CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS AS A FIELD OF ACADEMIC INQUIRY WITHIN SOCIAL SCIENCES

This article concerns the evolution of the studies of civil-military relations that emerged in the 1950s as part of the disciplines of sociology and political science, and that began to reflect a multi-disciplinary character in time as it demonstrated interaction with other branches of social sciences in addition to these two branches. It focuses on the issues that motivated its development as an academic field of inquiry, and on the assessment of theories and models that shape research in the field by evaluating them within a conceptual context. The study aims to define common concepts and parameters that underline research into the civil-military relations. The paper examines the theoretical efforts in the field in two different phases: Late-Modern Phase (1950-1980) and Post-Modern Phase (1990 and onwards). It explains how these phases differ through the differences in theoretical models in terms of their approaches and priorities. It also gives overall information about the important theoretical models of these phases that had a considerable impact on other studies of the period. In this context, it aims to make a contribution in terms of guidance to the efforts of scholars working on Turkish civil-military relations that reflected a troublesome character in Turkey’s democratic history