This should immediately raise questions. For example "who's to judge?" My answer is" military leaders who receive the orders from the civilians. Further down the chain of command the moral grounds for obedience are different and so the perversly self undermining nature of the order isn't present 20/

Military leaders aren't immediately obligated to disobey every democracy-undoing order, but they are not required on my account to obey them.
I argue that this avoids the problem with the standard view, but also doesn't veer into Milburn-style voluntarism. 19/

I define an order as democracy-undoing if it is: 1) An order to the military by a duly authorized civilian leader, to intervene or facilitate intervention in the operation of free and fair elections (or of institutions or processes constitutive of the freedom and fairness of elections), that can be, 2) Reasonably interpreted as part of a broader campaign to disable the ability of democratic institutions to provide legitimacy, accountability, and trust across power transitions in the future.


To argue that democratic leaders can invoke their democratically based authority (as civilian control asserts) in order to dismantle the same processes that produce this legitimacy would be pervese. Hence what I call democarcy-undoing orders (defined in the image below) are non-binding. 18/

Civilian control by elected officials is justified because elections provide legitimacy, accountability, and trust in government across transitions in power. When democartically elected governments issue orders that are meant to degrade competitive democratic insitutions, they act w/o authority. 17/

Is there a way to justify CoS Halevy's actions that amounted to a refusal to help Netanyahu quash opposition to his government's actions to consolidate power? On the standard view it's not clear that there is, but I argue that in fact there is a defense. 16/

Netanyahu and his government were fuming and demanded that the Chief of Staff act decisively against the protests. The CoS on the other hand acted more cautiosly. Now, punishing reservists who don't report for duty is legal, and morally permissibile, and in this case the debate was political. 15/

How Military Leaders Can Navigate a Crisis of Democracy: Lessons from the Reservist Protests in Israel Leaders must communicate carefully with the public and subordinates, and minimize damage to the military, without adding to societal tension.

(At the time, @risabrooks12.bsky.social and I wrote a few things on the protest like this:
www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/israe...

And this:

www.justsecurity.org/87683/how-mi...

Or this by me @haaretzcom.bsky.social

www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/202...

and now back to the main thread...)

14/

The far reaching plan would strengthen the already strong executive, and weaken the judiciary and legal advice systems, that in the absence of a strong parliament, are the only real check on power.
A very wide social protest ensued that included threats by reservists not to come serve. 13/

I run through the Brazilian (h/t @charig.bsky.social) and Trump 1.0 cases in the article, but let me focus on the Israel in 2023 case here.
Back in January 2023, Netanyahu's government, often quoted as a case of democratic backsliding, announced a judicial overhaul. 12/

Why? Because they are presumptively legal, or at least not clearly illegal, not inherently immoral, and very very political. But that seems to trigger moral discomfort, or at least it does for me. It also seems to run against our intuitions in real world cases. 11/

All of this means that the military is likely to both become a target, and a component in the legalistic-autocrats toolbox. But if the standard CMR view is correct, many orders from duely elected executives to militaries to become involved in such efforts, should be obeyed. 10/

Populism scholars like @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social note that charectaristically, populists will attack elites in the name of the "real people", and elites include beureaucracies, including military elites (see: @donmoyn.bsky.social's blogs work on this effort under T2.0). 9/

Elements of the legalistic-autocrat playbook are also very likely not to be morally transgressive (think judicial appointment procedures) and will always be inherently political, no matter your definition of politics.
To this we should add insights about populism.
8/

So to summarize what I call the standard view: Officers shouldn't obey Illegal or profoundly immoral orders, but if they find they have political reservations about an order they should obey it.
This is all well and good, until we realize what contemporary democratic backsliding does to this. 7/

Democratic backsliding in the mode that @kimlanelaw.bsky.social calls "autrocratic legalism" uses constitutional and legal rhetoric, process, and reasoning to dismantle competitive liberal-democratic institutions. 8/

