'This meticulously researched volume explains how the relationship between the armed forces and politicians can change from authoritarian regimes to democratic ones. The author is not only a first-rate social scientist but, as one of the longest-serving defense ministers in a major European state, someone who was responsible for formulating and implementing defense reform. Serra's lucid arguments and insights about military politics in various political and geographic contexts attest to his broad intellectual vistas that extend far beyond Spain and Europe. In short, this is a terrific book that anyone interested in democratization and military affairs would read with much profit.' Zoltan Barany, Frank C. Erwin Jr Professor of Government, University of Texas and Susan Louise Dyer Peace Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

'Serra's The Military Transition has a triple distinction. First, Serra was by far the best Minister of Defense in any of the more than thirty democratic transitions in the last quarter of the twentieth century. This book is a brilliant analysis of the policies he crafted and implemented. Second, Serra has a profound grasp of the comparative literature on modern democratic civil-military relations which he reflects upon and deepens. Thirdly, he is the major theoretician of our time about the need to integrate, while democratically controlling, the new European-wide Human Security services, not only within the military but within the police and intelligence.' Alfred Stepan, Columbia University and co-author of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation