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SSP Wednesday Seminar with speaker Anne Sartori, Research Scientist at the Sloan School of Management, MIT. The talk will be broadcast live on the MIT Security Studies Program Youtube channel

This paper argues that states with tenuous civilian control over the military have an increased propensity for international conflict.  In such states, civilian leaders prefer to cede less power to the military in order to decrease the risk of coups, but must grant them some power to protect the state from threats.  To persuade the government to keep the military strong, military leaders may choose to engage in activities that increase tensions with an international adversary, a move that both emphasizes and increases the government’s need for security.  The paper develops this argument by means of a formal model. In the model, the government considers consolidating power at the military’s expense, and the military may engage in a form of “gambling for resurrection,” engaging in military activity that is likely to harm the state’s security, but if successful, can persuade the government not to do so. A case study of the Kargil War illustrates military leaders’ leeway to engage in military activity and that they may use this leeway when they have reason to fear government consolidation. The paper contributes to literatures on civil-military relations, the influence of domestic institutions on international conflict, and comparative authoritarianism.

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