Theories of Democratic Civil–Military Relations and the Enduring Value of the Citizen-Soldier Ideal

Abstract

James Burk’s “Theories of Democratic Civil-Military Relations” stands out for the theoretical insights and bold vision that underpin his critique of Samuel Huntington’s The Soldier and the State and Morris Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier. Burk situates these authors within long-standing traditions of political thought to clarify the need for a new normative theory of civil–military relations for mature democracies. A new normative theory, Burk says, will build on the idea of the “citizen-soldier” to explain how good civil–military relations sustain liberal democratic values. More than 20 years after Burk’s article appeared, the theoretical work he called for remains to be done. However, Burk’s intuition that the citizen-soldier ideal offers the most promising foundation for understanding how civil–military relations sustain liberal democratic values is sound. The political education the citizen-soldier ideal requires contributes to both sustaining liberal democratic values at home and to protecting democracies from external threats.