Institutional response to terrorism : the domestic role of the military in consolidated democracies

Terrorism, as an act of war, has produced new challenges for states and their militaries in the modern era. A typical response for governments that face a terrorist threat is to reassess their institutional posture toward handling such assaults on their territorial sovereignty, to include a redefinition of the conditions under which their militaries may be used to defend and protect domestic interests. This study aims to determine the conditions under which and to what degree a civilian authority's restructuring of its counterterrorism policy alters civil-military relations within that state, specifically examining the institutional and constitutional constraints under which governments formulate their military's role in counterterrorism policy; the type of institutional arrangement that seems most conducive to a powerful military role in a state's counterterrorism policy; and an exploration of the expansion of military authority in response to terrorism in the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Spain. I argue that democratic states will expand the role and responsibilities of their militaries into what were formerly civilian areas of responsibility as a key tool in the implementation of their counterterrorism policy when military authority is only loosely circumscribed by state constitutional and legislative documents; the military has a history of strong participation in the formulation (versus simply implementation) of a state's national security doctrine; and the military maintains an exalted role in national history and is viewed by the citizenry as a core institution of national identity, and the government is facing both high internal and external threat levels. This study is based on the assumption that institutional arrangements play a significant role in the policymaking process, employing the paradigm of Historical Institutionalism to explain how changes within institutions alter civil-military relations in the context of counterterrorism policy, and vice versa.