Organization of the Volume

This volume takes into account this state of the art. Despite not developing an overarching theoretical approach, it does build on the three major approaches – historical, cultural and structural – pursued so far in the study of civil-military relations in Indonesia and Nigeria. In order to uncover path dependencies and ideational roots of current civil-military relations, studies particularly rely on historical and cultural perspectives, without, however, neglecting agency and the structural dimension in the form of foreign influences on military reform. The volume transcends the existing stock of literature as it concentrates on actors and arenas which in the past have not been systematically studied in both countries. Actors can be individuals as well as collective actors. While the former are individual politicians, bureaucrats, military officers or civil society representatives, the latter include civil society, think tanks and academic institutions as well as (local) militias and paramilitary organizations. Legislatures can be both, collective actors and an arena where different actors converge for contesting the scope and depth of military reforms.

The volume is organized in five parts. Part 1 introduces the main themes of the volume and contextualizes them in the existing body of literature (Chap. 1 ). Part 2 provides a state-of-the-art overview of the military reforms conducted in Indonesia and Nigeria since 1998. The two chapters evaluating the current state of military reform confirm previous research findings that historical path dependencies and the mode of regime change are crucial for the prospects of military reform (Croissant, K€uhn, Chambers, & Wolf, 2010 ; Mietzner, 2009 ). In both countries historical legacies have provided the military with an entrenched position in politics and society with important consequences for the political system emerging after regime change. Pacted transitions enabled the armed forces to retain much of their privileged position, although certainly more in Nigeria than in Indonesia. Yet, the

14 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea chapters also show that the pacted transitions differed. As Manea and R€uland argue

in Chap. 3 , the Nigerian military initiated both the transition and its own internal reform in a more or less unilateral and exclusive way without any noteworthy civil society involvement and broader political participation. Unfortunately, by the time the military voluntarily retreated from the country’s rulership in 1998, the fledgling civil society of the late 1980s and early 1990s had already withered away as a result of opportunistic accommodation with Abacha‘s military regime or simply succumbed to the latter’s brutal repression. In Indonesia, on the other hand, a vocal reform movement had made military reform a major component of its agenda. The political pressure it had created through massive street demonstrations and other forms of protest forced the military to make significant concessions that went well beyond the limited internal reforms undertaken shortly after Suharto’s resig- nation as an act of damage control.

The chapters of this part of the book also suggest that neither country went beyond first-generation reforms which Cottey, Edmunds & Foster have defined as the process of establishing the principles and structures for oversight and transparency of military affairs (Cottey et al., 2002a , 2002b ). None of them has thus entered the phase of second-generation reforms which seek to entrench and consolidate democratic governance of the military sector (ibid.). Much more worrisome than this, however, is the fact that in both countries even crucial first-generation reforms seem to have remained incomplete or even have been aborted.

Sebastian and Iisgindarsah (Chap. 2 ) thus ask whether Indonesian military reform has come to a standstill. They show that the direct political involvement of the military may have been scaled back as a result of the reforms initiated in the immediate post-Suharto years, but it has in no way disappeared. No civilian president can govern without the assistance of the armed forces. While Sebastian and Iisgindarsah do not predict coup-style military incursions into Indonesian politics in the near future, they are certain that military influence will remain. It will ebb and flow, depending on the performance of civilian elite governance. The mindset of the officer corps has not changed markedly despite reformed training curricula and the abolition of the so-called “dual function” (dwi fungsi) which legitimated the military’s role in politics. Part of this mindset is the continued adherence to the organic and, hence, anti-liberal state theory discussed earlier and a strong belief in the military’s superiority over civilians. Such world views may further thrive in the tightly knit environment of the military which sets it apart from the wider society and which has a strong socializing effect. It is therefore by no means clear whether this ideational orthodoxy will be gradually eroded by genera- tional change when officer cohorts, which were entirely socialized under the democratic order, rise to the top of the institution.

Sebastian and Iisgindarsah’s contribution eloquently uncovers the ambiguities and omissions in Indonesia’s military reform by scrutinizing the patchy and unsystematic legal framework, the budgetary gaps including the concomitant consequences for equipment, operation and military strategy and the shortcomings of democratic civilian control. Benefiting from domestic and international developments – as discussed in R€uland and Manea’s chapter on the Indonesian legislature

1 The Politics of Military Reform in Indonesia and Nigeria 15

(Chap. 6 ) – the TNI regained some of its standing in society and found “a new role in defending Indonesia’s sovereign interests and combating internal threats”. Sebastian and Iisgindarsah conclude that Indonesia is still a “transitional, hybrid regime of civil-military coexistence” in which the military may no longer dictate policy to civilians but yet remains an important political player “behind the scenes”.

The trajectory and the depth of Nigerian military reforms differ markedly. Military reform in Nigeria was more superficial and stagnated earlier than in Indonesia, as Manea and R€uland argue in Chap. 3 . As a result of the institutional desertification left by decades of military rule, reform of the armed forces has been an almost exclusively executive affair dominated by President Obasanjo and was implemented as a form of shock therapy immediately after his election as president in 1999. But after a few highly symbolic acts such as the early retirement of “political soldiers”, the establishment of a human rights investigation commission and the controversial hiring of an American security firm, only minor changes can

be recorded for the time after 2001. There is no broader public debate on military reform given the widespread notion amongst the Nigerian public that civil-military relations have been regulated satisfactorily and exhaustively in the 1999 Constitu- tion. While there is much criticism of the 1999 Constitution, which is regarded by many Nigerians as a legacy of the country’s military-dominated past, and while several (parliamentary) commissions mandated with the task of reviewing the Constitution have been established, civil-military relations figured only marginally in these debates. In the absence of a vocal civil society, a defense epistemic community and a legislature at the time of regime change, civilians had – and still have – only a very limited role in military reform. Reform efforts mainly concentrate on technical aspects, geared towards increasing military professional- ism and improving military effectiveness through arms modernization and the reviewing of defense doctrines. Manea and R€uland conclude that even less than in the Indonesian case, there is a change of identity among military officers, which is illustrated by the fact that the president and the armed forces leadership must persistently appeal to the soldiers to recognize civilian supremacy and political neutrality of the military in a democratic order. Nigeria’s military reforms may have led to a modicum of civilian control, mostly exercised by the executive and the president, but they are still far away from democratic control. While a substantial number of civilian control mechanisms have been institutionalized, at least, on paper, their deficient and selective use as well as the limited democratic political culture among civilians themselves considerably constrains the oversight of military activities. Insofar as Nigeria succeeded in the re-civilianization of its political life, it is still far away from consolidating democracy.

Jonah Isawa Elaigwu discusses in Chap. 4 different patterns of civil-military relations in West Africa and particularly in Nigeria. While showing that among five potential models – (1) civil-military diarchy; (2) the socialist model; (3) the developmental militia model; (4) conscious civilianization and (5) the Western liberal model – Nigeria has opted for the last, he also argues that this model is exposed to tensions. The tensions reflect the fact that the Western liberal concepts of an apolitical professional military and civilian supremacy are alien to Africa, a

16 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea point already discussed above. The highly complex ethno-religious context of most

African states, and Nigeria in particular, further complicated the role of the military in the state. Entrusted with the function of safeguarding the unity of a highly fragile, multiethnic state exposed to centrifugal forces, the military has become a key factor in the process of state and nation-building. This means, in other words, that there is always a military role in politics. Yet, taking a closer look at past developments in Nigeria, Elaigwu paints a more optimistic picture of civil-military relations than the other chapters suggest. Beyond all the ambiguities characteristic for a newly democratizing state, Elaigwu sees the military increasingly integrated into the fledgling Nigerian democracy. In order to stabilize this process, Elaigwu favors an approach in which, apart from defense, secondary functions related to developmental tasks are entrusted to the military. This, however, is a view not uncontested in this volume as Indonesian military reformers especially would rather opt for curbing non-defense-related functions of the armed forces as a means to curtail military influence on politics.

Chapter 5 addresses a crucial issue in military reform that is often overlooked or neglected by civilian officials in democratizing states: The importance of gaining control over the military’s finances. As Marcus Mietzner and Lisa Misol rightly state, “without such control, the armed forces (or factional elements within them) retain the capacity to sabotage democratic reforms – most notably elections, the creation of independent legislatures and judiciaries, as well as the expansion of civil liberties”. Even worse, they can misuse extra-budgetary funds “to run operations not approved by the civilian government”. In Indonesia, the covert operations of rogue forces in the early 2000s to destabilize the Habibie and Wahid governments were most likely financed from such shadowy revenues. Mietzner and Misol name, in particular, the East Timor carnage of 1999 and the breakdown of the cease fire in Aceh in 2003. In both cases, they argue, “TNI officers financed the build-up of militias that sabotaged political processes driven by the civilian government in Jakarta”. The wildly fluctuating estimates of the extra-budgetary income of the TNI suggest that there are still considerable white spots in this field of research.

In their chapter, Mietzner and Misol trace the historical roots of the commercial activities of the Indonesian armed forces back to the 1950s and show how they expanded in Suharto’s New Order period. Military-controlled businesses suffered badly during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/1998 with the consequence that the military increasingly engaged in informal and illicit revenue-generating activities. The reform of the military businesses as stipulated in Law No. 34/2004 remained a halfway house, as it did not address these illegal economic activities and was deliberately diluted by an unholy alliance between the TNI Headquarters, the defense ministry and the President. With the whole cooperative sector and foundations exempted from the reform, only a small number of businesses were actually given up by the military and transferred to the state. Mietzner and Misol also show that the justification of the TNI for their extra-budgetary income no longer holds: The defense budget is no longer totally inadequate and has almost quadrupled during the Reform Era. According to latest figures Mietzner and Misol present, this enables the TNI to cover 80% of their needs, at the same time signaling

1 The Politics of Military Reform in Indonesia and Nigeria 17

a significant decline of extra-budgetary income. While this shift in military funding seems to augur well for more transparency in defense budgeting, the silver lining is darkened by the “weakness of the government apparatus to spend the monies in an effective and targeted manner”.

Part 3 of the volume takes a closer look at parliaments, civil society and the defense epistemic community. These are actors often overlooked in traditional civil-military relations studies, but identified in the more recent security sector governance literature as actors that can make the difference in military reforms. While civil society has received some attention in transition studies, there is very little empirical research on parliaments as actors in democratic transitions and as actors and arenas of military reform. Parliaments are stereotypically depicted as rubber stamps, with the main function of providing authoritarian regimes with a semblance of democratic legitimacy (Mezey, 1979 , 1983 ). Although more recent studies suggest that the contribution of legislatures to political transition may be greater than often assumed (R€uland, J€urgenmeyer, Nelson, & Ziegenhain, 2005 ; Schneier, 2009 ; Ziegenhain, 2008 ), conventional wisdom maintains that even after regime change their contribution to democratization remains marginal. It associates legislatures with vested interests, lack of social inclusiveness, corruption, absentee- ism and a low standard of expertise which often results in the neglect of law-making functions (Sherlock, 2003 ).

The two chapters of the volume on the Indonesian and Nigerian legislatures rest on extensive field work and seek to provide a more nuanced assessment of the role of parliaments to military reform. They categorize the performance of the two legislatures in line with three major parliamentary functions, namely representation, legislation and oversight. The representative function refers to their inclusiveness – i.e. its ability to represent all major societal groups without neglecting or discriminating against minorities. The legislative function focuses on law-making. It has traditionally been regarded as the most central function of parliaments – irrespective of the fact that even in Western democracies the executive dominates the preparation of bills (Beyme, 1997 , 2002 ). Yet, a strong and active parliament has the chance to significantly amend bills and, with a view to defense bills, ensure that the laws it passes facilitate military reform.

