BOOK PROJECT

The Multiethnic Army: Origins and Resilience

Why do states continue to recruit officers from communities that revolt against them, and why do those officers remain loyal even when deployed to suppress those uprisings? I argue that two institutional mechanisms help explain the persistence of ethnic representation and officer loyalty during ethnic conflict. Local officer recruitment networks create durable pathways from minority communities into military schools, while a relatively autonomous promotion regime allows officers to advance on the basis of performance rather than identity. Together, these practices sustain representation and strengthen officers’ attachment to the institution. They also foster institutional restraint when concerns about minority officers arise, preventing a spiral of repression, defection, and fragmentation. 

I test this argument against alternative explanations of military cohesion using three original datasets spanning 1848–2013 and covering the careers of approximately 25,000 officers in the Ottoman and Turkish armies: military school records, general staff college admissions, and general officer promotions. I combine statistical analysis with more than 100 interviews, officer biographies, archival research, and historical case studies of ethnic rebellions since the late nineteenth century. My results show that previous recruitment from a province strongly predicts its subsequent representation in the officer corps, while academic performance remains the most consistent predictor of career advancement. 

The historical evidence reveals few instances of defection among Kurdish, Arab, and Albanian officers, including among those who embraced ethnic nationalist ideas and maintained ties with nationalist movements, when their communities rebelled. Many instead played leading roles in campaigns to suppress those uprisings. 

The book challenges the expectation that ethnic conflict necessarily fragments multiethnic forces. Instead, it shows how military institutions can moderate societal divisions and generate loyalty even amid prolonged ethnic violence.