Democratic civilian control of armed forces in the post-Cold-War era; the development and trend from the concept of civil-military relations towards security sector governance

The author examines the new relevance of democratic civilian control of armed forces in post-Cold War international affairs. He therefore critically assesses respective discourses on civil-military relations and security sector reform. In particular, he examines the emerging conceptual links between security and governance and the related transformation of the more conventional concepts of civil-military relations and democratic control of armed forces towards new and more comprehensive concepts linking security to both democracy and development; catpub06; geudbu/01.2007; Section 1 examines the relationship between civil-military relations and democracy. Section 2 further discusses the inherent links between civilian and democratic control as illustrated in post-communist defense reform. Section 3 evaluates the new integrated approaches to security and governance triggered by the development community's own contribution to security sector reform. Section 4 explores the new challenges of democratic civilian control. The final section adds a critical analysis of relevant assessment tools of democratic civilian control; catpub06; geudbu/01.2007