Civil Military Gap Research Articles

Military Culture and Institutional Trust: Evidence from Conscription Reforms in Europe

AbstractDoes military conscription reduce the distance between the ordinary citizen and the state? Decades after its abolition, numerous European policy makers from across the political spectrum advocate the reintroduction of conscription to foster civic virtues, despite a lack of empirical evidence in this respect. Leveraging quasi‐random variation in conscription reforms across 15 European countries, we find that cohorts of men drafted just before its abolition display significantly and substantially lower institutional trust than cohorts of men who were just exempted. At the same time, ending conscription had no effect on institutional trust among women from comparable cohorts. Results are neither driven by more favorable attitudes toward the government, nor by educational choices. Instead, this civil–military gap unfolds through the formation of a homogeneous community with uniform values. We argue that reintroducing a compulsory military service may not produce the effects anticipated by its advocates.

Just Paying Lip Service? Public Trust and Public Support for Armed Forces in Germany

The article presents an empirical analysis of whether, how, and why people are active to either support or protest against the Bundeswehr. Public opinion polls consistently report high levels of trust in the military. According to the social-psychological approach of participation theory, this trust should lead to corresponding actions. However, the literature on civil–military gaps claims that the majority of people pay mere lip service to soldiers rather than actively support the armed forces. No active support despite high levels of trust? In an effort to empirically test the level and the determinants of the public’s support for and protest against the military, an activity scale was included in a representative opinion poll in Germany. The analyses show that a fairly large part of the German population engages in activities that support the Bundeswehr and that public trust in the military predicts that supportive behavior. Importantly, trust in the armed forces remains a strong predictor of citizens’ activities related to the armed forces even when controlling for numerous other factors. Taken together, these findings contradict the widely shared view of a civil–military gap and instead provide empirical evidence for the social-psychological approach of participation theory.

Is There a Public–Military Gap in the United States? Evaluating Foundational Foreign Policy Beliefs

The presumed “gap” in fundamental foreign policy beliefs between what Huntington (1957) described as “liberal society” and the “conservative military mind” lies at the core of research on civil–military relations. However, we still know surprisingly little about the precise nature of differences between the two groups’ core foreign policy orientations. This study presents the first empirically grounded evaluation of the public–military gap. We deployed a unique survey to directly compare the views of 470 active-duty US military officers against a representative sample of the American public. Our study included beliefs concerning the appropriate role of military force and of US engagement in global affairs, the likely direction of US national security in the coming decade, and the causes and costs of future military conflicts. While we confirm aspects of Huntington’s dichotomy, we also observe critical differences between the two groups that diverge from the traditional conceptualization of a “civil–military gap.”

The Morality of Militarization

Ethics, Security, and The War Machine offers a timely and sophisticated critique of the military-industrial paradigm. Dobos contends that after weighing the benefits of having a military against its true costs—more numerous and harmful than commonly assumed—one finds powerful considerations in favor of demilitarization. This conclusion arises through an examination of jus ante bellum, the justice of preparing for war. War is costly, but so is constant preparation for it. These costs fall into three main categories: harm to soldiers, harm to society, and an increased likelihood of harmful war. First, military conditioning desensitizes soldiers to violence, causing psychological, physical, and moral harm (pp. 14–39). As Dobos notes, “there is something uniquely troubling about the profession of arms” (p. 39), mainly because military conditioning intends to abrade virtue; it is morally injurious. Many, however, hold the contrasting view that military service promotes virtue. Second, militarization carries costs to society. Although a military may deter foreign aggression, it also increases the risk of inward-facing violence, coups d’état and resultant malevolent dictatorships (pp. 40–61). This risk results from a “civil-military gap,” an absence of shared values. Just as a foreign invader may not respect a society's communal self-definition (i.e., its free expression of values and political will), so too the significant ideological, experiential, and cultural (i.e., values, ideologies, and attitudes) gaps between a society and its military mean that coups will likely result in oppressive regimes. Militaries are therefore inherently dangerous, even toward those they serve. Moreover, corrosive military values—such as forcefulness, hierarchy, toughness, a faith in force, and adversarial presumptions (or delusions)—can erode the institutions and norms designed to protect and promote the well-being of citizens (pp. 104–130). These include law enforcement (i.e., the militarization of equipment and weapons, tactics, and culture), business (i.e., the adoption of a war mentality and the relaxation of moral norms), and education (i.e., militarized pedagogies and power structures). Dobos argues that this moral erosion causes inefficiencies in these institutions. I think we can go further; the “seep” of military processes and values into civilian life is outright harmful.

