Civil-Military Relations in Brazil and the Coup of 1945: The Application of a New Model to Explain Military Behavior. 

One of the goals I pursue in the following pages is to bring the military back in to discussions of democracy in Latin America – and elsewhere. Although I will not examine current civil-military relations in Latin America, the model I adopt to examine military behavior also can be used to tell us something about current relations between civilians and military in the region.

In this paper I apply a theory of military behavior to the 1945 coup d’etat in Brazil that deposed the dictator Getúlio Vargas. This paper begins with the straightforward argument that military behavior is determined in part by the military’s commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy. More specifically, military intervention is partially dependent on the emergence of the norm of civilian supremacy. In the  first section of the paper I explain the theory. This is followed by the application of the model to explain the decision of the Brazilian military to depose Vargas in October 1945. I conclude with a few words about the applicability of this model to current events and what it might tell us about democracy in the region.²

The Theory: The Norm of Civilian Supremacy
Many theorists of civil-military relations, in Latin America and elsewhere, refer to the issue of the military’s commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy.³  In analyses of the Latin American military at the end of the nineteenth century, it is noted that the armed forces were closely allied with the government and subordinate to civilian political leaders, i.e., responsible to civilian authorities (Rouquié 1987; Finer 1988; Welch 1987; Stepan 1971). Over the course of history, the military shifted its allegiance from the regime to the state. In many cases the military felt they were responsible to the state,  and not to civilian authorities, because they were created prior to independence and, furthermore, because they felt they contributed to creating the state. Therefore, the officers in most Latin American armed forces viewed themselves as “an enlightened elite dedicated to the state” which exists to preserve the “interests of the nation” (Rouquié 1987, 113). These authors fail, however, to draw out the implications of service to the state versus civilian supremacy.

To put it another way, the armed forces base their decisions to act in the name of something. They cannot justify their actions as a political actor in and of themselves. Historically in Latin America, military politics is based on the belief that the legitimacy of the armed forces as a political actor is founded on the nation. They exist because of and for the nation. It is to that mythical entity – the nation – that they owe “subordination and obedience” (Rial 1990a, 285). To put it in Huntington’s (1957) words, the military feel that they respond to the “state’s” demands. In other words, the norm of civilian supremacy is not dominant.⁴

I argue that officer corps behavior is partially explained by the degree of military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy, or to what extent the military feel they serve the democratically elected civilian government. This norm of service relates to the military’s task and its subordination, answering the questions “what should we do?” and “to whom are we responsible?” The two aspects of the norm, in their ideal form, can be stated as follows:
     Task: Our job is defense of the state against external attack.
     Subordination: We obey legitimate civilian authority.

The task aspect of the norm, at its most fundamental level, is rooted in our very understanding of what militaries are: large organizations devoted to preparing for and fighting wars. Modern armed forces have distinct realms of responsibility. According to Timothy Colton (1990), there are three domains of civil-military relations: defense policy, societal choice, and sovereign power. Defense politics deal with issues directly related to the armed force’s professional concerns, such as the defense budget, military doctrine, and procurement policy.⁵  Societal choice issues are non-defense domestic political, economic and social issues, such as macro-economic policy, educational policy, etc. The sovereign power domain concerns the question of who rules, and who decides who rules. This paper focuses on sovereign power issues. Thus, little will be said here about issues of defense politics. The issue of role expansion into societal choice issues is important and will be covered in greater detail in the framework presented below.

When officers come to believe that they have tasks outside the domain of defense policy, or even when “legitimate civilian authorities”  mandate military involvement in nation-building activities (Pion-Berlin 1997), the boundary between military and civilian spheres and officer attachment to the norm of responsibility is weakened. Officers that see their tasks as extending into the societal choice and sovereign power domains have both greater occasion and more reason to question civilian judgment, thus undermining their attachment to the norm. Responsible officers believe that role expansion will dilute their ability to perform their primary duty, defense of the state against external threats. An officer corps committed to the norm of civilian supremacy understands the danger of getting involved in domestic missions. Commitment to political neutrality includes the commitment not to be used by civilians to settle domestic political scores.

The subordination aspect of the norm appears to be more straightforward. This is certainly true in well-institutionalized democracies like the United States, because there is little doubt as to who holds legitimate civilian authority. To the extent that a military has internalized the norm of civilian supremacy officers attempt to remain aloof from domestic political battles. Also, to the extent that officers have internalized the task aspect of the norm, they are loath to give their support to an unpopular regime, which threatens to take it away from the job of external defense. This is true even if for political, class, or ethnic reasons it has more reason to side with the less legitimate contender.

Officer corps commitment to the two aspects of the norm, at least in theory, could vary unequally; that is, a military could have a high commitment to one aspect of the norm and a low commitment to the other. In practice, though, it appears that the degree of commitment to the two aspects co-vary. The belief that the military has tasks other than external defense usually leads officers to hold policy views on these tasks. As the number of issues on which the military bargains with civilian elites expands, the principle of obedience is undermined. Conversely, if officers feel no commitment to the norm of subordination, they are more likely to arrogate to themselves the right to set policy in the domains of societal choice and sovereign power.

Of course, the task and subordination aspects of the norm sometimes can come in conflict. In the ideal case, the subordination aspect of the norm should be stronger than the task one. This is also the conclusion of Trinkunas (1999) and Pion-Berlin (1997) who argue that it is not the “task” that matters so much but who determines the “task” of mission. Militaries that adhere to the responsibility norm do not like being assigned to internal roles, but the primary obligation is to obey orders.

The ideal-type apolitical military, then, is one that has thoroughly internalized both aspects of the norm of civilian supremacy. The opposite of an apolitical military is a praetorian, or politicized, one (Huntington 1968, 192-263; Nordlinger 1977, 2-3; Perlmutter 1977, 11-13, 89-114).⁶   An ideal-type apolitical military is one for which a coup attempt is unthinkable. An ideal-type praetorian military is one for which military rule and intervention is a constant possibility. In principle, any state’s armed forces can be situated on an imaginary spectrum with apolitical at one end and praetorian on the other. This placement reflects the extent to which the officer corps is committed to the norm of civilian supremacy.

The task aspect of the norm of responsibility has several possible indicators. The amount of time devoted to military preparation and training, as determined by military self-reporting, is one good indicator. If the armed forces are engaged in domestic policing or other non-military tasks, such as managing enterprises or building roads and schools, they will likely be less committed to the norm. However, since subordination has primacy over task orientation, and officers may be ordered to engage in these tasks, equally relevant are statements of officers about their attitudes toward these missions. Military education and the topics of articles in military journals also are good indicators.

Figure I--The Apolitical/Praetorian Continuum

Praetorian     Apolitical |--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| (1) No Attachment (4) Weak Attachment (8) Moderate  Attachment (16) High Attachment

If the task orientation of the military involves primarily internal police functions or nation-building activities, it would be placed at the low end of the scale. That is, the armed forces are weakly attached to the norm of civilian responsibility, at least based on the task aspect of the norm. A military, such as that of the United States, which focuses primarily on external defense, would be placed at the high end of the scale. In other words, U.S. military officers are highly attached to the norm of responsibility.

The subordination aspect of the norm is measured in a hermeneutic fashion. The two key places to look are the socialization process of officers and the beliefs, values, and assumptions of military elites. I look for statements of officers that reflect whether they have internalized the view that they must obey legitimate authority and that they have no role to play in the resolution of sovereign power issues. Possible sources include military journals, memoirs, interviews, survey data, and internal armed forces communications.

I should note that many militaries will not exhibit a single culture on the norm of civilian supremacy. An ideal-type army, whether apolitical or politicized, will have a clear, dominant culture. More intermediate cases will have several subcultures, either a dominant one with competing subcultures, or several competing subcultures with none of them clearly dominant. The most difficult task is to determine when a “boundary change” has occurred and one subculture has replaced the previous one (Stepan 1971, 115-124).

To summarize, I argue that officer corps behavior is partially explained by the degree of military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy. Commitment to this norm can be measured in terms of two aspects, task and subordination. However, a theory about the influence of the military’s organizational culture, in particular the norms about sovereign power issues, needs to be able to do more than show that culture “matters.” It should also provide a theory of cultural development and change. The argument that militaries do not intervene because they do not believe it is right is not very interesting, although it does offer a corrective to writings that have stressed structural and rational explanations for coups while ignoring cultural factors. The more interesting question is why some militaries internalize this norm and others do not. Such an explanation requires an understanding of the sources of military organizational culture. 