Legislatures in new democracies are usually quite assertive in exercising their oversight functions. Often they are populated by a new generation of politicians, many of whom regard lack of oversight as a major potential cause of an autocracy emerging and becoming entrenched and they regard greater transparency of political decision-making as one of the key virtues of a democratic polity. Defense- related oversight includes issues such as scrutinizing law implementation, the efficient use of the defense budget, due process in weapons procurement, monitor- ing the human rights record of the military, the scrutiny of government appoint- ments to leadership positions of the armed forces, sending (or withdrawal of) troops deployed abroad in peacekeeping operations and the formulation of defense doctrines, to name the most important. Oversight can be carried out ex post (after the activity took place or after the money has been spent) or ex ante, before an activity takes place or before funds are committed. To be efficient in their oversight,

18 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea parliaments must collaborate with other agencies such as the audit office, the

ombudsman, the media and civil society (Born, Fluri, & Johnson, 2003 , p. 90,141). R€uland and Manea’s chapter (Chap. 6 ) on the Indonesian legislature once more

highlights the significance of the mode of transition. Unlike in Nigeria, a legislature has existed for most of the time, even under authoritarian rule. In the twilight years of the Suharto regime, the DPR shed its docile rubber stamp reputation and even had a role in bringing down the Suharto regime (Ziegenhain, 2008 , p. 61–75). Although the military sought to adjust to democratic change by internal reforms, the legislature soon became involved in the bargaining over the military’s political role. Much of this debate took place under the auspices of constitutional amendments and mainly targeted the military’s representation in legislative bodies. Later, after the military had regrouped, and re-asserted its political influence as a consequence of the power struggles among civilian politicians, the legislature passed legislation that prevented the restoration of the military’s previously enjoyed reserved domains. It exerted its oversight functions in tandem with watchful civil society organizations, an emerging civilian defense epistemic group and the media. Yet, it failed to push the military to fully complete first-generation reforms, let alone to initiate second-generation reforms. From 2004 onward, and even more after the 2009 elections, the legislature no longer seriously challenged entrenched corporate interests of the military. A stalemate in legislature-military relations emerged which was facilitated by an increasing ideational identity between the mainstream of legislators and the military. The driving force behind this identity was a neo- nationalist resurgence, which was driven by years of frustrated entitlement as a major regional power, increasing external recognition of the country’s democratization and relaxing internal and external reform pressure on the armed forces in line with the war against terrorism.

In Chap. 7 , Rizal Sukma provides a fascinating and rare insight into the interac- tion between the Indonesian military, parliament and an emerging civilian epistemic community of defense experts. This sets Indonesian defense reform apart from

the Nigerian experience where, as Aiyede shows (Chap. 8 ), there was hardly any civilian input. Indonesia also differs from Nigeria by the fact that the military, except for a conservative faction, was willing to interact with civilian experts, whereas in Nigeria, the armed forces interacted with civilians only insofar as they were faculty members of the various defense academies. Sukma’s study, presented as a case study of perhaps the most significant think tank in the security sector reform process, ProPatria, shows that one of the crucial conditions for the success of this group was the non-confrontational approach of critical collaboration and persuasion as well as the group’s networking strategy which created trust on the part of the military. The group was involved in the drafting process of Indonesia’s two most important defense laws, Law No. 3/2002 on National Defense and Law No. 34/2004 on The Military. Both laws, though leaving major components of military reform in ambiguity, were markedly influenced by the civilian expert group. Through advocacy, public awareness campaigns, public education and policy discussion with major defense-sector stakeholders, the civilian defense community was able to persuade the public that civilian control of the military is

1 The Politics of Military Reform in Indonesia and Nigeria 19

an important factor for the Indonesian democratization, to sustain the public support for reform and to persuade and pressure the military to continue reforming itself. Unlike in the Nigerian case, this epistemic community relied on extensive research and studies which made them a serious partner for the military. However, Sukma also shows that this community has not yet reached critical mass, a major reason why it faces difficulties in maintaining the momentum and why its influence eventually declined after 2004.

