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The Competitive Effects of Political Homogeneity in International Relations: Social Identity Theory and Systemic Analysis

Robert B. Andersen

Bridgewater College of Virginia
Department of International Studies

International Studies Association

March 1998

On December 1, 1948, Jose Figueres, the head of the transitional junta rather then governing Costa Rica, issued a public decree announcing the dissolution of the country's army. Article 12 of the Constitution adopted the following year formally prohibited the maintenance of "the army as a permanent institution," and Costa Rica had established a demilitarized democracy which, in the succeeding decades, was in marked contrast to the militarization of its regional neighbors. As it approaches the fiftieth anniversary of the army's abolition, Costa Rica has created, in the minds of many observers, a model of civilian control, peace and non-aggression worthy of emulation elsewhere.

While a source of considerable pride in Costa Rica and of admiration outside the country, two sets of concerns regarding the meaning of this phenomenon have emerged in the decades following 1948. Some observers argue that the reality of demilitarization in the country is far less than the prevailing myth would suggest; and others have taken the position that the Costa Rican experience, while genuine, may be too exceptional to have broader theoretical or policy relevance. As the country enters its second half-century of demilitarization, the nature, significance, and prospects of the phenomenon-for Costa Rica, its neighbors, and other states struggling with democratization-merit closer inspection. Is this manifestation of Costa Rican "exceptionalism" really so exceptional? Is there a Costa Rican "model" of demilitarization of relevance to neighboring and comparable states?

The Nature of Costa Rican Demilitarization

In one sense, the Costa Rica example defines, in the developing world in any case, the end point of a continuum of demilitarization: the army was abolished in 1948, and the remaining public security forces authorized by Article 12 have been effectively subordinated to civilian control. As its Central American neighbors experienced larger, more costly, and politically active military establishments, Costa Rica chose to transform a historically weak army (in both military and political senses) into a non-existent one. Even the public security forces have been replaced with each change of government since 1948, thereby limiting their professional and institutional strength and placing them under the control of the party in power. In sum, one can argue with some justification that Costa Rica is the exemplary case of internally-driven (as opposed to foreign-imposed) demilitarization over the past fifty years.

On the other hand, Costa Rica has maintained and expanded its public security forces (Fuerzas de Seguridad Publica, or FSP) throughout the past fifty years, with an expansion of the size and role of these forces particularly evident at various points in the 1980s and 1990s. Even in 1970, the Civil Guard (one component of the FSP) played an internal security role not unlike that of military institutions elsewhere in the hemisphere in suppressing popular opposition to governmental concessions to foreign investment in the bauxite industry. By the latter seventies, "police clashed with students in the streets and with landless peasants in the rural areas." By the 1980s, long-standing external security problems with Nicaragua were made more severe by the war in that country, and a more sophisticated, better-funded (and US-aided) public security apparatus was evident, as was a role expansion of these forces into military tasks (border patrolling, counter-terrorism, etc.). And in the 1990s, factors such as increasing crime, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration from Nicaragua have given rise to increased public security budgets and personnel, as well as a proposal to create a national coast guard and US efforts to coordinate patrolling of coastal waters.

Such ambiguity necessitates a clearer understanding of what is meant by demilitarization. As used here, the term refers to a two-dimensional process: it is at once a set of behaviors, indicated by the balance of power between armed forces and civilian-led governmental institutions; and a norm (of civilian supremacy) which is accepted by publics, elites, civilians, and security forces alike. The degree of demilitarization is the extent to which security forces are subordinated to civilian authority, and the degree to which those authorities divert public energies and resources to non-military purposes. A demilitarized political system is also one in which civilians exercise control of the armed forces (to the extent they exist) as well as control over their use of those forces. Seen through the lens of this definition and in most comparative contexts, Costa Rica has developed, and has (largely) succeeded in maintaining, a demilitarized political system. Though the reality of the past fifty years does not exactly match the myth, the past half-century of Costa Rican experience demonstrates that demilitarization can be meaningfully pursued.

That experience is rooted in both the behavioral and normative dimensions outlined above. Despite the role expansion of recent years, public security forces have pursued primarily police functions. Further, civilian leaders have endeavored to restrict those roles, and have not abused their influence over those forces for partisan political gain. Perhaps even more significant, the norm of demilitarization is strongly embedded among most actors in the system. As one observer has noted, Abolition of the army was largely a symbolic act, since it was tiny and ineffectual in any event; it was replaced by a larger civil guard. However, the symbolic gesture was important in establishing civilianism in a region where armies are used primarily for domestic repression. The widely-held myth of demilitarization thus has practical implications in that it reinforces and strengthens the reality of demilitarization by inhibiting civilian misuse of security forces.

