Guided by a rational choice perspective, Hunter argues that elected politicians answer first and foremost to their own immediate self-interests. Their aspirations directly impinge on the armed forces insofar as the retention of military prerogatives hinders the capacity of politicians to cater to the demands of the electorate and secure patronage to aid their future careers. Brazil is viewed as an exceptional case study because of the control exerted by the military during the democratic transition. Insofar as the military used its control to instill its advantages into political institutions, Hunter has a case that allows a test of her theory against that of historical institutional approaches, which hold a higher expectation of institutional resiliency. Hunter views institutions as the product of existing political desires and conflicts, while the institutionalist approach argues that institutions are not so malleable and, in fact, produce expectations, desires, and conflict independent of the interests and interactions of current actors.

The subtitle of the book, Politicians Against Soldiers, in fact obscures a more complex approach which recognizes the different pressures faced by executives, on one hand, and legislators, on the other. Both presidents and legislators can be threatened by military bullying, but legislators face a collective action problem that prevents them from feeding military desires to offset the threat—insofar as a response to the military demands a reduction in patronage resources, one legislator cannot be certain that his colleagues will follow. Hence, during times of crisis, only presidents answer to military intimidation. The second difference is the types of goals pursued by executives and legislators. Particularistic goals refer to the patronage distributed by officials to garner support from specific groups, while programmatic goals are those that cater more to the interests and principles of society as a whole. Both goals are important to politicians in a general sense, but smaller, regional constituencies lead legislators to be more concerned with particularistic goals, while presidents are more attuned to programmatic goals.

To illustrate the expression of legislative particularistic aspirations, Hunter devotes a chapter to budgetary politics and argues that the draw to patronage leads policymakers to withdraw funds previously devoted to military spending, although military pressure on the executive can offset some of this decrease. In another chapter, she uses advances in labor policy to illustrate the pursuit of programmatic goals by both legislators and presidents. The third case is devoted to Amazon policy. The immediate connection to democracy is not very clear in this third case. Changes in land-use policies and concessions to indigenous groups did infringe on military security interests, but pressure to do so came not from the Brazilian public but, rather, from international organizations, NGOs, and foreign governments.

While the discussion of eroding military influence distinguishes the book in a literature which largely thought otherwise, Hunter is not naively optimistic. In the conclusion, she recognizes that civilian control involves not only the reduction of military power, but also the establishment of mechanisms of civilian control such as greater civilian input in defense issues, education and training, the military justice system, and other areas that do not conflict with politicians' quest for patronage resources and, in fact, often entail greater costs than benefits. Civilian supremacy demands not only the destruction of military influence, but also the construction of civilian oversight, and democracy does more to contribute to the former. Indeed, insofar as the short-sighted interests of politicians prevail, democracy may actually hinder civilian supremacy. This allows her theory to be more dynamic and to account not only for eroding military influence, but also reversals in democracy. Some comparisons to other South American cases are used to illustrate the applicability of the theory.

While the focus on democracy itself is interesting, and an important contribution, one cannot help but recognize that other, perhaps more important, factors are at work in the Brazilian case and elsewhere. In particular, Hunter seems too quick to dismiss the role of institutions in her effort to distinguish her rational choice approach from historical institutionalism. The Brazilian case was a controlled transition, but military prerogatives were not as institutionalized as in, for example, the Chilean case. Hunter herself notes that the armed forces very often expressed their interests through “entendimentos'' (understandings) rather than codifying them into institutions, and this makes the case less of a “most likely” scenario for historical institutionalism. Indeed, institutions are largely responsible for the democratic dynamic in Brazil: Intense electoral competition is closely tied to Brazilian electoral rules (e.g., open lists, liberal state funding, ease of party creation); the lack of legislative influence over the placement of military bases and the insularity of defense production from civilian producers both remove areas that might typically tie military interests to legislative electoral interests; the 1988 constitutional changes gave the legislature more control over the budget; and the ruling that congress must work within the budgetary level set by the president constructs a zero-sum game between legislator and military budgetary interests. One need look no farther than the United States for evidence that congressional and military interests can coexist. Democracy comes in many forms, and its institutional configuration does more to set the battlefield for civil–military interaction than do individual interests. The indeterminacy of individual interests can be teased out of Hunter's theoretical discussion when she notes that presidents have the capacity to exert civilian control but lack the incentive (due to the greater fear of a military reprisal), and legislators have the incentive but lack the capacity (due to the collective action problem). How do we get from here to there? The answer rests at a higher level, within institutions, which rational choice approaches too easily dismiss as simple reflections of individual interest. Indeed, if institutions were so malleable and so directly reflective of rational individual interests, we would expect Brazilian politicians, who hold traditionally poor records of reelection, to concentrate first and foremost on creating an electoral regime to better secure their futures.

The second factor that would contribute to a better understanding of civilian empowerment after transition would be the military itself. The Latin American military has changed dramatically since the transitions to democracy—the post-Cold War world calls for new roles and missions, foreign actors scrutinize their actions as never before, and time itself under democracy has allowed the military to alleviate some of its traditional mistrust of politicians. Changes in military perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes have led the armed forces to be more open to civilian calls for reform in some areas. Tips in the civil–military balance are thus the result of not only civilian pushes, but also rethinking and acceptance on the part of the military—in some policy areas more than others, and in some countries more than others.

Eroding Military Influence forces scholars of democratic transition and civil–military relations to consider seriously democracy itself as an influential factor. Further research would do well to heed this advice, as well as to recognize the roles that institutions and the military itself play.