Unpacking “Stacking”: Researching Political Identity and Regime Security in Armed Forces

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X211058765
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X20917183

Article

1134644AFSXXX10.1177/0095327X20917183Armed Forces & SocietyLevy

research-article2022

Unpacking “Stacking”:

Researching Political Identity

and Regime Security in

Armed Forces

Nathaniel Allen

1,

*and Risa Brooks

2



Abstract

This article unpacks the phenomenon of identity-based stacking in armed forces to lay

the groundwork for a next generation of scholarship, proposing three sets of ex-

tensions with examples from regimes in Africa and the Middle East. First, we argue that

scholars might treat the concept of stacking with greater nuance by considering

variation in stacking’s modal forms, incorporating identities beyond ethnicity, con-

sidering how the salience of stacking varies within armed forces, and treating the

identities on which stacking is based as malleable. Second, we argue for a more at-

tention to the mechanisms through which stacking operates, such that it can involve

layering of multiple bases of identity, be used to manipulate and manufacture identity,

and be used to induce in-group competition and rivalry. Finally, stacking scholarship

should consider more the costs to a leader’s control over policy and distributional

matters and emphasize the trade-offs that various forms of stacking generate among

regime security imperatives.

Keywords

civil–military relations, Africa, political science, military organization, Middle East,

ethnic stacking, armed forces, coup-proof‌ing

1

Africa Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington, DC, USA

2

Department of Political Science, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA

*The opinions expressed in this article ref‌lect those of the author.

Corresponding Author:

Risa Brooks, Department of Political Science, Marquette University, Wehr Physics Building, Room 468,

1420 W. Clybourn St., Milwaukee, WI 53233, USA.

Email: risa.brooks@marquette.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(1) 207 –227

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X211058765

journals.sagepub.com/home/afs

208 Armed Forces & Society 49(1)

Throughout history, political identity has been a crucial factor in understanding the

behavior of security force institutions. During the Ottoman Empire, elite household

troops were composed of Janissaries recruited from Christian youth who had been

kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam (Glass´

e, 2008, p. 128). Across the African

continent, colonial powers recruited soldiers from marginalized regions, choosing

among “martial”groups they considered to be more warlike than others (Bayo

Adekson, 1979). In the Middle East, scholars have long pointed to the recruitment

of armies, parallel military institutions, and presidential guards along ethnic, clan, or

religious lines as a tactic whereby dictators “coup-proof”their regimes from internal

threats (Brooks, 1998;Quinlivan, 1999).

In recent years, a growing body of scholarship has sought to understand how this

manipulation of identity and identity groups in the military inf‌luences regime security.

Many of these studies focus on the concept of “ethnic stacking,”which involves the

over-recruitment, representation, or promotion of certain groups in society within the

armed forces (Johnson & Thurber, 2020, p. 108; Makara, 2013;Harkness, 2018).

Stacking, as conventionally understood, constitutes a strategy employed by political

leaders to maintain themselves and their regimes in power (Brooks, 1998;Decalo,

1991;Quinlivan, 1999). It has been linked to a variety of outcomes, including the

absence and occurrence of coups, the willingness of the military to engage in repression

of civilian opponents, the outcomes of democratization, the incidence of civil wars, and

a military’s combat effectiveness (Brooks, 1998;Harkness, 2018;McLauchlin, 2010;

Roessler, 2016).

To be sure, this growing scholarship has shed important light into the nature of

ethnic stacking and its implications for regime security. At the same time, this new

research so far has been somewhat limited in its analytical development and empirical

focus. There remains unappreciated variation in the character of stacking practices, in

the mechanisms through which they operate, and in the costs and trade-offs they create

for different regime security outcomes.

The goal of this article is to unpack the phenomenon of identity-based stacking in

armed forces and, in turn, to lay the groundwork for a next generation of scholarship—

that is, it offers insights into how scholars might further conceptualize and analyze

stacking and its outcomes. Specif‌ically, we make three sets of observations about

current scholarship, and propose three areas of potential extensions. First, we note that

scholars often def‌ine the concept of stacking broadly, such that they lump together

distinct practices, limit analysis to ethnic identity, and often treat the political salience

and character of identities as f‌ixed. In contrast, we argue that stacking can vary in its

modal forms and originate in identities beyond ethnicity. In addition, the salience of

stacking in different armed forces may vary, while the identities on which it is based are

more malleable than current scholarship allows. Second, stacking is most often un-

derstood in terms of a single analytical logic—as a tool to induce in-group loyalty

through out-group exclusion. We argue for a more comprehensive view of the

mechanisms through which stacking operates, such that it can involve layering of

multiple bases of identity, be used to manipulate and manufacture identity, and be used

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