Gulnaz Takauova
Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State the Theory and Politics of Civil-
Military Relations. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
On July 15th, 2016, 13 major cities of Pakistan were filled with banners urging the Pakistani Army chief, General Raheel Sharif to overthrow the current inefficient government and take control over the country. The photograph of the General Sharif with the text “For God’s sake, take over” below his picture were featured by the political party “Move On Pakistan”.
The campaign organiser Ali Hashmi together with supporters of this idea begged the General Sharif to establish the martial law regime and supervise the country himself. In response it was said that the Pakistani Army doesn’t have anything to do with this activity. This is not the first case of such posters being featured in Pakistani streets. On February after the General’s announcement of his plans to retire by the end of the year, such posters begging him to prolong his military service, appeared in major cities of Pakistan.
These posters immediately resulted in rumors about the military attempting a coup. However, it is not a new issue in Pakistan since it had experienced 4 military coups since its establishment. These coups were largely the result of the civilian disdain of the inefficient government. Also the Prime Minister, Nawaz Shariff who has served for the 3rd time is becoming increasingly unpopular because of the corruption allegations on his side.
As we have seen the Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Shariff is a very popular person around which the cult of personality is built. He is seen as the only person able to bring peace and stability to Pakistan, whereas on the other side people are highly distrustful of the civilian leadership.
Coup d’etat- seizure of power by military is the main concern in works about civil-military relations. Many authors of CMR emphasize the idea that the military entity created to protect the state has sufficient powers to become a major threat to that state. Therefore there is a big concern on how to ensure that the military agent is doing the civilian bidding. However, recent cases show that Pakistani people actually trust more in military’s ability to effectively lead the country rather than the civilian leadership’s ability. Comparing to other countries, the military in Pakistan enjoys substantial powers and is known as "the state within a state". In this case, if the civilian leadership is unable to govern the state effectively should the military step in and take control of everything? And is the theory of objective control of the military by Samuel Huntington – depoliticizing the military and making it voluntarily subordinate to the civilian control applicable to the Pakistani case?
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