a democratic regime rests on the belief of the right of those legally elevated to power to issue certain types of command, to expect obedience and to enforce them” (17). The loss of this belief and support for all political actors in a democratic regime lead to an erosion of legitimacy. This phenomenon may help to answer why the Venezuelan population elected military leaders since 1999. People from all socio-economic classes developed a broad mistrust for all political actors. This, in turn, led to wide support for a new type of political leadership: the military in politics.
Efficacy is the second factor characterizing the political system. It refers to the capacity of a regime to find solutions to the basic problems of the political system that are perceived as more satisfactory than unsatisfactory by aware citizens. This is also applied to basic functions such as maintenance of civil order, personal security and arbitration of conflicts. However, the efficacy of a regime is not judged by the actions of a particular government but as the sum of its actions over a longer period of time compared to the performance of different governments (Linz & Stepan 21).
