David Pion-Berlin | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Political scientist, academic, author and scholar. |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Colgate University University of Denver |
Academic advisors | James Caporaso |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of California,Riverside |
David Pion-Berlin is an American political scientist,academic,author and scholar. He is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California,Riverside. He is a Latin Americanist widely known for his research and writings on political repression,civil-military relations,defense,and security. [1]
Pion-Berlin's work is focused on the area of Latin American politics,civil-military relations,security and defense,political violence,and human rights. In the area of International Relations,his work has dealt with the topics of regional security and international influences on Latin America. He has written over 100 articles,reviews,and books, [2] including Soldiers,Politicians,and Civilians:Reforming Civil-Military Relations in Latin America (2017),which earned two best book awards in 2019,and Military Missions in Democratic Latin America (2016).
Pion-Berlin is the recipient of the 2019 Alfred Stepan Lifetime Achievement Award in Defense,Public Security and Democracy by the Latin American Studies Association,for his contributions to the study of civil-military relations. [3] In recognition for his pedagogical work,he received the University of California,Riverside Dissertation Mentoring Award in 2016. [4] He is a Fulbright Scholar and has received grants from the National Science Foundation,The American Philosophical Society,and the Ford Foundation.
Pion-Berlin received a B.A. from Colgate University in 1974 followed by an M.A. from University of Denver in 1981. He then received his Ph.D. at the Graduate School of International Studies,the University of Denver in 1984. [5]
In 1985,Pion-Berlin joined Ohio State University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. In 1991,he left The Ohio State University and joined the University of California at Riverside as an Associate Professor,becoming Full Professor in 1997. In 2021 he became a Distinguished Professor. [5]
He is an Associate Editor of Armed Forces &Society . [6]
At the beginning of his career,Pion-Berlin's research dealt with the question:why do governments resort to the most severe forms of intimidation and punishment of political opponents when other forms of political control may suffice? [7] Departing from convention that state violence is usually a proportional,tit for tat response to societal violence,he focused on the doctrines and perceptions that guided the military's disproportionate and excessive attacks on its opponents. Threat perceptions,he discovered,were not grounded in objective appraisals of the opposition but rather in skewed preconceptions that derived from security doctrines popular among military regimes during the Cold War era. [8] [9]
Following that,Pion-Berlin's research turned to the theme of civil-military relations. As a Fulbright scholar,he conducted numerous and extensive field trips to Argentina,Chile,and Uruguay,including interviews with leading political and military figures. Based on his findings,he developed new analytical approaches to the study of how governments and their militaries interact. He found that,in order to know whether politicians or soldiers will prevail when they conflict over policy,one needs to know the characteristics of the agencies that have policy jurisdiction,and whether they create more formidable obstacles for one side than the other. Thus,a key and original finding of his book Through Corridors of Power:Institutions and Civil-Military Relations in Argentina,was that as the design of state institutions differed,so too did the civil-military balance of power. [10] [11] [12]
During this period,an important,related topic of research included the nature of military autonomy. His work on this subject has influenced other scholars in coming to realize that military power is neither uniform nor absolute:the armed forces exert greater control over internal,organizational issues and less control over ostensibly political issues,each with different impacts on civilian control. [13]
His edited volume,Civil-Military Relations in Latin America:New Analytical Perspectives brought together work by leading scholars of the armed forces. The book bridged the divide that often separated Latin Americanists from others in the discipline by having contributors adapt some theoretical approaches within the political science literature to the issue of civilian control over the armed forces. [14] [15]
Pion-Berlin's thematic emphasis then turned to an assortment of civil-military topics:defense organization,informal civil-military interactions,military responses to civilian uprisings,deficits in civilian attention to defense topics,and military missions. These resulted in numerous articles and chapters. His book,Military Missions in Democratic Latin America,culminated a long-term research project on whether the armed forces could be usefully deployed in domestic,non-traditional missions,both lethal and non-lethal. [16] He found that when tasked with missions that draw on pre-existing organizational strengths,Latin American militaries can sometimes be utilized in appropriate and humane ways. As conservative institutions resistant to change,they are at a disadvantage when forced to reinvent themselves. This was the first book written in any language that analyzed Latin American military missions cross-nationally. [17]
Later in his career,Pion-Berlin refocused attention on the three-sided nature of civil-military relations:soldiers,politicians,and civilians within society. In the book Soldiers,Politicians and Civilians:Reforming Civil-Military Relations in Democratic Latin America,he and his co-author,Rafael Martínez,devised a novel framework and measurement tools to assess what progress if any had been made in improving civil-military relations in four Latin American countries. [18]
Pion-Berlin's most recent research has focused on three themes. The first is the role of the defense ministry in asserting greater civilian control and military effectiveness. Pion-Berlin and his associates have been exploring the reasons why some well-developed democracies have failed to adequately build up their defense ministries. [19] [20] The second research theme has to do with the deployment of the armed forces in Latin America for internal public security missions,and how governments and the military try to balance concerns with civilian control and human rights. The third is to assess the impact of the military's participation in the campaigns to fight the covid-19 pandemic.
