While sociology and political science have often taken up the theme of civilian-military relations in non-democratic regimes, the specificity of those relations in democratic systems has not been fully examined. The finding of this critical review of research is that studies analyzing the impact that changes in military activity have had on civilian-military relations or the role of the military in decision-making processes fail to fully account for those relations, whereas more recent studies, attentive to the political factors operative in those relations, can open new research avenues – on condition that we move beyond exclusive focus on relations between civilian governments and the military and take into account the role of defense policies in determining the status granted to military within the state.