is being used. However, even if the decision to stage a coupis not taken by
the most senior ranking officers, those who do lead the overthrow have at
their disposal an organization that is likely to respond to their commands.
The organizational unity of the military in the Third World should not be
exaggerated. They are often riven with factions based on age, education,
rank, religion or tribe, reflecting divisions within the wider political com-
munity (Charlton, 1981, pp. 58–60). For example, in October 2001
Pakistan’s military ruler, General Musharraf, felt it necessary to dismiss two
of his most senior generals, regarded as hard line Islamists and leaders of a
faction opposed to the President’s pro-American policies. The military
needs to be viewed as thoroughly integrated into society in this respect and
not as a self-contained entity. It is also worth noting that when Putnam tried
to test the importance of variations in organizational characteristics to the
propensity for intervention, using Latin American data – a difficult feat
given the availability of ‘only a few gross characteristics of the armed
forces’ – he found a negative correlation between the size of the military
establishment and the extent of military intervention. Of course, as with all
such quantitative analysis, it is easy to reject the indicator used on the
grounds that it is an unreliable proxy for the variable under investigation
(Putnam, 1967, pp. 110–11; Wells, 1974). However, Johnson et al. found
from their study of politics in 35 Black African states between 1960 and
1982 that military ‘cohesion’ (a large and ethnically homogeneous armed
forces) and political ‘centrality’ (its role in repression against the govern-
ment’s opponents and its share of public expenditure) to be positively
related to military intervention, leading them to recommend strongly ‘that
variables specific to African military establishments must be considered in
any search for the structural determinants of military intervention in African
politics’ (1984, p. 634).
The military also have a symbolic status which endows them with legiti-
macy should they intervene in the world of civilian politics. Without articu-
lating this as part of a corporate philosophy or belief system, the military
may symbolize something valuable to the rest of society. They may represent
modernity because of their technological expertise, structures of authority,
and training. Symbolic status can also derive from successful performance.
Shortly before the first military coupin Nigeria in 1966 the army had been
involved in a UN peacekeeping force in the Congo in which it acquitted itself
well, gained an international reputation for being well-disciplined and effec-
tive, and so brought credit to the country internationally.
The apparent modernity of the military, according to some developmental-
ists such as Pye, is a major reason why the military is an obvious alternative
Military Intervention in Politics 187