The officially stated goals of the foreign policy of the United States of America,including all the bureaus and offices in the United States Department of State,as mentioned in the Foreign Policy Agenda of the Department of State,are "to build and sustain a more democratic,secure,and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community". The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs states as some of its jurisdictional goals:"export controls,including nonproliferation of nuclear technology and nuclear hardware;measures to foster commercial interaction with foreign nations and to safeguard American business abroad;international commodity agreements;international education;and protection of American citizens abroad and expulsion". U.S. foreign policy and foreign aid have been the subject of much debate,praise,and criticism,both domestically and abroad.
A dictatorship is a form of government characterized by a single leader (dictator) or group of leaders that hold government power promised to the people and little or no toleration for political pluralism or independent media. As democracy is a form of government in which "those who govern are selected through periodically contested elections ",dictatorships are not democracies.
Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths,as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
Samuel Phillips Huntington was an American political scientist,adviser,and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University,where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs and the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor.
A military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term junta means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808. The term is now used to refer to an authoritarian form of government characterized by oligarchic military dictatorship,as distinguished from other categories of authoritarian rule,specifically strongman;machine;and bossism.
Democratization,or democratisation,is the transition to a more democratic political regime,including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be the transition from an authoritarian regime to a full democracy,a transition from an authoritarian political system to a semi-democracy or transition from a semi-authoritarian political system to a democratic political system.
The democratic peace theory posits that democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies. Among proponents of the democratic peace theory,several factors are held as motivating peace between democratic states. Variations of the democratic peace theory emphasize that liberal and republican forms of democracies are less likely to go to war with one another. Variations of the democratic peace hold its "monadic";"dyadic";and "systemic".
An insurgency is a violent,armed rebellion against authority waged by small,lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature:small irregular forces face a large,well-equipped,regular military force state adversary. Due to this asymmetry,insurgents avoid large-scale direct battles,opting instead to blend in with the civilian population where they gradually expand territorial control and military forces. Insurgency frequently hinges on control of and collaboration with local populations.
Civilian control of the military is a doctrine in military and political science that places ultimate responsibility for a country's strategic decision-making in the hands of the civilian political leadership,rather than professional military officers.
The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations against civilians. The context of the struggle was based on longstanding issues of unfair land distribution;European-descended residents and foreign companies,such as the American United Fruit Company,had dominated control over much of the land,leading to conflicts with the rural poor.
The Carapintadas were a group of mutineers in the Argentine Army,who took part in various uprisings between 1987 and 1990 during the presidencies of Raúl Alfonsín and Carlos Menem in Argentina. The rebellions,while at first thought to be an attempt at a military coup,were staged primarily to assert displeasure against the civilian government and make certain military demands known.
The 1976 Argentine coup d'état was a right-wing coup that overthrew Isabel Perón as President of Argentina on 24 March 1976. A military junta was installed to replace her;this was headed by Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla,Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier-General Orlando Ramón Agosti. The political process initiated on 24 March 1976 took the official name of "National Reorganization Process",and the junta,although not with its original members,remained in power until the return to the democratic process on 10 December 1983. Given the systematic persecution of a social minority,the period has been classified as a genocidal process. This has been established in the sentences of trials for crimes against humanity.
In political science,the waves of democracy are major surges of democracy which have occurred in history. Although the term appears at least as early as 1887,it was popularized by Samuel P. Huntington,a political scientist at Harvard University in his article published in the Journal of Democracy and further expounded in his 1991 book The Third Wave:Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Democratization waves have been linked to sudden shifts in the distribution of power among the great powers,which creates openings and incentives to introduce sweeping domestic reforms.
Peacekeeping by the United Nations is a role held by the Department of Peace Operations as an "instrument developed by the organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace". It is distinguished from peacebuilding,peacemaking,and peace enforcement although the United Nations does acknowledge that all activities are "mutually reinforcing" and that overlap between them is frequent in practice.
Alfred C. Stepan was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He was the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia University,where he was also director of the Center for the Study of Democracy,Toleration and Religion. He is known for his comparative politics research on the military,state institutions,democratization,and democracy.
Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by the rejection of political plurality,the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo,and reductions in the rule of law,separation of powers,and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.
Civil–military relations describes the relationship between military organizations and civil society,military organizations and other government bureaucracies,and leaders and the military. CMR incorporates a diverse,often normative field,which moves within and across management,social science and policy scales. More narrowly,it describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority. "The goal of any state is to harness military professional power to serve vital national security interests,while guarding against the misuse of power that can threaten the well-being of its people." Studies of civil-military relations often rest on a normative assumption that it is preferable to have the ultimate responsibility for a country's strategic decision-making to lie in the hands of the civilian political leadership rather than a military.
A coup d'état,also known as a coup or overthrow,is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically,it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction,rebel group,military,or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.
James S. Burk is an American sociologist and professor at Texas A&M University. He is most notable as a scholar of military sociology,political sociology,and the history of sociology. He is a central figure in the study of civil-military relations in democratic societies.
Democratic backsliding,also called autocratization,is the decline in the democratic characteristics of a political system:the opposite of democratization.
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