An Agency Theory View of the Military Advisor

An understanding of civil-military relations provides insight for the military strategist into the interplay between politics and military art. A framework of how civilian leadership and the military relate in formulating national security objectives may prove useful in developing military strategies. In Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations, political scientist Peter Feaver proposes a theory of civil-military relations based on principal-agent theory called Agency theory which defines civil-military relations as the day-to-day strategic interaction between civilian leaders and the military. According to Agency theory, the civilians set oversight measures to monitor the behavior of the military and the military responds based on the probability of its behavior being discovered and its expectation of punishment from civilian leadership.