The dictator's legionnaires: foreign recruitment, coups, and uprisings

Mehrl, Marius; Escribà-Folch, Abel

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2277283

The dictator's legionnaires: foreign recruitment, coups, and uprisings

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Mehrl M, Escribà-Folch A. The dictator's legionnaires: foreign recruitment, coups, and uprisings. Democratization. 2024;31(4):714-40. DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2023.2277283

Abstract

Several countries recruit foreign nationals into their armed forces. This is despite the norm of citizen armies and the strong idea that individuals join the military to defend their home country while military service socializes them into good citizens. We argue that foreign recruits can have very specific benefits for some authoritarian governments. Because they lack strong links to society, their loyalties lie with whoever recruited and pays them, not the nation, country, or its citizens. As such, we argue, first, that their recruitment is especially attractive for personalistic rulers. Second, we propose that foreigners’ presence in the armed forces stymies these forces’ ability to carry out coup attempts and deters the occurrence of mass uprisings by signalling the security forces’ willingness to respond with violent repression. Empirical tests for the period 1946–2010 support these arguments. This research expands our understanding of legionnaire recruitment, civil–military relations, and comparative authoritarianism.