Cultural Development and Change
 I argue that four variables explain the degree of military commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy. These factors are derived from the organizational culture and comparative civil-military relations literature. They provide a rough guide for placing a state’s armed forces on the apolitical/praetorian continuum. The four variables are:

•   the intensity of external security threats to the state during preceding decades
•   the degree of domestic political stability and capacity
•   the extent to which civilian elites re-educate the military toward the norm of civilian supremacy
•   the institutional lessons learned by the military from any past involvements in sovereign power issues or other political crises (such as a failed coup)

    Variable One: External Threats
The task of the armed forces is to defend state security. The greater the external threat to the state, the more the military will focus on this task and the less interest it will have in internal missions. A military that is more inclined to be fighting wars will be more committed to the norm of responsibility and less inclined to intervene in domestic politics. The influence of this external threat variable has received almost no attention in the comparative politics literature on civil-military relations.⁸

Most countries in the developing world, unlike European ones, have rarely faced a serious external threat to their survival. In the absence of external threats, officers and civilian politicians alike have had few qualms about directing the armed forces’ activity inward. As Andreski (1968) states, “The devil finds work for idle hands: the soldiers who have no wars to fight or prepare for will be tempted to interfere in politics” (202). More broadly, the weakness of Latin American and African states compared to European ones partially can be explained by the benign security environment of these states (Maniruzzam 1987, 113-115). Strong states were built in Europe to facilitate the mobilization of a society’s resources for war. Strong states also tend to have more stable civilian control over the armed forces (Tilly 1993; Migdal 1988).

The presence of external threats makes officers more serious about their primary task, which strengthens their adherence to the norm of responsibility. They are more focused on preparation for war. Other tasks become an annoying distraction. Those officers who seem more interested in domestic politics are seen as undermining the hierarchy of obedience and hence military effectiveness. If the external threat is replaced by an internal one, eventually one should see a change in officer corps culture as well. However, cultural theory maintains that this change will be slower and of lesser magnitude than structural change, because norms acquire the force of habit and tend to persist.

Perhaps the best indicator of a state’s external threat environment is its war-proneness. I measure war-proneness in three different ways: as the number of battle deaths in inter-state wars per year the state has been a member of the international state system, as the number of wars per years of tenure in the international system, and the number of war months per year. This data has been compiled as part of the Correlates of War project. Analysis of these data demonstrate that, in general, the most war-prone states and regions tend to have fewer coups, a finding that supports the argument that in states with serious external threats, all else equal, the armed forces are more committed to the norm of civilian supremacy.

Note: Small and Singer’s regional breakdown was used, which differs somewhat from that used by Schott
Sources: Small and Singer, Schott in Luttwak. Citations in endnote ix

Two of the measures of war-proneness show that more war-prone states are less coup-prone. Using the measure of battle deaths per year, the twenty most war-prone states between 1812-1980 had an average of 0.75 military coup attempts per country from 1945-1978, compared to the average of 1.6 for all states.⁹  In addition, the twenty states that had the greatest war months per year that they were a member of the state system had 1.1 coup attempts per country, significantly below the average of 1.6 for all states. On the other hand, the twenty states that fought the most wars per year had an average of 1.55 military coups attempts per country from 1945-1978, compared to the average of 1.6 for all states.¹⁰

There is also a rough correlation between war-proneness of a region and the number of military coup attempts in the region. The two most war-prone regions, Europe and Asia, have had the fewest number of coups. The regions that we generally associate with military coups and rule -- Africa, Latin America and the Middle East -- have also been the most peaceful (Table I). In general, the data on war-proneness supports the hypothesis that states with a high external threat are less coup-prone. The tendency to be involved in external war affects the military’s organizational culture and increases its commitment to the norm of responsibility¹¹. 

    Variable Two: Political Stability and Capacity of the State
Political instability is perhaps the most common explanation for praetorianism. Indeed, for some analysts the term is synonymous with a politically unstable society. Explanations of military intervention based on political instability are central to such key civil-military relations books as Finer’s The Man on Horseback and Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies. The notion that political instability can cause coups is not controversial.

I argue that political instability affects coup propensity not only directly, as structural theories would argue, but also indirectly through officer corps culture. When the political system is stable, officers will have both fewer opportunities and fewer motives for intervention. There will be less spillover from the domestic political arena to the army’s internal life. Competing civilian elites will have fewer reasons to appeal for military support if the system is in order. Under these conditions, military non-involvement in politics will be seen as the normal state of affairs. Thus, in stable states, officers will more and more adhere to the norm of civilian supremacy.

Political stability, however, should not be confused with political capacity. For the purpose of this study, political stability in part refers to the continuity of governmental structures and to the turnover of incumbents within the government. Thus, political stability is related to organizational age, measured both in chronological and generational terms. Organizational age has three elements: the age of the judicial state, the age of the current constitutional order, and the number of top leadership successions in that order.

Political stability also refers to government performance. Specifically, a state’s political stability is related to its ability to resolve (or at least manage) societal conflicts without resorting to violence and the level of societal threats to the existing political order. Stability, in this sense, is measured by the indicator “deaths from political violence” in addition to “irregular,” non-violent challenges to the existing political order. Political strikes and regional independence or autonomy movements are two examples of regime challenges that may be non-violent.

Different from political stability, political capacity is a reflection of how well the government can provide for the basic needs of the population. The political capacity of a state is high when it is able to provide the minimal needs of the population. The degree to which elected civilian authorities effectively perform their duties affects how they are perceived by the public (and by other civilian elites, for that matter), which in turn will affect the commitment of the military to the principle of civilian supremacy. It is unlikely that military leaders would turn their arms against the government unless they felt that a significant segment of the society (mass and elite) shared their lack of trust.¹²

    Variable Three: Indoctrination
Few civilian elites, one would think, would encourage military leaders to believe it was the army’s job to run the state. In fact, however, there is a great deal of variation in the extent to which civilian elites indoctrinate the armed forces with the norm of civilian supremacy. Both in the way governments are structured and in the messages communicated, some civilian leaders are more effective in indoctrinating the norm of responsibility than others. For the norm of responsibility to become internalized, civilian elites, including the opposition, have to communicate it to the officer corps.

Stepan’s (1988) concept of the “dimension of military institutional prerogatives” closely mirrors my indoctrination variable. Of Stepan’s eleven prerogative areas, there are two that I consider most important for providing evidence that civilians have inculcated the notion of civilian supremacy in sovereign power issues. These two areas are the constitutional standing of the military and the military’s relationship to the police and paramilitary forces. The principle of civilian supremacy is conveyed by the civilian leadership more strongly to the extent that the military has no constitutionally sanctioned independent role in the political system, the chief executive is both de jure and de facto commander-in-chief, and the police are separate from the army, with the army playing no role in domestic policing (Stepan 1988, 93-102).

Another indicator that the notion of civilian supremacy is strongly or weakly inculcated is the extent to which civilians encourage military role expansion into the realm of societal choice. Stepan provides several examples of this role expansion, such as military involvement in state enterprises or an expanded military court system that encompasses large areas of civil and political society (93-102).

The importance of inculcating the notion of civilian supremacy in the officer corps is evident in much of the civil-military relations literature. In Latin America, for example, the military often has a constitutionally mandated role in sovereign power issues and both civilian and military elites have seen military involvement in politics as a natural phenomenon.¹³

    Variable Four: Institutional Lessons
The indoctrination variable stresses “sender-receiver” communication (from civilians to officers). The institutional lessons variable emphasizes “autocommunication”: what do officers tell themselves about their institutional history? What scripts and schemas have officers learned about their proper political role? The way officers think about their political role is heavily influenced by past institutional behavior and the lessons learned from those events.

Horowitz (1980) notes that restraints on military intervention will be higher before the first coup than during subsequent interventions. In a country with a tradition of military intervention or rule, officers are less inclined to doubt their right to intervene in politics. On the other hand, a failed coup attempt, especially a failed first coup attempt, may strengthen officer corps’ inhibitions against military intervention.¹⁴

More broadly, the “coup contagion” literature suggests that coups in other states tend to reinforce interventionist tendencies. Li and Thompson (1975) argued in the 1970s that “a world of subculture has taken form in which some military elites view their full participation in authoritative decision-making as both correct and necessary” (75). A similar effect in reverse may partially explain military withdrawal from politics in the “Third Wave” of democratization in the second half of the 1970s and 1980s (Huntington 1991). A recent empirical investigation of the effects of “diffusion” uncovers evidence that suggests the “innovation” (military coup or military withdrawal) is passed along from one military to another in Latin America (Magalhães 1991).

Militaries can learn political lessons from events other than coups. Such events might include wars, domestic usage for police-type missions, mutinies, and major organization or personnel changes. All of these may take the form of “critical events,” defined as critical due to their place in history, their role in the development of organizational beliefs, or their metaphorical power. In general, one is more likely to learn from events that reinforce existing beliefs, although there are limits to the extent to which beliefs can be maintained in the face of inconsistent evidence, critical events can often be catalysts for change.

Culture and Coup Motives
General surveys of civil-military relations theory tend to list a wide range of possible motives for military intervention, in an effort more to catalogue than theorize. Martin Edmonds (1988), for example, lists eighteen possible motives for intervention, grouped under the three headings of “sectional interest,” “self-interest,” and “national interest” (103). However, civil-military relations theory is at a stage in which attempts should be made to delineate what types of motives for intervention will stimulate different kinds of militaries.

The motives that might provoke a coup fall into four basic categories: national interest, corporate, sub-corporate, and personal. National interest motives include threats to the territorial integrity of the state, major military defeats, and systemic crises of the governability of the state. Corporate motives for intervention are related to threats to the armed forces’ resources or political position, and may include a traditional role as arbiter of political competition. Sub-corporate motives for intervention stem from factions within the armed forces. Personal motives are the individual ambitions and grievances of officers (Finer 1988; Edmonds 1988; Thompson 1973; Horowitz 1980; Nordlinger 1977).

