The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change.

• Author: Tabak, Husrev
• Position: Book review

The Power Triangle: Military, Security, and Politics in Regime Change

By Hazem Kandil

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 403 pages, [pounds sterling]29.99, ISBN: 9780190239206

The Power Triangle offers a historical sociology account of power relations during times of regime stability and change. The book was originally a doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Professor Michael Mann and defended at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012; the current manuscript is an improved and updated version.

The book is built upon a re-examination of regimes; counter to the argument that regimes have long been assumed to be stable, they are in fact "inherently volatile" (p. 1). Their volatility is suggested to be a result of a continuous power struggle between the administrative and coercive apparatuses of the state (p. 9). The book accordingly suggests that the administrative and coercive bodies (military, security and political institutions) compete for control over the regime, and are thus involved in a restless power struggle for changing its direction and pace. Having drawn from Bourdieu's realistic approach to power--which suggests that struggle and conflict are at the hearth of social (thus political) life and that this is the result of power relations 'played out' by institutions (rather than individuals) (p. 3)--the book presents an inquiry on how regimes are shaped and reshaped through the cooperation and collusion of military, security and political state institutions as bodies with keen interests in building domination over one another, "maximizing influence over society" and "determining the regime" (p. 7).

The Power Triangle offers a model explicating the functioning of a triangular power struggle between military, security and political apparatuses for regime change. The model defines the relation between these institutions as a 'power relation' (rather than a hierarchical one), in which the balance of power constantly shifts, as does the character of the regime (p. 12). To the author, these institutions are independent bodies with 'distinct corporate interests' (p. 10), although they depend on each other for legitimacy and existence (p. 11). The result is a continuous and dynamic tension.

This triangular power struggle and its implications for regime change are empirically examined within the book in the cases of Iran (pp. 31-135), Turkey (pp. 137-227), and Egypt (pp. 229-361). The author presents these...