The depth of such "civilianist" attitudes was particularly crucial in limiting the expansion of the size and role of security forces during the 1970s and 1980s. As the Nicaraguan revolution came to a head in the late 1970s, the Legislative Assembly was decrying the militaristic response of the of the administration of Rodrigo Carazo (1978-1982) to that turmoil: as one legislator put it, the result may be a democraticNicaragua and a militarized Costa Rica. By the time of the presidency ofLuis Alberto Monge (1982-1986), the regional and international political climate led the United States to increase aid and training to security forces, and to begin to lobby for the establishment of a Costa Rican army. Many leaders, including Monge's first security minister, were adamantly opposed. A 1984 poll of Costa Rican adults found that, despite the security concerns of the time, 77% remained opposed to there-establishment of an army. The fact of successful resistance to such pressure-from an enormously influential source-is testimony to the strength of attitudes opposing militarization.

The response of Monge's successor, Oscar Arias (1986-1990), is even more telling. Rather than cooperate with the United States in the further militarization of the country, Arias sought to ameliorate the external security problems prompting US pressures. His efforts brought him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 and, in combination with shifting international circumstances, substantially limited the momentum toward militarization. Arias received substantial popular support for responding to the security climate of the 1980s not by militarizing Costa Rica but by seeking to demilitarize the regional environment. Internally, the Arias administration sought to reinforce the attitudinal basis of demilitarization by reversing the trend toward military uniforms and ranks within the security forces (though his successor reverted to the practice in the early 1990s). The pattern of civilian control through periodic replacement of security forces was continued despite the fact that Monge and Arias were both of the National Liberation Party (PLN). Successive PLN administrations in the 1970s, in contrast, had strengthened the security forces by providing a higher level of continuity in personnel.

Despite such efforts, however, the regional security environment of the 1980s did have the impact of expanding the size, budgets, and roles of Costa Rican security forces, and increasing crime and drug trafficking have continued such consequences in the 1990s. Civilian control was challenged on a number of fronts in the early 1980s, dramatically evidenced by the resignation of Monge's security minister after his claims of a potential coup. Over $21 million in heavy weaponry was provided by the United States in the early 1980s. Real military expenditures increased by over four times from 1987 to 1993, and more than doubled between 1990 and 1997. The modernization of the training academy in the1980s led some to suggest that a military-style academy was beginning to appear. If the subordination of security forces to civilian control has been secured by both a lack of professionalization and high turnover rates, at least the former factor is decreasingly evident.

In sum, with respect to both attitudes and behavior, Costa Rica began to see in the late 1970s increasing tendencies. Earlier external security threats from Nicaragua in 1948and 1955 were met by appeals to inter-American collective security mechanisms, and did not negatively affect the incipient process of demilitarization. The Nicaraguan revolution and the subsequent contra war did have such an impact, however, although the militarizing effects were mitigated to a degree by the foreign and domestic policies of the Arias administration. The post-war climate of the 1990s, with its increased focus on crime, drugs, and economic uncertainty, does not appear to offer any more hospitable environment to demilitarization.

Although there are troubling signs for the next fifty years, Costa Rica remains a country without an army. There is effective, substantial civilian control of security forces with limited military roles, and the population (while increasingly skeptical of political institutions)remains firmly committed to democratic practices. Article 12 prohibits the maintenance of a permanent army, though it allows for the creation of a non-permanent, civilian-controlled force for collective security or national defense purposes. Despite the security problems threatening to undermine the process, the option of a short-term army has been avoided, and the constitutional prohibition has been sustained in both letter and spirit.

The Transferability of the Model

Operating on the assumption that Costa Rica successfully demilitarized after 1948, and that it subsequently has maintained a substantial degree of that success, the key question is the viability of the model in other political systems. For reasons of pride, morality, and security, many Costa Ricans hope that their example is one that can spread elsewhere. Ex-president Arias has been active in the 1990s in successfully encouraging the elimination of the military in Panama and Haiti. In February 1998, Costa Rican President-elect Miguel Angel Rodriguez announced an initiative to promote further demilitarization throughout Central America, funneling budgetary savings into a regional development fund, borrowing on a regional level from Arias' previous proposals for global demilitarization.