The four basic kinds of motives vary in their level of generality. Personal motives are by definition highly particular, and usually reflect dissension within the ruling junta over the appropriate distribution of power and resources. A small number of actors is involved. Sub-corporate motives are somewhat more general, and thus require mobilizing greater support within the armed forces for action if the coup is to succeed. Coups undertaken for corporate motives tend to originate in the military’s senior leadership, acting in their perception of the institution’s interests as a whole or in the military’s capacity of political arbiter. The most general level of motive is that behind the national interest coup, which tend to have the support not only of much of the officer corps but other elements in society, who also believe the state is facing a systemic crisis.

I argue that the degree of a military’s attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy influences which motives are likely to instigate intervention. Motive is the independent variable, organizational culture is the intervening variable, and intervention is the dependent variable.

Armies with different norms will respond differently (coup or non-coup) to the same stimuli (motives). Attachment to the norm is not determined by forward-looking utility calculations but by prior socialization. Ideal-type apolitical armies (United States, United Kingdom) are unlikely to intervene in almost any circumstance. Armies with a moderate degree of attachment to the norm may be motivated to intervene for national interest reasons.

In these cases above, a high level motive to overcome existing norms against armed forces intervention is required. Militaries that are more praetorian in nature (Pakistan, Peru) are frequently prompted by corporate or sub-corporate motives, and attachment to the norm of civilian of responsibility is weak and isolated in organizational sub-cultures. Highly praetorian armies with no attachment to the norm of civilian of responsibility (Nigeria, Thailand) are subject to coups and counter-coups instigated by subcorporate motives and personal ambitions and grievances.¹⁵

Application of the Model to Brazil
The second part of the paper begins here with the application of the above model to the case of Getúlio Vargas’ ouster in 1945 and proceeds in three parts. First, I measure officer commitment to the norm of responsibility by measuring commitment to the task and subordination aspects of the norm. The score for this part (adding the two aspects—task and subordination—and multiplying by two) should be roughly the same as the score for the development of military organizational culture (adding the scores from the four independent variables that explain change in military culture). If these two measures do not agree either my theory about the causes of organizational culture development and change is wrong or my measures of attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy are not valid.

Second, I measure the independent variables—external threat, political stability, indoctrination, and institutional lessons— that cause the development and change of organizational culture. From these measures a composite score for officer corps attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy is derived. I use the encoding rules and sources discussed above.

One possible source of invalidity is improper coding of the variables. Two of my explanatory variables (indoctrination and institutional lessons) and both aspects of the norm of civilian supremacy (task and subordination) are coded, at least in part, hermeneutically. Content analysis is essentially the only method available for this sort of research. However, there are several problems with this approach. First, except for archival documents and other internal military communications, officers could be using culture instrumentally – in essence, saying what they think they are supposed to, rather than what they believe. There is no easy cure for this problem, other than the researcher be aware of it and to look at a range of actors and in a variety of forms and media. Second, the researcher’s subjective bias can lead him/her to find only the elements of culture for which he/she is looking. Again, the main prescription is for the researcher to be careful and honest.

A final source of potential measurement error is the problem of divided cultures.¹⁶  Except in ideal-type cases (completely apolitical or politicized), I expect to find evidence of competing subcultures. How do I know which is dominant, if any? To the extent that a culture is dominant, it should be reflected in materials prepared to socialize and train its members. Further, those who rise to the top of the organization are more likely to reflect the dominant culture than to be adherents of a minority culture. If there is truly no dominant culture, contradictory propositions are likely to be articulated both in formal literature and informal statements. Legro (1995) argues that hierarchical organizations such as militaries are likely to have a single dominant culture (115). This is a plausible hypothesis, but I rely on my readings to determine its validity.

Cultural explanations are difficult to “prove” because of these measurement and validity problems. I employ several strategies in an attempt to overcome these barriers. I assign numbers to my coding variables in order to make my measurements explicit and thus easier to challenge. When available, I use observable implications of the imputed culture. For example, officer commitment to the task aspect of the norm is measured not only by officers’ statements but also the amount of time they devote to different activities. Civilian indoctrination is coded as much by constitutional arrangement as by elite declarations. Finally, by adding a theory of cultural development and change to a culturalist account, I have two possible measures of attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy. I undertake all of these steps in an attempt to “maximize concreteness” in the study of an abstract concept, culture. The intent is to make the methods I use more observable, and hence make theories more falsifiable (King, Keohane and Verba 1994, 109-112; Shively 1990, 44-60). I have tried to follow King, Keohane and Verba’s injunction that “it is better to be wrong than vague” (112).

The third part is a detailed investigation of officer corps behavior in 1945. The measure of officer corps commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy arrived at during the first two stages of each section is treated not as a conclusion but as a hypothesis, which I test by examining officer corps behavior in the case studies. Behavior is the dependent variable (coup or non-coup), which is separate from the intervening variable of norms.

It is at this third stage of the case study that the predicted outcomes of cultural theory are contrasted with those of rational accounts. I compare my norm-based account with the null-hypothesis: the actions described can be understood on the basis of egoistic interests in the context of power realities. This is where the issue of motives and norms is directly joined. The standard explanation of coups in the literature is that they are caused by corporative motives, usually conceived of in organizational terms as threats to power, resources and autonomy. The competing explanation I offer is normative commitments determine which motives may instigate coups. The test of which account is persuasive depends on whether officers saw their corporate interests as being seriously threatened, believed that a coup attempt had a reasonable chance of success but were inhibited from intervening by their organizational culture.¹⁷

    Attachment to the Norm of Civilian Supremacy
A test of the propositions described in the theory above begins here with a detailed examination of data collected on the coup d’etat of 1945, which removed dictator Getúlio Vargas from power.

Only a few scholars have used internal military publications to describe the evolution of Brazilian military thought (Castro 1990, Hahner 1961, Stepan 1971) but with the exception of Nunn (1983, 1992) none have examined military journals systematically to test hypotheses derived from a general theory of military coups. First, in order to measure the extent to which the Brazilian armed forces were committed to the task aspect of the norm of responsibility in 1945, I examined a sample of articles drawn from the military publication A Ação do Exército. I also use a set of interviews, conducted with fifteen military officers who participated in or saw first hand the events that preceded and led to the military coup, for statements of officers about civilian authority and military missions.

In order to measure the task aspect of the norm of civilian supremacy, I examined material published by the military to determine the amount of time devoted to military missions. An analysis of the-then biannual military publication A Ação do Exército yields results that are reported in Table II below.¹⁸  I assume that the number of articles per mission provides a rough picture of the amount of effort devoted to the mission. The more the armed forces engage in a particular activity, the more they will write about it, and vice versa.

The majority of the articles—fifty-seven percent—dealt with non-military issues, primarily the military’s role in the national economy, national integration (“fator de integração nacional”), and social control. It is noteworthy that this is true in spite of the military’s presence in Europe fighting against Germany and Italy. Indeed, only seven articles, thirteen percent, discuss the role of the FEB in World War II.¹⁹  The Vargas regime, however, allocated a large portion of the national budget to the armed forces, especially the army; never less than twelve percent and twice reaching over twenty percent of the federal expense budget (Hayes 1989, 170).²⁰

Task orientation, however, is not sufficient to determine the degree of military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy. More important are the attitudes of officers toward missions because armed forces may be ordered to engage in these tasks.

A good indicator of how the military perceived these missions are statements of officers in interviews. The interviews of fifteen officers, conducted between 1973 and 1974 as part of the Projeto Memória Militar, sponsored by the Clube Militar,²²   provide evidence that the military accepted missions that deviated from traditional military roles. One officer states that “the role of the armed forces in national integration is only natural given that they are an integral part of Brazilian society and history.” Statements such as this are common throughout the interviews. Officers in the Brazilian military stressed the institution’s contribution to the well-being of the state, nation, and society. One officer stated that the military’s role included “doing justice, punishing the guilty, feeding the hungry, and giving strength to the weak.” This orientation toward the civil-military domain of societal choice reflected in the military’s involvement in providing services outside the domain of defense policy and also taking positions within the federal government from which it could perform its societal role.

Of the fifteen interviews, only three officers displayed negative attitudes toward internal non-military functions. In the opinion of one officer, military professionalism meant “preparing for war;” that the Brazilian military was not professional enough because it spent too much time “playing politics” and that “it would suffer in the long run.” Another officer spoke of the need for the army to play the role of the “great mute” in relation to political disputes—echoing French military training. Two other officers were mostly neutral when it came to discussing non-military activities, neither extolling the importance of the military in performing these activities nor condemning the military for engaging in them.

The ideal-type apolitical military spends little to no time involved in non-military activities and significantly greater time in territorial defense. The ideal-type praetorian military spends very little time preparing to defend or defending against an attack from abroad and participating in international peacekeeping. Politically active militaries devote most of their time to non-military functions. Thus, the apolitical military receives a score of four (4) and the praetorian military a score of one (1) on the Apolitical/Praetorian continuum. I assign a score of two (2)²³ to the Brazilian military in 1945 on the “commitment to task” aspect of the norm of civilian supremacy because, while they devoted considerably more time on non-military tasks, the Brazilian armed forces were sufficiently concerned with external defense (a quarter of the articles in my sample were devoted primarily to the discussion and examination of external defense policy) to have used the majority of government monies on training for war (Hayes 1989, 43). The Brazilian military also does not score a one (1) because there was a small but significant minority within the upper ranks of the officer corps that had important concerns about territorial sovereignty and this affected military training in Brazil (Hayes 1989, 58).

