Military Coups in Pakistan and the Corporate Interests Hypothesis (A CONFIDENT THIRD WORLD: FACING THE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL CHALLENGES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST Century) (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The corporate interests hypothesis emerged as a rebuttal to the argument by Samuel P. Huntington in his seminal work, The Soldier and the State, that professionalizing the officer corps would render military officers politically neutral and keep them from intervening in the political sphere. Huntington advanced this hypothesis after arguing that military officers were professionals, not unlike physicians and attorneys, in the sense of having the same defining elements of professionalism; namely, expertise (in the management of violence), social responsibility, and a sense of corporate autonomy that sets them apart from lay people. So involved would officers with a professional orientation be in the technical tasks of equipping, training, and preparing for possible combat, argued Huntington, they would have little time to involve themselves in policy questions. (1)