Comparative and International Politics Working Group Seminar

"The Venezuelan Blueprint: How to manage civil-military relations under Democratic Backsliding" 

Presentation by:
Henry J. Moncrieff
Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow

Why do some militaries intervene against elected leaders who erode democracy, while others remain loyal or become embedded in the governing project? This paper develops a framework to explain military behavior under democratic backsliding, emphasizing how executives attempt to reshape the incentives and expectations of officers as formal institutions weaken. I argue that leaders rely on instrumental militarization, the purposeful expansion of military roles, prerogatives, and privileges, to bind officers to the regime and reduce the risks of defection. This strategy operates through material, institutional, and ideological levers that alter the payoff structure facing the armed forces. When these efforts fail, executives face heightened risks of removal when they succeed, coup threats decline but military influence in politics and governance expands. The Venezuelan case illustrates these dynamics. Under Chávez and Maduro, reforms, purges, economic integration, and the creation of parallel forces produced a durable coalition that survived severe political and economic crises. The analysis shows how backsliding executives manage uncertainty and how militarization becomes a central mechanism of regime survival. The framework offers new leverage for understanding variation in military responses across Latin America and contributes to broader debates on civil-military relations and democratic erosion.