In the concluding chapter of Part 3, Aiyede (Chap. 8 ) portrays a legislature which did not exist at the time of regime change and which had to start from scratch after it was reconstituted under the 1999 Constitution. It was a legislature that for years was plagued by internal struggles, as exemplified by the frequent impeach- ment of its leaders, which lacked technical expertise and was ill-equipped in its initial years. Much more damaging, however, was the persistent conflict with the presidency over budgetary rights in the course of which – rightly or wrongly – the executive by-passed the legislature and blocked its legislative program through presidential vetos. This situation slightly improved after 2003, but the legislature remained the weakest of the three government branches. It is thus hardly surprising that the Nigerian Assembly has had only a minor role in military reform thus far. Its defense-related committees are fragmented, a legislative-military liaison mecha- nism has performed disappointingly so far and the military shrouds itself in an aura of secrecy which denies the legislature much-needed information for executing its legislative and oversight functions. Unlike in the Indonesian case, the legislature is not supported by a vocal civilian epistemic defense community, civil society organizations and the media. As a consequence, pressure on the military to change its identity and to subordinate itself to civilian supremacy beyond mere rhetoric is rather weak.

Part 4 addresses another issue often neglected in the literature on military reform. The two chapters belonging to this part of the volume examine the extent to which separatist movements, terrorism and communal violence jeopardize mili-

tary reform in Indonesia and Nigeria. In his contribution, Jun Honna (Chap. 9 ) confirms the findings made in previous chapters of this volume. While he does not speak of a “standstill” of military reform in Indonesia (Sebastian & Iisgindarsah) or

a “stalemate” (R€uland & Manea), he regards current civil-military relations as characterized by an “equilibrium”. This equilibrium rests on a compromise between

reformers and military conservatives in which “TNI supports the transition to civilian-led democracy and promises military disengagement from politics while [in exchange] civilian leaders respect TNI’s institutional autonomy and overlook its lack of accountability”. This compromise was in Honna’s view strongly facilitated by the military’s successful securitization of post-authoritarian separatism and the terrorist threat facing Indonesia after the October 2002 Bali bombings. By success- fully assuming “the guardian role of fighting to preserve national unity and to stave off the threat of disintegration”, the military not only resisted and sabotaged peace initiatives of the civilian leadership but also cordoned off civilian attempts to subject the military to democratic oversight in the domain of national security. The war against terrorism further strengthened the military’s claims for an elevated

20 J. R€uland and M.-G. Manea national security role and legitimized its functions “other than war”. Finally, the

military role in communal violence highlights an aspect of military reform often overlooked: While military reform may proceed to a certain extent at the national level, local commands may carve out for themselves a degree of autonomy through the close relationship between off-budget fund raising and effectiveness in dealing with local conflicts. Honna shows how in Ambon local TNI commands worsened the communal conflict by involving outside paramilitary gangs and militias. Honna concludes that “this military sabotage illustrated TNI’s lack of organizational accountability at the local level, while its manipulation of insecurity effectively convinced political leaders about the need for increasing the number of territorial commands – countering pressures from civil society to reduce the number.”

Christian A. Lutz (Chap. 10 ) finally argues that in Nigeria, separatism driven by the distributional conflict over Nigeria’s most important revenue source – oil – has been a major impediment for military reform. While the armed forces took a posture of relative disengagement in the oil-rich Niger Delta in the years after regime change, intensifying separatist activities induced the government to respond to this security threat with an all-out military approach. The latter perpetuated military impunity and insulated the armed forces from democratic civilian control for the sake of securing oil production. Like in the Indonesian case, the war against the Delta separatists also entrenched the armed forces in off-budget revenue generation which was beyond any effective civilian control.

Organization of the Volume