Anthony Forster

The Second Generation Problematic: Rethinking Democracy and Civil-military Relations

This article argues that a decade after the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe, the establishment of democratic civil-military relations has moved on from first generation issues of institutional restructuring to second generation challenges relating to the democratic consolidation of these relationships. In practice, these have more to do with issues of state capacity-building and bureaucratic modernization with the traditional concerns of the civil-military relations literature. In most cases, the problem is not the establishment of civilian control over the armed forces or the separation of the military from politics, but rather that of the effective execution of democratic governance of the defense and security sector-particularly in relation to defense policy-making, legislative oversight and the effective engagement of civil-society in a framework of democratic legitimacy and accountability.

Britain and the Negotiation of the Maastricht Treaty: A Critique of Liberal Intergovernmentalism

This article critically examines the liberal intergovernmental (LI) approach to bargaining in the European Union. It explores its analytical and predictive power in relation to the British negotiation of three dossiers in the 1991 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on Political Union: social policy, foreign and security policy and enhancing the powers of the European Parliament (EP). It casts doubt on the LI explanation of national preference formation and contends that there are three weaknesses of the LI approach: the notion of preference formation; the assumption that governments are purposeful and instrumental actors; and the liberal intergovernmental conception of bargaining. More generally, the article casts doubt on the value of LI claims to explanatory as well as predictive value.

The Military Covenant and British Civil–Military Relations: Letting the Genie out of the Bottle

This article reviews debates surrounding the Military Covenant and explores its salience for contemporary British civil–military relations. It explores why the concept of the Military Covenant was created, the nature of subsequent debates, and finally it reflects on the wider implications of this research. Locating the Covenant in debates concerned with the changing nature of the military profession, this article argues that the Covenant was created in 2000 as a response to a challenge to the Army’s right to be different and thus its jurisdiction. However, tensions caused by new missions in Iraq and Afghanistan subsequently transformed the Covenant’s use and meaning. Senior commanders extended the use of the Covenant to establish the boundaries of their expertise and legitimacy, whilst external actors with a variety of competing interests used the Covenant to contest “authoritative discretion” of the military within a clearly delineated professional space.

Evaluating the EU–ASEM relationship: a negotiated order approach

Explaining and understanding the external role of the European Union (EU) has been an under-researched aspect of theorizing about the EU. This article analyses the motivations and methods through which the EU and its member states attempt to regulate contact with international actors. Examining the EUs contact with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and more recently the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), it argues that the negotiated order approach offers four insights overlooked by other approaches. First, it sheds light on the EUs motivations in establishing contact with other regional groupings; second, it challenges the conceptualization of the EU as a monolithic political system; third, it highlights the EU as a conservative political actor because of the nature of the EU policy-making space; finally, it highlights the importance of the geo-strategic environment in shaping and reshaping the interests of the EU and its member states in terms of by whom and how contact is regulated. The extent to which one can generalize from the findings of this case study is the subject of further testing, but in the interim, the negotiated order approach offers an important framework for unlocking the empirical complexity of EU external relations.

The European Union in South‐East Asia: continuity and change in turbulent times

This article looks at the creation of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and itsimpact on European Union-South-East Asian relations. It suggests that as withother regions of the world, the EU uses framework agreements to regulatecontact with other international actors. The article argues that the EUs renewed interest in the region, signposted by the Commission’s ‘Towards a new Asia strategy’ and the proposal ‘Creating a new dynamic in EU-ASEAN relations’, as well as the formation of ASEM, is driven by three principal concerns: a need to meet the challenges of the post-Cold War period by extending structured contact to new interlocutors beyond ASEAN; a need to restate the EU’s credentials as a stakeholder in the region, thus legitimizing European political and economic interests alongside those of other global actors such as the United States and Japan; and a new-found interest in defining acceptable economic and human rights standards as a precondition of privileged contact with the EU. However, while ASEM offers greater connectivity between different activitiesof the EU and may bring a more coordinated approach to the relationship, it is unlikely to lead to a qualitative shift in engagement. For a variety of reasons–notably the lack of geographical proximity, economic asymmetry, and a preoccupation with central and eastern Europe-South-East Asia will remain a marginal area of engagement for the EU. With regard to future developments,structured contact between the EU and South-East Asia will survive not leastbecause of the potential economic importance of the latter and the continuingcompetition in the region from the United States, Japan and China.

Introduction: the Challenge of Democratic Control of Armed Forces in Postcommunist Europe

After the collapse of communism in 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe faced the enormous challenge of making the transition from communism to an unknown future, with little or no experience of democracy, market economics or stable relations with their neighbours to build on.1 One element of this transition was the problem of reforming communist-era armed forces and civil-military relations. The ability of postcommunist elites to secure democratic control of the armed forces, or at least the acquiescence of the military to the democratic transition, would have a significant impact on the prospects for democratization as a whole. The extent of democratic control of the military might also have a significant bearing on Central and Eastern European states’ relations with the West and their prospects for integration with the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The extent to and ways in which armed forces maintained influence over foreign and defence policy decisions and were intertwined with conceptions of national identity might also have major implications for relations with neighbouring states and ethnic minorities and hence for peace and security in the region.

Politics of Europe 99 Changing the Guard in the European Union: In with the New, Out with the Old?

No abstract available.

Defence and European Integration

This article examines neorealist and neofunctionalist theoretical approaches to the issue of defence and European integration, and specifically the prospects of adding a defence component to the European Union. It sets out the difference between the core assumptions on these issues and argues that these theories provide different and contradictory explanations and predictions about the relationship between defence and European integration. However, when these two approaches are set against the historical record, neither neorealism with its notion of high and low politics, nor neofunctionalism with its notion of spillover, provides a parsimonious explanation as to why the defence issue has developed in the way that it has over the last 50 years.

Civil-military relations in postcommunist Europe : assessing the transition.

Abstract This article argues that the relative homogeneity of communist civil–military relations postcommunist Europe has been replaced by significant diversity. Those states that have joined NATO and the EU have consolidated democratic civilian control of their militaries, re-oriented their defence policies towards peacekeeping and intervention operations beyond their borders and are fashioning new military–society relationships. In contrast, in Russia, Ukraine and most of the other former Soviet republics the military has become part of the nexus of semi- or outright authoritarian presidential rule, while severe economic and social problems are resulting in a dramatic downgrading of the militarys professional and operational competence and severely inhibiting the prospects for meaningful military reform. In the countries of the former Yugoslavia, civil–military reform is gathering pace, but continues to struggle with twin legacies of war and authoritarianism.

Armed Forces and Society: a Framework for Analysis

Armed forces and societies in central and eastern Europe have undergone dramatic changes since the collapse of communism, with important implications for military-society relations. Communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe produced a particular model of military-society relations.1 For four decades after the Second World War, all the countries of the region had large armed forces based on conscription. As a result, almost all adult males experienced military service. The military also received a relatively large share of state resources — significantly higher in percentage terms than in the West. As a result communist societies and economies were often highly militarised. The physical presence of uniformed personnel throughout society and the symbolic and economic significance of the armed forces within the socio-political system were striking features of communism throughout central and eastern Europe. The main official justification for the armed forces in the communist states was one focused around external threat. This took a variety of different forms including the capitalist West, fascism during the 1930s and 1940s, and the Soviet Union itself for Yugoslavia after 1948 and Romania from the mid-1960s.