The second aspect of the norm of civilian supremacy is the principle of military obedience to elected civilian authority. Since the two aspects co-vary the degree of commitment to them should be similar. The principle of obedience implies that the military follows civilian orders and that it plays no role in the resolution of sovereign power issues. I looked at military publications to gauge the extent to which the military obeyed legitimate civilian authority in 1945.

A Defesa Nacional, the most popular and widely disseminated Brazilian military journal, was founded in 1913 and since then has served as the main channel for the Brazilian armed forces to express their views on a range of issues, from the performance of the government to theories of war to weapons technology to military education.

In the early 1940s, A Defesa Nacional was published six times a year. I found twenty of the twenty-four issues published between January 1942 and December 1945. Several articles are missing from various journals. I picked ten of the twenty issues to analyze military attitudes toward civilians: two each from 1942 and 1943 and three each from 1944 and 1945. The total number of articles and editorials from these ten journals came to fifty-four. Of these fifty-four articles, I dropped those that did not deal with civilian authority and the role of the military in relation to civilians. This includes articles on military values such as dedication, work ethic, loyalty to the institution, the theory of military warfare, and miscellaneous articles. In the end, I examined thirty articles.²⁴

In the articles, I looked for statements that made reference to civilian authorities and dealt with whether or not the military should obey civilian authority. The substantive articles (on economic matters, especially) showed that the military felt that civilians were performing adequately. Most authors felt that civilian politicians of the Vargas regime played a positive role in modernizing the economy. One officer explicitly maintained that “civilians were the best prepared to direct the nation down the road toward national progress” (Tibúrcio, May 1943, 44). Another respondent called for “combating the unwarranted interference of the military in politics and in the sphere of civil administration” (Brandão, July 1945, 8).

More important, even those authors that perceived civilians as ill-prepared to direct the nation, nonetheless saw civilians as the legitimate directors of the nation’s day-to-day affairs. One author claimed that “the labor minister has done nothing good for the last two years” but is quick to point out that Vargas “should pick someone from the civilian world that will perform better in office” (Furtado, May 1945, 22-23). In sum, the armed forces, on the issue of “who should govern” are in favor of civilian rule.

On the equally important issue of the role of the military in politics, the orientation is less “democratic.” Military officers writing in A Defesa Nacional stress the importance of the armed forces as the “ultimate arbiter” in political conflicts (several articles). They see themselves “above politics” and imbued with the authority to step in when necessary to “preserve order.” Many of the authors emphasize the historical importance of the military in politics. As the “founder of the republic” the armed forces are entitled to express their opinions on political matters and reserve to themselves the “moderating power” that used to belong to the emperor. The armed forces owe their loyalty not to the elected civilian authorities but to the “state.” It is interesting to note that in the eyes of the armed forces military intervention and democracy are not inconsistent with each other. These authors talk about the military helping to “resolve civilian political disputes” and in the same breath about upholding “the democratic form of government” (Gonçalves, November 1944, 10-15).

Nunn (1992) finds similar results in his analysis of Latin American military literature. According to Nunn, the armed forces in Latin America “always thought a great deal about politics” and most “found civilian primacy unacceptable” (152-3). Nonetheless, he uncovers (a minority of) military orientations that reject the notion of a politically active military.

Equally significant, however, there are various statements that expressed the opinion that the military should not play a role in politics, one author even calling it “unwarranted interference” (Moreira, July 1945, 35) There is a fairly large number of articles (ten) whose authors emphasize the “apolitical professionalism” that should be adhered to by the armed forces in Brazil.

In sum, the Brazilian armed forces in 1945 appeared primarily to reject the notion of civilian supremacy, which is to say that they rejected the notion they were subordinate to civilian authorities – although they agreed that civilians were the most legitimate rulers.  Also, there was a somewhat vocal subculture of military officers who favor non-involvement in political affairs. It is important to point out, however, that most of the articles (seven of the ten) whose authors disapproved of the military’s role in politics appeared in issues published in 1942 and 1943. The vast majority of authors in 1944 and 1945 supported a significant political role for the military.

Officer attitudes are much the same in the interviews. Some spoke of the “nation in arms” (nação armada); others of beating back attempts by civilians to define the military’s peacetime role and relegate them to “secondary activities.” Frontier colonization, linking the far interior with populous areas of Brazil, and control of all that lay in between was absolutely necessary for both internal and external security. The low level of military hostility toward civilians and civilian institutions in Brazil at this time, also noted by Nunn (1992),²⁵ can be explained by the successful World War II record of the FEB and the fact that Vargas presided over an authoritarian regime at a time when soldiers were changing their views in favor of at least a pseudo democracy (Hayes 1989, 176-179). Respondents remember public calls by officers returning from Italy for Vargas to step down and install a democratic regime, and the general acceptance of this idea within the military institution.

The ideal-type apolitical armed forces obey legitimate civilian authority while ideal-type praetorian militaries believe they play a significant role in sovereign power issues. The  commitment to the subordination aspect of the norm of civilian supremacy is not strong in the Brazilian armed forces during the early 1940s but does not reach the point where the military feel that they are more capable than civilians to rule. Therefore I assign a score of three (3) for the military on this aspect, i.e., the military were only moderately attached to the norm of civilian supremacy in 1945. The existence of a significant military subculture that defended an apolitical stance by the military and the perception by the military of the legitimacy of civilians in power rule out a score of three. The overall tone, however, is that the military play a crucial role in domestic political life. The orientation of the armed forces toward the two aspects of the norm of civilian supremacy closely correspond, as would be expected. The Brazilian armed forces were between weakly and moderately attached to the norm of civilian supremacy around the time of the 1945 coup. The two scores on the task and subordination aspects of the norm of civilian supremacy, that is, two and three (or between weak and moderate on the apolitical/praetorian scale) indicate that the Brazilian armed forces in 1945 were not entirely praetorianized. Adding the two scores and multiplying the result by two gives the 1945 military a score of ten on the apolitical/praetorian continuum. This score in turn will be compared to the composite score for the independent variables that explain change in military organizational culture, which I examine in the next four sections.

    The Independent Variables
One of the four variables that I argue explains the degree of military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy is a nation’s external threat environment. The greater the external threat to a nation, the more the military is committed to the norm of responsibility.

As described above, I measure the external threat environment as the nation’s war-proneness, which is measured as the number of battle deaths in inter-state wars per year the state has been a member of the international system, the number of war years of tenure in the international system, and the number of war months per year.

Brazil has participated in three international wars since it became a member of the international system in 1826. The first conflict occurred in the early 1850s in the Río de la Plata basin, the site of a long-time rivalry among Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. The Brazilian government became alarmed over the strength and intentions of Juan Manuel de Rosas, the autocratic ruler of Argentina, who was claiming the right to control all traffic on the Río de la Plata. Brazil considered this a grave threat, since the economics of its southern provinces relied heavily on access to the Plata basin river system. With the support of the British and French governments and Argentine rebels, troops from Brazil defeated the Rosas forces in 1852, sending Rosas to permanent exile in England (Skidmore and Smith 1997, 152).

The second war began when Paraguayan strongman Solano López invaded both Argentina and Brazil in 1865, pushing them and Uruguay into a military alliance. The ensuing war lasted five years. The Brazilians bore the brunt of the fighting on the other side, suffering roughly 100,000 deaths. At first they suffered humiliating reverses, but then triumphed after greatly expanding their army. In the aftermath of the war, Brazil and Argentina gained control over territory that would be used in their rivalry for regional power and influence (Skidmore and Smith 1997, 152).

The third, and most recent, international war Brazilians participated in was the second world war. Under an agreement reached between the United States government and Getúlio Vargas, Brazil sent an expeditionary force to Italy in July 1944. The armed forces performed admirably in the war effort and returned home a year later showered with accolades and tremendous public approval.

In 1945, the number of battle deaths Brazil suffered per year since 1826 was 853, the second highest ratio in Latin America for this time period, behind only Paraguay. Brazil engaged in .025 wars per year (one of the lowest in the region) and experienced .68 months of war per year in the 119 year period (the fifth highest among Latin American countries). Using the Singer and Small (1982) rankings as a base-line, where Brazil ranks anywhere from nineteenth to twenty-sixth (out of roughly eighty places) on the scales of severity, magnitude and intensity of a nation’s war experience, I assign a score of three on the apolitical/praetorian continuum to the Brazilian military. The numbers suggest that Brazil faced a  moderate external threat.

