Civil-military relations in Indonesia and the Philippines - Will the Thai coup prove contagious?

This article examines civil-military relations in Indonesia and the Philippines in the aftermath of the largely unexpected recent coup in Thailand. The central issue it investigates is whether Indonesia and the Philippines may prove equally susceptible to military intervention. The conclusion is that although the potential for coups in the Philippines can never be discounted, Indonesia looks surprisingly stable by contrast. One key cause of this apparent stability, it is argued, is the military's role in economic activities, which makes it more or less content with the status quo. Although the dynamics of civil-military relations are significantly different in both the Philippines and Thailand, all three cases suggest that there is a need to take the political economy of civil-military relations much more seriously if we wish to understand them fully in the contemporary era.