Democracy cannot be consolidated without democratic armies, that is, armies that support the principle of democratic governance. The question of how to build democratic armies, however, largely depends on the political environment in which democratizers and army-builders work. The tasks, processes, and the level of difficulty of building a democratic army will be very different if the starting point is, for instance, following a civil war, a military regime, or newly found independence of a former colony. The article explains the different tasks army-builders face in these disparate settings, points out commonalities, and makes policy recommendations based on the author’s recently published large-scale study of the subject.