It is important to note, however, that Brazil waged war only three times in this period, one which it was forced into and another to which it sent troops only because Vargas received financial assistance from the United States government in order to pursue domestic policy objectives. In fact, aside from the War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay, the army’s involvement in overthrowing Rosas in Argentina, and the “expeditionary force” sent to Italy, Brazil’s relations with its neighbors and others have been notably pacific, with no major territorial disputes, even though Brazil shares a common frontier with every South American country, except Ecuador and Chile. Most of its outstanding territorial issues were peacefully resolved by diplomatic negotiation, through the “skills of the Barão do Rio Branco,” who was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1902 to 1912 (Flynn 1993, 1). In sum, the numbers presented above (with the exception of wars per years) suggest a greater external threat than actually exists for Brazil.²⁶  The relatively high numbers for war months and battle deaths per year are due to the time spent and tremendous loss of human life incurred waging war against Paraguay in the second half of 1860s.

It also is important to point out that scholars have claimed repeatedly that historical rivalries remain a significant factor in the relationship between Brazil and its neighbors (Flynn 1993, Burns 1993, Loveman 1999). Despite resolving border disputes early in the twentieth century, Brazilian officials (civilian and military alike) still view with suspicion some of its neighbors. In particular, Brazil has had strained relations with Argentina, which has competed with Brazil for regional supremacy. In fact, after communism fell throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR, some observers feared an escalation of an arms race among the more developed South American countries (Tollefson 1995). Nonetheless, Brazil’s ranking on war-proneness suggest that the military were moderately attached to the norm of civilian supremacy in 1945.

The second independent variable is domestic politics. The state of domestic politics is the most widely presented argument to explain military coup behavior. The greater the degree of stability in political society and the more effective the government, the less likely the military will have reason or motivation to stage a coup. First, I measure political stability by examining organizational age, which has three elements: the age of the judicial state, the age of the current constitutional order, and the number of top leadership successions in that order.

In 1945, the chronological age of the juridical Brazilian state was 123 years (Brazil gained independence in 1822). On the other hand, only eight years had gone by since the most recent constitution was promulgated. And there had been no leadership changes since the 1937 constitutional order began.²⁷

In sum, although the juridical state in Brazil is relatively old, especially compared to states in Africa, the two other indicators of organizational age suggest that Brazilian institutions were not very institutionalized at this time. This in turn suggests that a leadership succession is likely to deteriorate into political crisis if conflict arises among politically significant actors. Furthermore, the lack of institutionalization gives rise to (or reinforces) the armed forces’ perception of themselves as arbiters of political disputes.

The second indicator of political stability is the number of “deaths from political violence” and of manifestations against the government and/or government policy prior to the crisis.²⁸ Manifestations against the Vargas regime were practically non-existent during most of the early 1940s and the first ten months of 1945. Most of the economic programs Vargas pursued while in office elicited the support of major portions of Brazilian society. Public intervention in key economic sectors offered political appeal to the newly enfranchised urban working class, whose potential political power was obvious to Vargas. Some features of state direction of the economy appealed to Brazilian businessmen and consumers. Most obviously, anti-foreign measures that placed foreign capital at a relative disadvantage were attractive to domestic entrepreneurs hard-pressed to compete with the superior resources of outside investors (Hayes 1989).

In addition, Vargas redefined himself politically in the midst of the war. Sensing a change of political winds in favor of democracy, Vargas set out to cultivate the growing working class and the conservative land-owners of the interior. To this end, Vargas created the Worker’s Party (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro) and the Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata), envisaging a return to normal democratic politics sometime in the near future. Vargas dispensed patronage and courted the working class with his sights set on remaining a key figure after the end of his tenure in power (Skidmore 1967).  The combination of economic nationalism, with the state greatly contributing to industrialization, and the political maneuvers by Vargas helped sustain his popularity among most of the Brazilian population. 1945 witnessed the polarization of politics with the working class on Vargas’ side (for him to remain in office) and the forces rallying against the dictator.

I gathered information on this aspect of political stability from the daily Brazilian newspaper A Tribuna da Imprensa, a widely read and respected newspaper of the time (Morais 1994). Two deaths occurred as a result of mass demonstrations in 1945 – in Recife two student protesters were killed by police. Large rallies were held in favor of redemocratization but an even greater number of demonstrations were staged to rally support around the maintenance of Vargas in power. Strikes aimed at government economic policy were non-existent at this time. Although tempers were higher than in previous years, in 1945 the government only twice cracked down on protests (for a total of two deaths), mass demonstrations were fairly tame (according to newspaper accounts), and workers did not strike against the government.

 In addition to political stability, political capacity also is an indicator of this variable. The capacity of a regime depends in part on how well those in charge perform their job. If authorities are unable to provide for the minimal needs of the majority of the population, the regime will enjoy less legitimacy and the military will more likely not adhere to the norm of civilian supremacy.

Data on industrial production in Brazil are scarce for the authoritarian period of Vargas’ Estado Novo. However, Baer (1979) furnishes a wealth of economic information that paints a generally positive picture of the national economy under Vargas. I use the growth rate of industrial production and the change in the cost of living in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo as indicators of government performance in the economy.²⁹

The yearly average growth rate of industrial production between 1939 and 1945 was 5.4 percent. The real rate of growth in the industrial sector increased each year during the Vargas dictatorship. In addition, inflation was kept in check. The average increase in the cost of living in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo for the period 1937-1945 was only slightly above one percent. The largest increase was 1.16 from 1944 to 1945 (Baer 1979, 38-41). On a more negative note, while output increased during World War II, little expansion of productive capacity occurred. Indeed, by the end of the war a large portion of Brazil’s industrial capacity was in a state of deterioration and obsolescence (Baer 1979, 45). Nonetheless, Vargas enjoyed widespread public approval for the economic policy success during his tenure. The queremismo movement of late 1945, in favor of maintaining Vargas in power, is indicative of his support among the public shortly before the military forced him to leave office.

The low number of “deaths from political violence,” few mass demonstrations against Vargas, and the general economic success of the Estado Novo, suggest a high score for the military on the apolitical/praetorian continuum. An ideal-type apolitical military presents all of the above but placing the military in this category would be wrong because of the lack of institutionalization of the constitutional order. The fact that the constitution had been enacted only eight years prior to 1945 and not a single presidential succession had taken place within the constitutional order suggest that the military would be less attached to the norm of responsibility than a military that enjoyed the above legitimacy plus a highly institutionalized constitutional order. Thus, I code the Brazilian military of 1945 as weakly to moderately commited to the norm of civilian supremacy. That is a score of two and a half.

Another variable that I argue has a significant impact on the military’s attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy is civilian indoctrination. The extent to which civilian elites communicate to soldiers that the armed forces are not in charge of running the state depends on the structure of government and the messages communicated to them. The three variables I use to determine civilian indoctrination are (1) the constitutional standing of the military, (2) the military’s relationship to the police and paramilitary forces, and (3) military role expansion into the realm of societal choice issues.

The Brazilian armed forces have enjoyed considerable constitutional prerogatives since the establishment of the first constitution of the republic in 1891. In the three constitutions promulgated before 1945, the armed forces were considered “permanent national institutions,” a reflection of the superiority of the armed forces over other government institutions. Article 161 of the 1937 constitution further states that the armed forces are “faithfully obedient to the authority of the president of the republic.” It is important to keep in mind that the 1937 constitution was drafted at a time when the majority of the armed forces supported Vargas and his efforts to eradicate the growing socialist threat in Brazilian society. Loyalty to the president in this context does not extend to the institution of the presidency but to the occupant of the post, Getúlio Vargas. The preamble to the constitution states explicitly the “support of the armed forces” to the president in achieving the goal of political stability at a time of “apprehension created by the communist infiltration” and of potentially “violent ... ideological conflicts” (Campanhole and Campanhole 1978).

Furthermore, the constitution of 1937 removed the “limits of the law” restriction that had qualified the obedience military men owed to the chief executive. A segment of military officers felt that the removal of the “within the limits of the law” phrase removed the juridical autonomy of the armed forces. But most of the Vargas supporters within the military accepted dropping this from the constitution.

The juridical autonomy of the armed forces remained relatively unscathed under the 1937 constitution. In fact, the military court system, according to Article 111, “could extend to civilians ... for crimes against external defense or against military institutions.” Again, it is important to remember the context within which the constitution was drafted, i.e., serious threats to the military and the status quo.

Additionally, the 1937 constitution gave a leading role to the armed forces in the National Security Council (Conselho de Segurança Nacional), which was comprised of the president, cabinet ministers (including the minister of war), and the commanders of the army and navy. The minister of war played a key role in calling the council to session to discuss various issues related not to social stability but to national economic affairs (Hayes 1989, 134). But the 1937 constitution also stipulated that members of the armed forces could not vote in elections and could not serve elected positions without being suspended from the military (Article 112).

The Estado Novo constitution dealt a serious blow to state governors when the various military and paramilitary forces were placed under the control of regional army commanders and ultimately under the minister of war. The bringing of state police forces under army control held considerable importance. Historically, such forces had served as paramilitary counterpoises to the army. The armed forces even included in official military publications the request for the concentration of coercive power in their hands (Hayes 1989, 169).

Hayes  (1989) contends that, heading into 1937, the armed forces were beginning to unite behind an ideology that embraced a political role for the military and that emphasized the usefulness of the military to developing the nation. The unification of the military behind this set of ideas, combined with the gratitude of Vargas to the military for its role in suppressing the social/ideological conflicts that were prevalent in the mid 1930s, led to direct military involvement in policy making. Although specific numbers are difficult to find, military leaders filled numerous administrative posts between 1937 and 1945 and many others served on administrative conselhos (councils). This is not to mention the large number of state interventors that were military officers. Vargas drew heavily from the military officer corps to fill important posts in “nationalistic government agencies” (Hayes 1989, 172).