These proposals raise the question as to whether the Costa Rican model can be translated-through either the demonstration effect and/or through deliberate policy mechanisms-into something resembling a "regime" of demilitarization at regional or global levels. Panama, in notreplacing an army eliminated by the 1989 U.S. invasion, has begun toemulate the Costa Rican experience. Though not involving the outrightremoval of military establishments, other countries in post-war CentralAmerica-Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala-have experienced sizable demilitarization in the 1990s. In the Central American region, the incipient outlines of a demilitarization regime-implicitly pursuing the Costa Rican model and supported by actors both within and outside the region-may be beginning to emerge.

While the efforts toward Central American peace in the 1980sfocused on achieving cease-fires and, with the Arias-led Esquipulas II accords of August 1987, pursuing democratization and development, the peace process in the 1990s has increasingly emphasized the significance of the demilitarization of political conflict-demobilizing insurgent forces and, more ambitiously, reducing the size and influence of national military establishments. Certainly the norm of demilitarization is gaining wider acceptance among relevant actors both inside and outside the region; and militaries operate in a more restrictive political environment. In a 1996 Guatemalan poll, for example, over three-fourths of respondents favored reduction or abolition of the military, with over one-third endorsing the latter. As recently as 1993, the civilian Guatemalan president was seeking to employ military power in staging an anti-democratic coup (autogolpe). Domestic opposition, aid suspension, and the expectation of regional resistance (pursuant to the O.A.S.' 1991"Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Intern-American System") combined to reverse the challenge. In more recent phases of the peace process, the current Guatemalan president seemingly has had more success in efforts to curtail military power than did his predecessor in employing that power.

As regional norms have evolved, military political behavior has also changed. Overt political activism in the form of coups is less likely-indeed, as Millett notes, among Costa Rica's Central American neighbors, "the last ouster of an elected government was in Honduras in1972, and the last open rigging of an election by the military was in Guatemala in 1982" (and even those efforts were reversed). Bloated militaries are perceived as less necessary and are in case less sustainable with current resources; and the deliberate, transparent subordination of armies to civilian control is receiving increasing support both within and outside the region. Attitudes and behavior have changed, and some structural elements of a demilitarization regime-constitutional reforms, enforcement efforts under the Santiago Commitment, etc.-are beginning to emerge.

By any measure, the four countries of post-war Central America are more demilitarized today than they have been at any point in recent decades. From the standpoint of both budget and size, the armed forces Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and most recently Guatemala are reduced dramatically from their highs in the 1980s and early 1990s. Civilian authorities in each situation have demonstrated an ability and willingness to exercise autonomy from the military in ways which would not have been possible earlier. Yet the situation in each of these four countries isles both variable and tenuous, and a "re-militarization" of each of these settings remains a distinct possibility.

The peace agreements in El Salvador in 1992 and in Guatemala in1996, following upon the end of the contra war in Nicaragua in 1990, have had a significant impact on military size and expenditures in all of those countries. The Honduran armed forces, because of that country's strategic proximity to the other three, have also been affected by the regional trends of militarization and demilitarization in the 1980s and 1990s.

By 1997, Nicaragua's military budget in real terms was less than12% of expenditures in 1990. Comparable figures for El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala were 41%, 45%, and 78% respectively. El Salvador's armed forces were cut in half following the 1992 peace agreements. Nicaragua's army dropped to 14,000 by 1995, down dramatically from its peak of 80,000 during the 1980s. Honduran numbers have declined by more than half from their 1980s peaks of 26,000. The Guatemalan peace agreements of late 1996 explicitly called for a one-third reduction of those forces.

Equally significant has been the effort to shift the definition of the roles and mission of existing Central American militaries. The most vivid and recent demonstration of this effort came in the Guatemalan peace agreements of 1996. Article 244 of the 1985 Constitution of Guatemala states that among the functions of the Guatemalan army are the maintenance of "internal and external peace and security." In contrast, the September19, 1996 agreement on "Strengthening Civil Society and the Role of the Military" included a redefinition of the army's role to include "the defense of the country's sovereignty and the integrity of its territory;it will be assigned no other functions and its role in other sectors will be restricted to cooperation tasks." The army's police force was also eliminated by the agreement.

In many respects, the efforts to pursue demilitarization in Guatemala borrow heavily from the Chapultepec accords ending the Salvadoran war in January 1992. As in Guatemala, the final agreements were preceded by more focused ones, one of which dealt with constitutional reforms relating to the military.

