Understanding Current Threats to Democracy: The Limits of the Civil-Military Relations Paradigm
Journal: Daedalus
Year: 2025

Although the post-9/11 era has been marked by scholarly angst about what many view as a distinct deterioration in civil-military relations, a review of the evidence suggests that civil-military relations during this period have been complex and sometimes contradictory, rather than unidirectional. But a narrow or formalistic focus on civil-military relations obscures the risks to democracy that stem not from the military but from newer means of coercion that have been enabled by recent technologi