Getúlio Vargas and the civilian elite who supported him accepted (and some even expected) military participation in government. However, civilian attitudes toward military participation in politics went beyond their role in policy making. Since the late 1880s, with few exceptions, most civilians welcomed and encouraged the military to take an active role in political affairs. The 1889 coup was in part the result of prodding by the wealthy landowners and opponents of the empire for the army to remove the emperor (Hahner 1961). The revolution of 1930 was resolved when civilian elites in the government opposition Liberal Alliance welcomed the stabilizing action of the armed forces as they forced from office the unpopular incumbent president, Washington Luís.

The anti-Vargas forces of 1945 requested that the military step in and “convince” the dictator to leave office. Stepan (1971), in his imaginative analysis of newspaper editorials, demonstrates that middle and upper class opinion in 1945 favored military involvement to ensure that elections for presidential office be held. According to newspaper editorials, “it was the military’s obligation to do everything necessary to supervise free elections” (102). Stepan states that civilians demanded the presence of the military but on terms laid out by civilians. In the case of 1945, civilians refrained from explicitly asking the military to remove the president. But evidence is conclusive that in 1945 the civilian elite failed to indoctrinate the military toward the norm of civilian supremacy by calling on the military to make sure Vargas did not back down on his promise to hold presidential elections.

An ideal-type apolitical armed force enjoys no constitutional prerogatives outside the realm of defense policy, has no control over police and paramilitary forces, is not called upon to intervene in domestic political affairs, does not occupy important government positions and is restricted juridically to strictly military affairs. On the other hand, a praetorian military enjoys all of these prerogatives. Civilian indoctrination of the military during the Estado Novo regime is toward extensive military involvement in domestic affairs but does not reach the point of the ideal-type praetorian military (where members of the armed forces are not disenfranchised and can simultaneously occupy elected positions and remain in the military). Therefore I assign a score of two to the 1945 Brazilian armed forces. That is, civilians “indoctrinated” the military into a weak commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy.

In addition to the above factors, officer perceptions of their proper political role is greatly influenced by past institutional behavior and the lessons learned from those events. Leading up to 1945 the Brazilian military felt that they had made a positive contribution to national unification and to politics. The cornerstone event of military interventionist behavior was the 1889 coup. To this day, articles in military journals stress the importance of Marshal Deodoro’s contribution to political development in Brazil. The 1889 coup is the single most important event in the institutional history of the military. It set the stage for greater political involvement of the military. And the military frequently refer to this event as the moment when the military took over the moderating power from the emperor. And with civilian blessing.

Of the articles that I examined from the sample of issues drawn from A Defesa Nacional, most that dealt with military institutional history focused on the “revolution of 1889” and the positive contribution of Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca. Thirty-three percent, or eight of the twenty-five articles, stress the values that were present in the military at that time and/or espoused by Deodoro – mainly discipline, leadership and patriotism. Other articles in this category dealt with military values in general or praised other military heroes, such as Marshals Floriano Peixoto and Duque de Caxias and General Rondon.

As far as other events are concerned, the military tended to view these in a positive light. Even the tenentista movement of the 1920s was viewed favorably by the military in 1945, even though the federal government harshly repressed it. The positive stance toward this movement is due to the overwhelming presence of military officers in the Vargas regime who believed in the movement’s ideals or who were active participants in the movement.

The armed forces also learned from their neighbor to the southwest, Argentina, how not to deal with a president with “continuist” aspirations. Although Brazilian military literature does not deal with the lessons the armed forces learned from their counterpart’s handling of Perón, Skidmore (1967), Hayes (1989) and Flynn (1979) suggest that the behavior of the armed forces in 1945 was partly influenced by what they witnessed in Argentina. These authors argue that the Brazilian armed forces feared that Vargas might have been contemplating a new political era based on militant labor support, which would be pitted against the armed forces. So even though this is not part of the military’s own institutional history, the Brazilian armed forces used the example of Argentina to reinforce the belief that intervention was the preferred military option.³⁰

Indicators of institutional learning suggest that the attachment of the Brazilian military to the norm of responsibility was low. A praetorian armed force, such as those in Bolivia and Nigeria, have long track records of military coups and rule. I give the 1945 Brazilian military a score of two (2) on the scale because the coups attempted in Brazil were successful but the history of coups is much less extensive in Brazil than in other countries in Latin America.

Table III above presents the scores I assigned to the task and subordination aspects of the norm of responsibility and also the scores to each of the independent variables that I argue explain the extent to which the armed forces are attached to the norm of civilian supremacy.

The composite score of the independent variables that measure military commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy is roughly the same as the composite score assigned to the military on the two aspects of the norm: ten and nine and a half. The composite score of the independent variables coincide with the score on the task and subordination aspect of the norm of responsibility, as it should. This means that the Brazilian military in 1945 was between weakly to moderately attached to the norm of civilian supremacy. It also implies that any interest at or above the corporate level could lead to a military coup. In addition, it suggests that a combination of corporate and national interests, or either of these motives alone, could have caused the military to depose Vargas in 1945.

A “rational” explanation would argue that the military intervened to protect or enhance the military’s resources or prestige. In the following section I describe the behavior of and the decision-making process within the military, during the course of 1945, to uncover the motivations of the military in their decision to coup.

    Political Polarization in 1945
The civilian side of the crisis of 1945 is well documented in Skidmore (1967) and Flynn (1979), among others. What is missing is a systematic examination of officer corps behavior in 1945. In order to uncover the military decision-making in 1945 I look at three memoirs/interviews of military officers. The three books are Coutinho’s (1956) General Góes Depõe, in which the main architect of the 1945 coup is interviewed, Sodré’s (1967) História Militar do Brasil, whose author was a captain at the time of the coup, and Farias’ (1981) Meio Século de Combate, an autobiography (edited by prominent Brazilian military expert, Walder de Góes) by the army officer who personally told Vargas that his term had ended.

The participation of Brazilian army officers in World War II with the creation of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force had an influence on the officer corps reminiscent of that produced by Brazil’s involvement in  the Paraguayan war. Military leaders were exposed to aspects of their society that disturbed them as they attempted to organize their forces for an active role in the European theater of conflict. The poor health of the average Brazilian citizen, the maneuvers to which sons of socially prominent families resorted to avoid military service or to seek assignment in a coastal unit “defending the marvelous beaches of Copacabana” raised serious questions in military minds concerning the basic structure of Brazilian society and the patriotism of its ruling classes (Sodré 1967, 283).

Officers sympathetic to Vargas were opposed by members of the military who, following the lead of the febianos (members of FEB), advocated a return to democracy. This political polarization within the military was a reflection of the (relatively peaceful) polarization that would take place in the general population during the course of 1945. Sodré (285-286) argues that the “paradoxical situation was discussed in all military circles: how do we combat nazism so far away when we have it in our own home?” He argues further that military officers favoring the end of the authoritarian regime “constituted the majority” in the Brazilian army.

The success of the liberal, pro-democracy febianos and the defeat of the fascist powers had obvious implications for the survival of the Vargas dictatorship. As an indication of the trend within the Brazilian army officer corps, the candidate of the minister of war for the presidency of the Military Club in 1944 was defeated by General José Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, an officer who had openly opposed the Estado Novo regime at the time of its creation and whose views were similar to those of the officers returning from Europe (Sodré 1967, 286). The split between Vargas’ military supporters and the officers returning from Europe or those sympathetic to the returning officers was visible when Vargas and his military hierarchy did everything in their power to temper public enthusiasm for returning FEB members. When the 11th infantry regiment paraded down Rio de Janeiro’s main avenue, the local garrison was alerted for fear the returning veterans might march right on to the presidential palace and topple the regime (Hayes 1989, 176).

The political machinations of Vargas (well documented elsewhere), did not sit well with the military, especially high ranking officers who sought to redemocratize Brazil (Farias 1981). After conversations with several colleagues in the military, General Farias claims that there were few officers averse to a potential coup that would overthrow Vargas. The military also saw Vargas maneuver himself to gain the support of the newly freed leftist political prisoners and with them the support of the growing number of workers. This struck fear in the hearts of most of the military who felt Vargas would use his labor support against the armed forces, a la Perón in Argentina (Coutinho 1956, 78). The interviews of army officers show the indignation of the military toward Vargas’ equivocal attitude regarding the presidential elections, which were scheduled for December.

