Principals with Agency: Assessing Civilian Deference to the Military
Alice Hunt Friend, Sharon K. Weiner
SUMMARY
When and why do civilian policymakers defer to military expertise? Although scholars agree that civilian deference to military expertise is important to assess the health of civil-military relations, there is much less agreement over the causes of deference, especially whether it is the product of structure or agency. Using cases of policy disagreements over special operations forces, cyber operations, and nuclear strategy and force structure, we argue that civilian deference is not merely a product of the structure of the information environment. Although civilians defer when the military has a near monopoly on information, they also defer in cases when military expertise competes against civilian knowledge and analysis. In other words, civilian deference is not a byproduct of civilians’ access to information — it is a choice over which civilians have agency.