Civil-military relations in Israel and Turkey

Abstract

This manuscript investigates to what extent civil-military relations in Israel and Turkey, two countries in the Middle East which have democratic systems of governments, evinces characteristics that one comes across in advanced democracies. It shows that in both countries the military plays a relatively influential role, that being more so in Turkey than in Israel. The manuscript concludes that in recent decades the perception of the military concerning the question of whether or not the country faced a grave threat and the civilian government's capability to successfully deal with such a threat, if there was one, played leading roles in shaping the civil-military relations in those two countries.