The memoirs also demonstrate that the military were willing to intervene to stop Vargas from interfering in the redemocratization process. All of the officers closed ranks behind the decision of War Minister Góes Monteiro to request that Vargas step down from power or be deposed. This is especially true, according to Farias, after Vargas tampered with the electoral rules on October 10. In his own words, Monteiro “mobilized officer opinion in support of a coup to depose the equivocating president” (Coutinho 1956, 97). Indeed, according to Monteiro, after extensive soundings among the senior officers, the war minister became certain of his support. Farias provides the same account of the unified military front in favor of General Góes’ plan to overthrow Vargas (Coutinho 1956, 98). Former War Minister, and the government’s presidential candidate, General Eurico Gaspar Dutra, went to the presidential palace on the afternoon of October 29 to present Vargas with an ultimatum: withdraw his brother’s nomination for chief of police of the Federal District or face deposition by the Army. Vargas refused unconvinced that Góes Monteiro would carry out the ultimatum. The president was wrong. Monteiro had already mobilized the local Army garrison and the presidential palace was virtually cut off when Dutra returned to the war ministry with Vargas’ reply. In the interview granted to Lourival Coutinho, de Góes was adamant in pointing out that the dictator was sent from office not by the power of the civilian opposition but by decision of the Army command. According to de Góes, the removal of Vargas was an act of stewardship by the military (Coutinho 1956, 102).

The three memoirs indicate that the primary concern of the military was to redemocratize Brazil and that Vargas’ continuist aspirations did not sit well with military officers. Even the “danger” of communism or at least the rise in the political power of the working class was perceived as a threat not to the corporation itself but to the nation. General Góes, the preeminent military figure in the 1945 coup, stated that communism would introduce class struggle, “the surest and most apt way of weakening the nation” (89).

Furthermore, the military enjoyed tremendous prestige among the public and received the lion’s share of the national budget. The memoirs and interviews provide some indication that the military feared what would occur to the armed forces if Vargas remained in power but there is a greater number of officers who felt Vargas would need military support if he were to continue in office. This meant that no matter which direction was taken – democracy under Vargas or democracy under another person – the military felt confident that it would remain a key actor in politics.

An explanation that adopts a rational approach to examine Brazilian military behavior would have predicted that the military would have stayed put. No corporate motive existed for the military to intervene. The military’s prestige was at an all time high following the public’s perception of its success in Italy during World War II. A large portion of the national budget was devoted to military expenditures and there did not appear to be any danger in this share being reduced. The political power of the armed forces at this time was not in danger from any corner.

Similarly, accounts that emphasize structural conditions would find it difficult to uncover evidence of a weak government on most dimensions. Politically, there was little opposition to the Vargas regime. Conflicts were resolved mostly peacefully and groups in society did not have to resort to strikes and demonstrations to voice their grievances. It would be stretch to make the few protests that occurred in 1945 into a situation of political polarization that would pull the military to engage in a coup. The same can be said of the economy. For the most part, the Vargas regime was able to manage the economy into running relatively smoothly. Again, structuralists would be hard pressed to find in this a reason for the military to step in and remove Vargas.

The above analysis suggests that the motivation for the military coup in 1945 was national interest. The senior officer corps was united behind this strategy after the series of triggering events of the second half of 1945. When Vargas appeared to backtracking on his promise to hold democratic elections, the military said enough was enough. For the sake of the democratic future of a pátria, the Brazilian armed forces forced Vargas from office in order to secure the democratic transition in Brazil in the post-World War II era.

Concluding Remarks
The degree to which a military is committed to the norm of civilian supremacy has a significant impact on the decision of the military to intervene in politics. Structural and rational explanations alone cannot explain when and why militaries coup. Also, self-preservation may contribute to the military’s decision. But these variables act indirectly through military organizational culture. I should note that the theory I present above provides only a partial explanation of the 1945 coup since other factors besides the norm of civilian supremacy help explain military behavior.

In 1945, despite the existence of a generally stable government, with a smoothly running economy, with the public in general, and workers in particular, satisfied with Vargas’ performance in office, with few demonstrations, protests and strikes gracing newspaper headlines, the Brazilian military still intervened and removed Vargas from office. The “pull” factors associated with structuralist accounts cannot explain this behavior of the Brazilian armed forces.

Despite the rising prestige of the armed forces, a large and secure share of the federal budget and extensive political prerogatives, the military intervened nonetheless in 1945. A rational approach cannot explain this behavior of the Brazilian military in 1945.

When military behavior is examined through the prism of military organizational culture, it becomes easier to understand. What motivated the military to stage a coup to remove Vargas from office was not the state of politics or the economy. It also was not to protect narrow corporate interests. It was to save a pátria from Vargas’ attempt to backslide away from his promise to restore democracy to Brazil. The events of the second half of 1945 were filtered through the weak to moderate attachment the Brazilian military exhibited toward the norm of civilian supremacy. Protection of national interest explains this behavior.

A short detour to the military coup of 1964 is in order at this point to help substantiate some of the findings suggested above based on the application of my model to the military intervention that ousted Vargas in 1945.

A large number of Brazilian and American scholars have examined closely the conditions and events that led to the military decision to force Goulart’s ouster. Briefly, in the application of the theory I put forth to explain military coups (Magalhães 1999), similar conclusions can be drawn regarding the significance of the military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy (and the four factors that affect the military commitment to the norm) to the decision by the military to engage in coup behavior.

Similar to the 1945 coup, the composite scores of the task/subordination aspects of the norm of civilian supremacy and the independent variables were similar: six and six and a half. All four intervening variables indicate a military that is only very weakly attached to the norm of responsibility. From weak government performance (stability and capacity) to civilian indoctrination toward military intervention to institutional lessons that maintained the arbiter role of the military to the lack of genuine external threat that would have oriented the military toward external defense, all indicators suggest an armed force whose officer corps believed strongly in their role as political moderator.

It is important to stress, however, that the case 1964 can also be explained by using structural or rational accounts of military behavior. This suggests further studies of cases that rational and structural accounts would predict military intervention, but during which the armed forces remained in the barracks – cases on non-coups.

In the following paragraphs I look at the independent variables separately, how each can be applied to Brazil and the significance of each to civil-military relations throughout Latin America. First, indicators of war-proneness (external threat) show the peacefulness of Brazilian foreign relations. Again, the development of peaceful regional relations over the course of the twentieth century suggests militaries that are more fully engaged in domestic roles, which, in theory, makes them more coup-prone. The case of 1945 (and 1964) suggest the importance of the external threat environment to military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy. However, the case of Brazil, and most of the rest of South America, in the 1990s would appear to indicate strongly that the external threat environment has very little impact on military attachment to the norm of responsibility. According to my model the less war-prone, the more interventionist the military. Conversely, the century-old conflict between Peru and Ecuador, which most recently erupted in 1994, did not produce apolitical militaries. Fitch (1977) demonstrates that both countries have armed forces weakly committed to following elected civilian authorities. This strongly suggests either attaching less weight to this variable or perhaps dropping the variable altogether. But before going this route it would be important to assess empirically what the missions are of armed forces who have no external enemies because this also will have an impact on the military’s commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy.

Second, and significantly, institutional lessons help explain the relative lack of coups in Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s. Institutional lessons (primarily lessons learned from the failure of the military to run government affairs effectively) made armed forces much more hesitant to stage coups. This is to say that institutional lessons had the effect of increasing military commitment to the norm of responsibility. It is important to note, however, that engaging in coup behavior is not the same as general interference in civilian affairs. A military may be less likely to intervene overtly in politics to oust an executive but still be active behind the scenes in trying to influence societal choice issues, such as labor legislation and the environment.

Third, indoctrination by civilians also played a crucial role in reducing the number of coups in this coup-prone region. More and more, civilians are reluctant to call upon the military to solve domestic political crises. This should increase the military’s attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy. As mentioned previously, the armed forces will not interfere unless important elements in society request their involvement. Even though the external threat environment and political capacity/stability influence the military to remain wedded to traditional norms, the other two variables are gradually pushing militaries in the region (some faster than others) toward adopting the norm of civilian supremacy.

Though throughout the region the military share of national budgets has decreased (threatening the military’s ability to carry out its functions) and civilians (until recently) had a very poor track record in terms of providing efficient government, the armed forces have not responded to these conditions as rational and structural accounts would have envisioned. Of these four variables, civilian indoctrination is of particular significance. Public attitudes toward military intervention and military government have changed dramatically with the military’s withdrawal from power. Almost to an author, scholars agree that the military as an institution stage coups only when it has the support of the population.

Fourth, what is significant is that, despite conditions favoring military intervention (i.e., the apparent lack of political stability and capacity – the “lost decade” of the 1980s), most of the population and substantial portions of the elite in Latin America opposed military solutions when confronted with crises. This is in part because civilians (elite and mass) underwent a learning process, during which they began to value democracy in and of itself and became very reluctant to call on the military regardless of the condition of the economy or politics. Brazilians, in particular, learned that they could not rely on the military to exit the political scene immediately after reestablishing order.

Stepan (1971) corroborates the above finding. In his analysis of newspaper editorials during the crises that took place between 1945 and 1964, he finds that the armed forces successfully intervened when civilians were united behind calling them and failed when civilians were divided. This is noteworthy because, as Linz and Stepan (1996) point out, Brazilians exhibit much less antipathy toward the military and former military rule than most other Latin Americans (chapter 11).

Even though existence of this particular set of attitudes may be empirically verifiable, the widespread and large mass demonstrations during the second half of 1992 in Brazil urged the democratic removal of President Fernando Collor—not a military removal. Also, as mentioned above, the political and economic elites seem to have closed the door to the option of a military solution to resolve sovereign power issues (Payne 1993).

