Military Influence and Political Development in Turkey and Pakistan

Turkey and Pakistan share a long history of military tutelage, influence, and intervention in politics. This thesis analyzes the evolution of the political role of the military in the two countries, in order to understand the causes of the Turkish military’s diminished political influence since 2002, contrasted with the Pakistani military’s continuing grip over the country’s political system. Three factors can explain this divergence in civilian control of the military between the two countries. In Turkey, there has been a constant process of elite turnover and replacement, culminating in the gradual emergence and consolidation of counter-elite power in the 1990s and 2000s. In Pakistan, the traditional civil-military “Establishment” has remained remarkably unchanged in its constitution and structure. The role of elites in determining the course of civil-military relations has been conditioned by two other factors, (1) external influences and (2) varying patterns of civilian institutional legitimacy