Specifically these reforms sought to curtail the role of the military in internal security and police activity. By 1995 the National Civil Police was in place, replacing former military activities with a civilian-led structure, though its autonomy from the military remained subject to question. The effort to shift military doctrine away from internal security in El Salvador laid the groundwork for comparable efforts later in Guatemala. In general, despite the country's ongoing socioeconomic problems, the advancement of civilian control in El Salvador has been perhaps the most dramatic achievement of the peace process in that country, and the degree of Salvadoran demilitarization outpaces that of the other former war zones of the region.

In 1995 in Nicaragua, a partial constitutional reform sought to advance demilitarization by ending the designation of the army as the "Sandinista People's Army." Article 93 explicitly notes the non-partisan character of the army and the need for army training in human rights. Several articles refer to the need to enforce civil authority over the military and police. The Nicaraguan Foreign Minister observed that "an army and police force that had belonged to a single political party are now at the service of the entire nation, and for the first time headed by a commander appointed for a fixed term of five years peacefully and through legal mechanisms." Numerous efforts by the Honduran president to promote civilian control had achieved some success by 1996, notably constitutional reforms ending compulsory military service and military control of police functions. The military budget for 1997 was less than half of that requested by the armed forces. In general, Ruhl argues, "civilian leaders have gained independence from the armed forces, military power and prerogatives have diminished, and fears of military intervention no longer determine most civilian political behavior."

Reduced size, constitutional reforms, shifts in military doctrine, and vigorous action by civilian authorities have led in varying degrees to the progress of demilitarization in these four Central American situations. There is, however, no shortage of challenges to the process. As Millett observes, "Reform of civil-military relations in the region still has far to go before the transition to effective civilian control .. . is complete. Weak civilian leadership, paralyzed judicial systems, struggling economies, and rampant criminal activity provide the temptation to return to some form of authoritarian rule .

While significant progress has been made, the future remains unclear, and the potential for a disastrous reversal of current trends still exists." As in Costa Rica, a reversal of demilitarization processes seems most likely to derive from the rising level of post-war crime (both conventional and drug-related)-creating, in the words of one observer, a "nostalgia" for more "militarized means of social control" and a lack of confidence in newer, less experienced police forces recently placed under civilian control. Under the Plan Guardian in El Salvador, the military has been ordered to participate in joint patrols with the police to protect coffee and sugarcane growers and workers from armed robbers. According to Montgomery, although the military views the arrangement as an example of civilian control (it claims to be participating in the patrols only in deference to presidential order), "some see the patrols as an effort by the military to reassert a public security role for itself, in direct contravention of the peace accords." In 1997, joint operations between the army and police to combat rising urban crime were organized in both Guatemala and Honduras. Throughout the region, such operations were calling into question a basic element of the demilitarization process-civilian control of police functions and extricating the army from matters of internal security. In general, although one rationale for military activism in internal security-the presence of civil war and insurgency-is less present, other justifications-particularly crime-continue to exist. In contrast to Costa Rica, where challenges to demilitarization have involved the role expansion of police forces into military functions, elsewhere in Central America the challenges have come from the weakness of new restrictions on the police functions of military forces.

In sum, demilitarization has progressed substantially in these four countries, although the progress seems quite reversible. Attitudes have shifted and behavior has been altered, but these trends have not yet yielded viable movement toward abolition. The opportunity for reductions in militarism provided by peace negotiations and agreements has been seized, but the momentum of past militarism and the criminal violence of the present are limiting the extension of that opportunity.

Observations on the Regional Context

The fifty year old Costa Rican experiment of abolition of the military has provided a model which Panama and Haiti have begun to replicate. The contrasting experiences of post-war Central America also provide the basis for some comparative observations.