It is also important to point out, however, that civilian institutions enjoy little popular support in the region. In many Latin American countries, democracy has not delivered on its (sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit) promise of more jobs, better education, accessible public health, and better living conditions in general. People are becoming more and more disenchanted with civilian authorities not only because of unkempt promises but also because of widespread corruption, that more often than not goes unpunished. One of the prerequisites of a stable democracy is a minimal level of support for democratic institutions. Public support for the executive, legislature, judiciary, police, to name a few, are extremely low in many of these countries. Add to this that in many countries the military has not been tainted by corrupt civilian authorities and you have a situation in which the military often enjoys more public support than civilian institutions.

Hunter (1998, 316), for example, demonstrates that civilian support of the military is higher in Brazil than in other countries of the region. Also, in the latinobarómetro survey that she cites, Brazilians rank the military as one of the most trustworthy institutions in society and almost thirty three percent of survey respondents would like to see the armed forces gain more power versus less than twenty percent of respondents who would like to see the national legislature with more power. This raises two questions.

First, how does this affect military attachment to the norm of civilian supremacy? Low levels of support for civilian institutions combined with high levels of support for the military is not a good recipe for the consolidation of democratic civil-military relations. Military subordination to civilians is less likely to occur in an environment where military leaders so clearly see that citizens distrust and disapprove of the behavior of elected officials.

Second, what does this mean for military coups? It is important to remember the distinction between involvement in sovereign power issues and in societal choice issues. The positive result of military operations in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, for instance, led many cariocas to call for a more permanent military presence. This would entail military involvement in a societal choice issue. However, it would be a stretch to make the argument that because the population trusts the military more than Congress that Brazilians also want the military to play a role in sovereign power issues.

In conclusion, the set of military orientations regarding the norm of civilian supremacy should be a crucial factor in any future examination of a country’s civil-military relations. Also, civilian indoctrination and the military’s perception of past institutional history have a very important effect on the military’s commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy and, in the context of the newly reestablished Latin American democracies, on making the development of democratic civil-military relations more likely. 

Endnotes
1  The author would like to thank Niall Michelsen and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Return to reading.
2  This paper is part of a larger project that examines the evolution of military behavior in Brazil during (roughly) the second half of the twentieth century and involves the analysis of two other cases. The second case is the period leading up to the military coup that ousted President Goulart in 1964 and the third case is the tumultuous period in the second half of 1992 during which the corruption of the Collor administration was revealed and the president’s eventual impeachment by the Câmara de Deputados occurred. Return to reading.
3  My conceptualization of the norm of civilian supremacy is derived from Huntington’s (1957) seminal work on the United States military, more precisely his variable of military responsibility. Return to reading.
4  Although “state” and “nation” have more precise meanings for political scientists (see Shively 1999, ch. 3), here they will be used interchangeably. Return to reading.
5  Although this certainly does not mean that civilian authorities are not concerned with these issues as well. Return to reading.
6   Consistent with the argument about domains of civil-military relations, when I use the terms “apolitical” or “politically neutral” I am referring to sovereign power issues. Obviously the armed forces have political interests in the realm of defense and foreign policy. Return to reading.
7   This approach is based on the assumption, which quite probably is not true, that each variable carries equal weight in every case. However, I know of no better way of collapsing the four measures to a single scale. Moreover, since this is a new theory being developed, it makes sense to reserve judgment on the relative weighing of the factors until after the theory has been applied. Return to reading.
8   In general, the comparative politics literature overlooks the role that international systemic pressures have on domestic politics. Theoretical statements on the effects of the international system on domestic politics can be found in Waltz (1979). Return to reading.
9   These calculations were made on the basis of two separate sets of data, one on war-proneness and one on coup attempts. The data on war proneness are from Melvin Small and J. David Singer (1982), Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816-1980, pp. 165-180. The data on attempted coups between 1945 and 1978 are from the table prepared by Schott in Luttwack’s (1979) book Coup D’Etat, pp. 195-207. Return to reading.
10   The reason that the correlation between wars per year and coup attempts does not correspond with the hypothesis is due primarily to Syria. Syria fought three wars during its first thirty years of independence, and also had an amazing thirteen coup attempts between 1949 and 1970. It is noteworthy that Syria lost all three of these wars, and thus paid the cost for having a praetorian army involved in internal politics rather than an apolitical one oriented toward external threats. Return to reading.
11  It is important to note that since the end of World War II, Europe has remained peaceful and yet suffered no coups. In a sense, therefore, my measure of external threat presents some problems. What the indicators fail to capture is that a significant external risk still existed in the form of the Soviet Union. It is crucial to remember, however, the contribution of other factors in determining the commitment of officers to the norm of civilian supremacy. It should be clear by now that I am testing the argument that the external threat environment is one possible variable that affects the attachment to the norm of responsibility. It is in the empirical case that follows that I  test the validity and usefulness of this variable in explaining officer commitment to the norm of civilian supremacy. Return to reading.
12   For many scholars the discussion of government performance is closely related to the concept of government legitimacy. Because legitimacy is a very difficult concept to define, I will not discuss it here. Please see Linz and Stepan (1978) and Huntington (1991) for more. Return to reading.
13  The best way to measure indoctrination is to examine the nature of military education. However, I was unable to gain access to data on military education from this period. Return to reading.
14   Other scholars calling attention to a military’s past history as a good indicator of coup-proneness include Nordlinger (1977), Welch and Smith (1976) and Zimmerman (1983). Return to reading.
15   Note that these categories are broadly comparable to Fitch’s (1995) professionalist, constitutionalist, arbiter, and developmentalist cultures. Return to reading.
16  An even thornier problem is that individuals, like organizations, often do not have consistent, stable, and transitive preferences. Not only does the degree of attachment to certain norms vary between and within organizational subcultures, but the degree of individual commitment to norms is also unstable, intransitive and inconsistent. These issues are too deep to be resolved here. The ways in which actors (individuals and organizations) cope with these unstable preferences will be demonstrated in a few of the case studies of officer corps behavior. It does seem that there is some validity to Aaron Wildavsky’s (1987) notion that people “construct their cultures in the process of decision-making” (5). Return to reading.
17  This is a task that is not undertaken in this project, given the limitations of the research, but can be tested by examining other cases (perhaps in other countries). Return to reading.
18  This publication can be found at the Biblioteca do Exército in Rio de Janeiro. I examined the fifty-two articles from the eight issues that were published between 1942 and 1945. Return to reading.
19  The few articles on the FEB appear in the issues published in 1944 and 1945. Return to reading.
20  For purpose of comparison, the share of the national budget allocated to the military in 1963, the year before the coup of 1964, was seven percent. In the first full year of the military regime the armed forces received eleven percent of the national budget (Burns 1993, 453). Between the years 1965 and 1975 the government spent each year almost twenty percent of all government money on the armed forces (Hunter 1997, 197). Return to reading.
21  This includes articles on military values such as dedication, work ethic, loyalty to the institution, etc. Return to reading.
22  “Projeto Memória Militar.” 1974. Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História do Brasil Contemporânea. Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Rio de Janeiro. Return to reading.
23  The issue of assigning a score to this variable (and the others) is particularly crucial because it relies on a personal judgment and therefore is not replicable. I recognize the danger in this approach. The ability to replicate this study is helped, however, in part by outlining the instructions for conducting the research and the sources of the data from which I draw conclusions. Return to reading.
24  The sample of military publications that were content analyzed was drawn from those available at the Biblioteca do Exército in Rio de Janeiro. The articles used to determine military effort came from the periodical Ação do Exército, for which I found all the issues. Also, I used all fifty-two articles contained in the eight issues published between 1942 and 1945. Between 1942 and 1945, the period from which I drew the sample of issues, A Defesa Nacional was published six times a year (January, March, May, July, September and November). The first two criteria for selecting issues of this periodical were availability and completeness. I had to drop the following issues because either I was unable to find them or a significant number of articles were torn from an issue: March 1942, May and July 1944, and March 1945. Below is a list of available and complete issues of A Defesa Nacional from this four-year period. Months in bold were used for the examination of officer attitudes toward civilian authorities.
    1942: January, May, July, September and November
    1943: January, March, May, July, September and November
    1944: January, March, September and November
    1945: January, May, July, September and November Return to reading.
25  Nunn shows that the Brazilian military officers displayed less hostility toward civilian institutions than their counterparts in other countries of Latin America. Return to reading.
26  For an excellent review of Latin American foreign relations see Peter Calvert (1994) The International Politics of Latin America. Return to reading.
27  The 1937 constitution stipulated that presidential elections be held in 1943, but Vargas suspended the election because Brazil was “at war.” Return to reading.
28  I exclude “regional independence and autonomy” movements because regionalist sentiment in independent Brazil is weak (with the possible exception of regionalism in the South) and the movements that have emerged in the past quickly faded away from the political landscape. Return to reading.
29  I was unable to find data on GNP per capita and income distribution for this period. Return to reading.
30  Analysts sustain that the Brazilian armed forces viewed themselves in a much more favorable light than their counterparts in other countries. The armed forces in Brazil believed that the only lessons taught to them by most Latin American militaries was how not to behave. Indeed, the Brazilian military felt superior because they did not have the checkered past of other militaries in Latin America (Castro 1990; Zaverucha 1994). Return to reading.
 

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