Theories of Military Intervention in the Third World: Lessons from the Philippines

This article reexamines military intervention in the overthrow of civilian governments in the Third World. First, it reconsiders three major theories developed to explain the military overthrow of the Goulart government in Brazil in 1964, each of which focuses on a different independent variable: institutional change, economic stress, and political polarization. Second, it applies and demonstrates the usefulness of these three theories to a recent case outside Latin America: the Philippines. Supporting evidence is found for each of the three theories in both the Brazilian and the Philippine cases. Third, it offers new evidence on the Philippine case, based on 33 interviews with military officers and other informants knowledgeable about the military's role in the overthrow of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986. The interviews were conducted in the Philippines from May to July 1988. The informants consisted of 17 active military officers, 8 retired officers, and 8 outside observers. The article concludes by showing that each theory complements the others, since they focus on different aspects of the process, and it argues that a synthesis of these contending theories is possible.