  1. The political histories and socioeconomic environments are different throughout the region, with no cases matching the wealth, egalitarianism, or democratic tradition of Costa Rica. Yet the differences between Costa Rica circa 1948 and the rest of the region more recently are differences of degree, not kind, and are potentially surmountable. The elimination of the Panamanian armed forces is testimony to what can be accomplished, andHaitian social, economic, and political conditions could hardly be lessadvantageous. Although the progress is uncertain and has fallen short ofabolition, recent experience elsewhere in Central America validates thepossibility of demilitarization in circumstances less "exceptional" thanCosta Rica.
  2. The durability that the Costa Rican model possesses rests significantly upon the normative restraint on militarization (itself buttressed by a powerful myth). Similarly, the transferability of the model depends upon the ability of actors in other situations to adopt similar attitudes. Public attitudes-such as those cited above in the Guatemalan poll-are, for obvious reasons, more likely to be favorable to partial or full demilitarization than are military attitudes. Civilian political leaders across the relevant spectrum must perceive an apolitical or abolished military to be in their interests, as was the case after 1948 in Costa Rica. The likely intransigence of military attitudes is demonstrated by the response of the Salvadoran defense minister to the regional demilitarization proposal of Costa Rican President-elect Rodriguez: "we don't want to mortgage our defense to other countries," implying that Costa Rica has done so. Less directly referring to the Costa Rican model, a Nicaraguan officer publicly expressed a concern for internal rather than external security: "If the army were to disappear the only thing we would accomplish would be to open the doors to higher levels of instability; civil insecurity would be tremendous."
  3. Failure to manage fundamental issues of crime and, in general, human security threatens the future durability of the Costa Rican model, and threatens to prompt re-militarization in other states in the region. This threat exists because of the impact on both civilian and military attitudes which justify greater military activism in internal security. If post-war Central America is to build on its demilitarization successes to date, internal security functions must continue to be separated from whatever military forces exist.
  4. A favorable external security environment facilitates the prospects of demilitarization, but is not essential, as Nicaraguan threats to Costa Rica in 1948 and 1955 demonstrate. What does seem important is the willingness to refer the threat to international judicial and collective security mechanisms. When Costa Rica was unable to do so in the 1970s and1980s, the progress of its demilitarization was threatened.
  5. As it was during the early years of Costa Rican demilitarization, the international community-now more broadly including other states, interstate organizations, and non-governmental organizations-is vital to the success of demilitarization efforts. The activities of such actors include not only offering collective security guarantees but other activities as well. International assistance can be used to leverage civilian and military attitudes, as was done during the 1993 Guatemalan autogolpe attempt. The IMF announced in 1997 that its certification of the Guatemalan economy will be linked to implementation of the peace accords-including, therefore, the demilitarization of the armed forces. External support of civilian-controlled police forces may be helpful, if properly targeted, throughout the region. The NGO community can have a significant impact on attitudes, as the Arias Foundation seeks to accomplish through lobbying and its Central American Dialogue for Security and Demilitarization.
  6. The simple but bold step of abolition can be replicated only if "ripe moments" are seized, and only if ripeness is recognized in a variety of guises. The Costa Rican model is one of abrupt abolition. The ripe moment was the aftermath of a civil war, where abolition served a variety of interests and was forced upon a weak military. Panama's and Haiti's ripe moments came following foreign interventions which overcame discredited military establishments. As Isacson notes, "the gradual and peaceful elimination of a strong military remains uncharted territory. "Yet ripe moments-changing international circumstances, new leadership, etc.-can occur at various stages of gradual demilitarization, and need to be capitalized upon elsewhere in Central America. While necessary, such action is also not sufficient. As Jonas observes in the Guatemalan context, progress toward army reform is likely to be grudging, and achievable only through persistent "domestic and international pressures-and, ultimately, as a result of constitutional changes negotiated, implemented, and verified through the peace process." If abolition is to be contemplated, civilian and military attitudes (and the circumstances which underlie them) need to be consistently addressed. If so, a ripe moment of a sufficiently weak military could appear.

1648 and 1948

As Costa Rica observes the fiftieth anniversary of the abolition of the military, the international system completes 350 years since the Peace of Westphalia. The vast majority of states, past and present, in the anarchical Westphalian system have guarded their sovereignty through the maintenance of armed force as large as feasible. In much of that system, the commitment to the sovereign state-among various actors within it, but especially a self-interested military-inhibits the prospects of demilitarization. Military institutions and budgets benefit from-or at least are validated by-the alert status that Westphalian decentralization often encourages. The Costa Rican case establishes that it is possible for a small state to continuously avoid an exclusive reliance on self-help in the Westphalian order-though clearly the model requires a leap of faith (or attitudes)that few states are willing to consider. Also required is the modification to Westphalia known as collective security (point four above)and the permeation of sovereignty by a regime of external and internal actors (point five). Clearly for small states without significant external security concerns, Costa Rica has demonstrated the viability of demilitarized sovereignty. If sovereignty itself is to have any viability, and as militaries prove increasingly unable to guarantee it, the demilitarization even of larger states may need to come sooner rather than later.

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