Columbia in the Nation’s Service: Warner Burke and the Education of U.S. Army Leaders

In 1969, Columbia University banned Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) from campus. In 2004, Teachers College’s Warner Burke, a senior professor of psychology and Army officer veteran, saw an opportunity to close this civil–military gap. Burke partnered with West Point to educate West Point cadets’ primary leader developers, its 36 company tactical officers, through hosting them annually in a world-class Master of Social-Organizational Psychology. In 2010, Burke welcomed the Army Fellows program to campus, bringing in one or two senior Army officers a year to study under his mentorship. Since Burke courageously showed the way, Columbia has welcomed ROTC back to campus and now boasts the largest numbers of veteran students in the Ivy League. Most recently, Burke built a third program, this one to educate critical Army leaders who historically did not have access to elite higher education, its noncommissioned officer corps.

Доверие общества вооруженным силам (зарубежный опыт социологических исследований).

This paper summarizes the sociological studies of public confidence in the armed forces in Western Europe and North America that are conducted to examine the attitude of the population towards social institutions. It focuses on institutions providing sociological support to the armed forces’ activities and reveals the promising areas of research of international military sociologists. The analysis of the results of sociological surveys conducted by Gallup, Edelman, Pew Research Center shows that the army clearly ranks first in the trust ratings of social and state institutions both in Western Europe and the United States. At the same time, there is a trend leading to a contradiction in the structure of confidence – among the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The people of North America and Western Europe support the armed forces and military personnel, but they have a negative attitude towards military campaigns in which these armed forces are compelled to participate. Failure to understand the specific nature of the army’s activities and its insulation results in a civil-military gap. The analysis of scientific publications and research reveals the significance of the political context of trust when assessing the level of civil-military relations. The party affiliation of American respondents is a fundamental determinant of their trust/distrust in the armed forces. The climate of trust within a military organization as well as the confidence of military personnel in the social institution of military service is a significant indicator of public confidence in the armed forces.

Military Know-Nothings or (At Least) Military Know-Somethings?: Knowledge of Defense Policy in Germany and Its Determinants

There is little empirical evidence of the widely shared belief that most civilians know next to nothing about defense policy and armed forces. This article examines knowledge of defense policy in Germany and its determinants. The database is a public opinion survey from 2016. The survey included six questions on various aspects of knowledge of defense policy. Its results show that knowledge of defense policy is approximately on a level with general political knowledge in Germany. Determinants from the categories of resources and sociodemographics, motivations, and opportunity structures explain individual knowledge levels. Internal efficacy, interest in politics, the intention to vote, and the perception of the Bundeswehr’s presence in the media are among the most important predictors. These results indicate that the armed forces can bridge the gap between the public and the military, the civil–military gap, by being present in society and active in personal and mass media communication.

Canada’s Civil–Military Seminar: An Approach to Narrowing the Civil–Military Gap

The “civil–military gap” is a significant factor that can hinder the success of complex comprehensive approach missions. Perhaps nowhere is this gap more apparent than in the relationship between m...

Management of Civil-Military Gap: Analysis of Military Operation Other than War(MOOTW) in China

Management of Civil-Military Gap: Analysis of Military Operation Other than War(MOOTW) in China

Een kleine parade naar de Grote Oorlog

Abstract A small parade towards the Great War. The cultural militarization of Remembrance Day in Belgium, 1870-1914This paper presents a new perspective on Belgian civil-military relations in the decades before World War One. ‘Brave little Belgium’ played a central role in the war effort, but it is seldom connected to pre-war militarization in western Europe. On the contrary, Belgium has been categorized as an antimilitaristic nation. By mapping the civil-military interactions during Remembrance Day, this article aims to shed light on forgotten militarization processes in the cultural domain. The assessment of military elements in the ceremonial landscape nuances the traditional perspective of a broad civil-military gap in Belgian society. It is indeed true that an official military cult was virtually absent from the national festivities. Nonetheless, this research unveils a process of civilian militarization that was previously overlooked. From 1890 onwards militaristic associations and local authorities jointly instigated promotion of the military through parades, war commemorations, and demonstrations.

Correspondence: Secrecy, Civil-Military Relations, and India's Nuclear Weapons Program

Correspondence: Secrecy, Civil-Military Relations, and India's Nuclear Weapons Program

Are the Armed Forces Understood and Supported by the Public? A View from the United Kingdom

Despite the importance of public opinion in supporting the military and their missions, little is known about how the UK public perceive their Armed Forces. This article reviews and evaluates available research and opinion poll data of public attitudes toward the UK military and situates the evidence within the civil–military gap literature. Current evidence suggests public regard for the UK Armed Forces is high despite low levels of support for the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. Public understanding of the work of the Armed Forces is limited. Nonetheless, the United Kingdom’s long history of military deployments may have given the public an “intuitive understanding” of the basic realities of the military compared with other European states. There are indications of differences in attitudes between the UK Armed Forces and wider British society, but no firm evidence that the civil–military “gap” has become a “gulf” as claimed by some military leaders.

