Wikipedia:Peer review/Military dictatorship/archive2

Military dictatorship


I'm opening a new peer review for this article after the last one failed to get any response. I'm hoping to bring this article to FAC, but it's a big topic and more feedback would be helpful. I'm especially interested in comprehensiveness, but as always, any feedback is appreciated. The big ugly alien ( talk ) 23:58, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

It's good to see a high quality article on this important topic. I'd like to offer the following comments:
 * The 'Formation process' section is dismissive of the role of political ideology in military coups and dictatorships, implying that this is a pretext. I don't think that this is correct, as there are a number of examples of where the military see themselves as having the right to overthrow the government and rule if political parties adopt non-military related policies they don't approve of - Turkey and Pakistan are examples of where the military has historically seen itself as being the guardian of the constitution (as defined by the military high command).
 * The 'Factors' section is a bit hard to follow
 * It would be good to discuss somewhere the role of indoctrination and political ideologies within the military in forming and sustaining military dictatorships. For instance, extremely few officers in modern western militaries would ever consider it appropriate to overthrow the government and if they took any steps to do this their comrades would either stop them or the rank and file soldiers would refuse to follow orders. This is due to the way in which officers are trained, as well as the strength of other political institutions.
 * The role of training in ending military dictatorships could also be noted - some sources argue that sending officers overseas for training where they were indoctrinated about the importance of civilian rule contributed to the downfall of military dictatorships in Europe in particular during the 1970s and 1980s.
 * I'd suggest expanding a bit on the situation where the military shares power with the civilian government as part of a democratisation process and the tensions this results in - Myanmar is a good example.
 * Likewise, I'd suggest covering the situation where while the country is led by non-democratic civilian regime the the military is a significant political player in supporting it - Zimbabwe is an example.
 * The 'use of force' section should note that the extent to which military dictatorships use repressive and violent tactics domestically varies. For instance, the Cold War era military regime in Brazil was much less likely to kill its opponents than those in Argentina and Chile.
 * The 'South Asia' section is under-developed and should discuss the role the Army sees for itself in Pakistan.
 * You could possibly more explicitly flesh out the material on the self-defeating nature of military dictatorships for the military in many countries, where political instability, slow economic growth and a lack of international support undermine funding for the military and its prestige over time, especially in relation to the external opponents the military is meant to be countering. Pakistan and Thailand are good examples. Nick-D (talk) 11:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Replying to say that I've seen this, I just want to wait a bit to see if there's other feedback or additional considerations that touch on the same areas. The big ugly alien  ( talk ) 21:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)