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European armed forces are currently undergoing a profound series of shifts in relation to their core roles. These changes are increasingly challenging long-held assumptions about what armed forces are for and how they should be structured and organized. This article argues that these changes have not primarily occurred in response to an objective, functional reassessment of the nature of the threat, as is assumed in much of the civil—military relations literature. Instead, new military roles are emerging as a consequence of domestic and international socio-political infl uences that shape states' perceptions of what their armed forces should look like and the purposes they should serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the relative homogeneity of communist civil–military relations postcommunist Europe has been replaced by significant diversity. Those states that have joined NATO and the EU have consolidated democratic civilian control of their militaries, re-oriented their defence policies towards peacekeeping and intervention operations beyond their borders and are fashioning new military–society relationships. In contrast, in Russia, Ukraine and most of the other former Soviet republics the military has become part of the nexus of semi- or outright authoritarian presidential rule, while severe economic and social problems are resulting in a dramatic downgrading of the military's professional and operational competence and severely inhibiting the prospects for meaningful military reform. In the countries of the former Yugoslavia, civil–military reform is gathering pace, but continues to struggle with twin legacies of war and authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the relationship between political conditionality and security-sector reform in post-communist Europe. Types of conditionality; Application of conditionality; Problems in using conditionality.

The article focuses on the relationship between civil-military relations and the process of democratization in Europe in postcommunist era. This relationship is defined in terms of democratic governance of the defense and security sector and the democratic management and implementation of defense and security policies. The issue today is to establish effective structures for the democratic governance of the defense and security sectors. It requires to establish democratic and effective bureaucratic-administrative defense policymaking structures, a parliamentary influence over the armed forces and defense policy and broad involvement of civil society with defense and security issues.