Civil-Military Relations and Democratic Control of the Security Sector

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In democratic societies, the executive—security sector organizations included—is accountable to the people, mainly through their representatives in parliament. In relation to security and defense as well as elsewhere, governments are obliged to reveal, explain, and justify what they do, what they intend to spend and, after legislative approval, how they spend and what has been achieved. 1 In turn, the legislature is responsible and obliged to require that the government did that. To this aim, the parliamentarians have “the right to know” what the government does and spends, which only as exception may be restricted on the basis of “need to know.” Transparency provides a possibility for parliament, media, NGOs, interest groups and the general public to understand what the government does and spends and to assess how conscientious the executive is in revealing, explaining, and justifying its actions and expenditures. 2 Constitutional arrangements in these respects differ, but everywhere parliaments have key role in adopting and overseeing budgetary provisions related to security and defense. The national budget is not just a technical instrument presenting income forecasts and proposing expenditures. Creating conditions for transparency, accountability, and good governance, the budgeting process is arguably the most important means for democratic control of the security sector. Part VIII DEMOCRATIC CONTROL DURING THE BUDGET DRAFTING AND ADOPTION PERIOD The typical budget cycle has four distinct phases: budget preparation, budget approval, spending or budget execution, audit and review. The first chapter in this section examines the interactions among security sector institutions during budget preparation. The second chapter looks into the role of parliament in the process of preparing and approving the budget. Both chapters touch on possible roles of civil society and media in these phases. The third chapter is focused on the auditing phase and the role of a national audit office. The final chapter examines the specific field of arms transfers and the challenges to democratic control. Chapter 22 The Security Sector Institutions, Civil Society and Media during Budget Preparation The institutional arrangements in support of the national budgeting process are expected to 1 David Greenwood, Transparency and Accountability in South East European Defence (Sofia: George C. Marshall Association – Bulgaria, 2003), p. 23. Prof. Greenwood identifies two broad areas of policy accountability and financial accountability. 2 Ibid. 89
90 Budgetary Control provide outcomes on three levels 3 : 1. Aggregate fiscal discipline; 2. Resource allocation and use based on strategic priorities; 3. Efficient and effective operational performance. The major difficulty in applying the principles of levels two and three to the budgeting of the security sector lies in our limited capacity to assess objectively the product of the security sector. One possible measure is to put the military, the police force or the intelligence to the test against a competent opponent. 4 In peacetime, another possibility is to measure financial efficiency or the esteem for the security sector organizations. In any case, given the uncertainty in defining future threats and scenarios, there will be a strong subjective element in our assessment. One comprehensive approach to the assessment of budgeting processes and proposed budgets includes comparison of national and organizational regulations and experience against an idealized budgeting system, or benchmark, described bellow on the example of a national military budgeting process. 5 The same principles apply to the process of budgeting for security in general. Budgeting as an integral component of the security and defense policy Military budgeting is a process well incorporated in the defense-planning framework, guaranteeing the implementation of a clearly stated defense policy in mid- and long-term. The country has clearly stated the objectives of its security and defense policies in a small number of legislative acts with apparent interrelationship among them. There is a comprehensive strategy to achieve the objectives of the security and defense policy, i.e., to join an alliance. This strategy— elaborated in a legislative act—is broadly assessed as realistic. The country has a vision of its force structure ten or more years in the future. The vision is feasible and sufficiently elaborated to guide R&D, technology development and acquisition policies. Its implementation is supported by a roughly estimated long-term force development plan. The vision and the long-term plan are approved either by the Government or by the legislature. The country has an established process for development of a mid-term plan, or defense program, 6 designed to accomplish the objectives of the stated defense policy. The defense program and its components—sub-programs and program elements—are clearly designed to 3 Public Expenditure Management Handbook (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1998), pp. 17-29. 4 These measures are described in detail by Chris Donnelly, “Learning from Security Sector Reform in Central and Eastern Europe,” in Reform and Reconstruction of the Security Sector, eds., Alan Bryden and Heiner Hänggi (Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag, 2004), pp. 45-63. 5 For detailed description refer to Todor Tagarev, “A Means of Comparing Military Budgeting Processes in South East Europe,” Information & Security: An International Journal 11 (2003): 95-125, (26 November 2004). 6 For example, the United States use the term Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). Many other countries have accepted the term program to denote a resource constraint mid-term plan for development of defence and the armed forces.
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G.S. Rakovsky Defense and Staff Col
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CONTENTS List of Figures vii List o
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Chapter 17 Democratic Control of th
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LIST OF FIGURES: Figure 1. Command
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` Section One Conceptual Developmen
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4 Conceptual Developments in the Se
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10 Conceptual Developments in the S
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12 Conceptual Developments in the S
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Section Two Conceptual Shifts in th
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18 Conceptual Shifts in the Nationa
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Section Three Constitutional and Le
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28 Constitutional and Legal Framewo
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Page 49 and 50: 38 Constitutional and Legal Framewo
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Page 57 and 58: 46 Infrastructure development prog
Page 76 and 77: The special cases as emergency, cri
Page 78 and 79: Democratic Control in Time of War a
Page 80 and 81: Democratic Control during the Fight
Page 82 and 83: Democratic Control during the Fight
Page 84 and 85: Definitions Democratic Control duri
Page 86 and 87: Democratic Control during Crises an
Page 88 and 89: Cyberspace and the Challenges to De
Page 94 and 95: International Peace and Humanitaria
Page 96 and 97: International Peace and Humanitaria
Page 98: Section Five Budgetary Control of t
Page 103 and 104: 92 Budgetary Control of commercial
Page 105 and 106: 94 Budgetary Control defense polici
Page 107 and 108: 96 Budgetary Control Chapter 24 The
Page 109 and 110: 98 National policy on arms transfer
Page 111 and 112: 100 Arms brokering activities; Bud
Page 114: Section Six The People in the Secur
Page 117 and 118: 106 The People in the Security Sect
Page 123 and 124: 112 Recruitment The People in the S
Page 125 and 126: 114 Effective use of resources. Th
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Page 132 and 133: International Instruments in the Pr
Page 134 and 135: The OSCE Code of Conduct actions. M
Page 136 and 137: The Evolution of Civil-Military Rel
Page 138: CONCLUSIONS This Handbook treats th
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Civil-Military Relations and Democratic Control of the Security Sector

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