the government party Zanu-PF indicated it would welcome military inter-
vention if it lost the 2002 general election.
Finally, in a reforming coupthe military seeks to change the social order
and place state and society on a new ideological foundation. Perlmutter dis-
tinguishes three sub-types within what he calls the ruler-type praetorian
army which rejects the existing order, challenges its legitimacy and creates
its own political organization to legitimize and maximize military control
over the state: (i) the anti-traditionalist, radical reformer (for example,
Argentina, 1945–55); (ii) the anti-traditionalist, anti-radical reformer (for
example, Nasser’s Egypt); and (iii) the anti-traditional, republican reformer
(for example, Turkey under Ataturk).
This does not mean that the political motives of a country’s armed forces
will necessary fall into one category only. In the 1980s the Venezuelan mili-
tary contained adherents of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement, with
radical ideological leaning and which staged a failed coupin 1992. It also
contained a more moderate faction concerned with the corruption and incom-
petence of politicians, but without a radical or ideological agenda, which also
attempted to lead a couplater in the same year (Baburkin et al., 1999).
Social mobility and military intervention
One explanation of military intervention focuses on the destabilizing effects
of social mobility. As societies become more open and fluid, people can use
the opportunities provided by new economic activities and institutions to
change their status in society. Wealth, education and skills confer status on
groups that in traditional society had lacked such opportunities. Social mobi-
lization is followed by political mobilization as the new socio-economic
interests brought into existence as a result of modernization, particularly in
the economy, seek effective means of expression within the political sys-
tem. Such political mobilization will be encouraged by the democratic
milieu and participative ethos of post-colonial society.
The social mobility following the spread of industrialization and its associ-
ated developments in education, urbanization, mass communications and
the commercialization of all sectors of economic life increases the rate of
political participation and mobilization and places intolerable burdens of con-
flict management on civilian regimes. The division of society into more com-
plex groups and structures has to be politically articulated through unions,
voluntary associations, political parties, professional bodies, trade associa-
tions, industrial organizations, and chambers of commerce. These are rarely
Military Intervention in Politics 179