Civilian Control and the Constitution

Bibliographic Data

ID3396041
AuthorsSamuel P Huntington (Harvard University Press, corresponding author)
Year1956
Volume50
Issue3
Pages676-699
Publication date1956-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1951551
OpenAlexW2099975215
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited6

Civilian control of the military is a basic principle of the American Constitution"; so runs the commonplace. It is the thesis of this article that the cliché could hardly be more inaccurate, for actually the American Constitution in the twentieth century obstructs the achievement of civilian control. It is well known that civil supremacy was a major concern of the Framers. They provided for it in the only form in which they knew it. But civilian control in the eighteenth century is very different from civilian control in the twentieth century: the Constitution which was expertly designed to provide for it then, for this very reason, frustrates it now. In presenting this thesis, it is necessary: (1) to show how the meaning of civilian control has changed over the intervening years; (2) to describe the Framers' concept and show how it was embodied in the Constitution; and (3) to demonstrate how the provisions which they thought would guarantee it impair its effectiveness today

Constitution · Control (management · Economics · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Law and economics · Management · Meaning (existential · Political science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Military and Defense Studies · Philosophy

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