How ‘unique’ should the military be?: A review of representative literature & outline of a synthetic formulation

Abstract

Central to the study of ‘armed forces and society’, whether the approach be that of sociology, political science or legal doctrine, is the question of how unique the military really is—and ought to be. Over the last four decades or so, a number of authors have evinced keen interest in, and written more or less extensively on such matters as the objective, normative and subjective dimensions of military life, functional, structural and cultural features of military organization, civil-military relations, and the patterns of long-term change affecting them.