What Discord Follows: The Divisive Debate over Military Disobedience In The Soldier and the State, Samuel Huntington tells a story of a German officer in World War II who strongly believed his government was wrong, but also

In between are those who argue that profoundly immoral and illegal orders shouldn't be obeyed, but if one area that shouldn't be the basis of disobedience is political disagreement. See this excellent article by @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social @mzmargulies.bsky.social @eclipticevader7.bsky.social
6/

At the other end of the spectrum are scholars I call legalists, who argue that other than illegal orders, which may include inherently illegal orders (although I'm doubtful that's a trick that works unless you assume the US legal system until recently), officers should obey all orders. 5/

On the one end of the spectrum, standing basically alone is Andrew Milburn who argues that about very little actually. If civilians are wrong about anything in ways that badly threaten the institution, nation, or forces, , officers have a duty to exercise their judgement and disobey. 4/

How and when such effective control is achieved is the central problem of political science CMR scholarship, and has famously been summarized by Peter Feaver with the pithy and at this point iconic "civilians have the right to be wrong". But the question remains "wrong about what?!"
3/

Generally speaking, Civil-Military Relations (CMR) scholars, agree that civilians ought to be in control of the military. And while control itself is a bit of a fuzzy concept, the simple version is that duely appointed civilian leaders ought to call the shots. Especially in democracies. 2/

🧵 I'm excited to share that my article "Democratic Backsliding and the Limits of Civilian Control of the Military" has been accepted @thejop.bsky.social.

It answers the question "how ought militaries act when civilian leaders turn on democratic institutions?"

1/
#CivMilSky #PolTheory

Hi Sally. When Weiss published a supposed expose on the death of George Floyd, a veteran criminal justice reporter showed in deep detail that the piece was not just wrong but filled with falsehoods and misrepresentations. Weiss did not retract the piece. What do you think of that?

Tommy Robinson stopped at border driving Bentley with thousands in cash' Far-Right activist insulted police officers after being arrested for refusing to give them pin to his phone, court hears

Claims he's just a regular journalist doing his journalising on behalf of the silent millions... checks out for me..

"No More 'Flags Of Truce' With the Fiendish Scoundrels How one Confederate officer responded to Abraham Lincoln's Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

"No More 'Flags Of Truce' With the Fiendish Scoundrels"
open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

For those who don’t intimately understand how news works and why Bari Weiss’s unearned elevation to head of CBS News matters, I’d recommend watching this in entirety. Also, will forever point out irony of how an admitted DEI hire thinks her hire was meritorious while Black people’s aren’t.

Matthew Yglesias quote tweeting Sally Jenkins tweet of the “Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss” article Sally: This is really smart. Amazed at the hysteria over the ascendance of a woman entrepreneur who clearly knows how to cover and sell news and who's not afraid to take on a mob. Matt: I don't think people are "betting against Bari Weiss" the concern is that she will succeed in transforming CBS News into regime-aligned propaganda.

When even Yglesias knows you are full of it.

This is a really good chart for expressing federal research funding!

Uncle Sam is *very* interested in weapons, substantially interested in medicine (or was...), only somewhat interested in other science and almost not at all interested in arts or humanities.

I do not want to see a Supreme Court justice’s face on cable news, period

The Cahokia mound, located outside modern day St. Louis, Missouri. It is a large hill which is now covered in grass, under a clear blue sky. Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia

For Indigenous People’s Day, I’d like to infodump about the Cahokia mound. Built near present day St. Louis around 1000 CE, it was a vast trade hub with a population of about 20,000. This made it the largest city north of Mexico on the continent, bigger than London and Paris at the time!

Also, for an established US journalist to write the words "the approval of the thought police" as the US currently is working with technofascists/oligarchs to take over entire media platforms, silence/punish dissent, make universities buckle under and professors literally FLEE THE COUNTRY..is WILD.