Self-selection and opposition to gay rights among military career-seekers

Opposition to gay rights among serving military personnel was one of the leading justifications for the US military's longstanding ban on open service by gay men and lesbians. This study demonstrates that this opposition derives in large part from the self-selection of individuals into military careers. Using data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey, it shows a strong and increasing divergence of opinions on gay rights between students seeking military careers and their civilian counterparts, an effect that is large relative to subsequent socialization in the military. This civil–military gap is largely due to the overrepresentation of men and of political conservatives among those intending to enter the military, and the increasing importance of ideology in predicting opinions about gay rights issues. Once demographic and ideological characteristics are taken into account, the effect of seeking a military career on opinions regarding gay rights is small.

Conceptualizing the Civil–Military Gap

The authors suggest that scholars mean very different things when they refer to the civil–military gap. To illustrate the point, the authors conceptualize the gap in terms of four distinct ideal types and show that scholars have referred to each variant as the civil–military gap at different times. Though the authors recognize that the four ideal types—cultural, demographic, policy preference, and institutional—are not always mutually exclusive, the authors suggest that they are divergent enough to warrant consideration as distinct variants and that their specification can enhance the civil–military relations literature by helping scholars identify and untangle the causes and effects of the gap.

Military Family Attitudes toward Senior Civilian Leaders in the United States

This article examines Army spousal attitudes toward senior civilian leaders in the United States. Based on the 2004 Military Families Survey, it investigates the demographic, political, and institutional factors that structured the job approval ratings of then-President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Partisanship, race and ethnicity, and opinions about the war in Iraq were consistently significant predictors; experiences directly related to the Iraq war were not. For instance, while Republicans and Latinos were highly likely to support the leadership, past and present deployments were not significant. In addition, Army spouses appear to have distinguished between the three leaders. The results have implications for researchers interested not only in military families but also the role of race and ethnicity in the armed forces, retention dynamics, the civil–military gap, and the Army in a time of war.

Soldiers, Statesmen, and India's Security Policy

This article argues the conventional wisdom on civil-military relations in India needs qualification. Whilst the military has not intruded in the formal machinery of politics, its institutional autonomy and assertiveness have progressively increased since 1947. This increase stems from two factors. First, a series of spikes in external threat–mainly a succession of wars and crises from the early 1960s to the early 1970s–altered the institutional balance of power between civilians and the military in favor of the latter. The second, and more analytically elusive, factor is a growing attitudinal divide between Indian society and its armed force–in other words an increasing civil-military gap. The article contends that the prevailing pattern of civil-military relations has already proved problematic in some important areas of security policy. Unless its more angular aspects are smoothened out, civil-military relations will continue to produce skewed security policies.

Missing Voices

Public opinion studies on war attitudes say little about civilians who are related to military service members. The authors argue that military “service-connected” individuals are missing voices in the research that examines public support for war. Using over 50,000 observations from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the authors estimate attitudes toward the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the use of US military troops in general. The authors find that service-connected civilians express greater support for war and the use of troops than civilians without such a connection. This study discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical advancements in the literature addressing war attitudes and the conceptualization of the “civil–military gap.”

A more perfect military: how the Constitution can make our military stronger

Surveys show that the all-volunteer military is our most respected and trusted institution, but over the last thirty-five years it has grown estranged from civilian society. Without a draft, imperfect as it was, the military is no longer as representative of civilian society. Fewer people accept the obligation for military service, and a larger number lack the knowledge to be engaged participants in civilian control of the military. The end of the draft, however, is not the most important reason we have a significant civil-military gap today. A More Perfect Military explains how the Supreme Court used the cultural division of the Vietnam era to change the nature of our civil-military relations. The Supreme Court describes itself as a strong supporter of the military and its distinctive culture, but in the all-volunteer era, its decisions have consistently undermined the military's traditional relationship to law and the Constitution. Most people would never suspect there was anything wrong, but our civil-military relations are now as constitutionally fragile as they have ever been. A More Perfect Military is a bracingly candid assessment of the military's constitutional health. It crosses ideological and political boundaries and is challenging-even unsettling-to both liberal and conservative views. It is written for those who believe the military may be slipping away from our common national experience. This book is the blueprint for a new national conversation about military service.

DEFENCE, DEMOCRACY AND SOUTH AFRICA’S CIVIL-MILITARY GAP

Civil-military relations theory suggests that a functional and effective military requires a unique culture, separate from its parent society. This is based on the assumption that a “gap” between the military and society is inevitable as the military’s function, the lawful application of military force in accordance with government direction, is fundamentally different from civilian business. Those interested in civil-military relations are essentially concerned with determining when the “gap” between the military and parent society becomes dysfunctional in terms of civil-control over the military and/or the military’s ability to execute its mandate. The correct balance needs to be obtained to ensure that the military remains strong enough to defend the state (protected by the military) and subservient enough not to threaten the state (protected from the military).

American Military Culture from Colony to Empire

Until World War II, the peacetime Army's primary job was not to be ready to ½ght instantly, but to provide a core of military expertise that would enable a wartime force of citizen-soldiers to be built up after war began. Wars were infrequent. Since the end of the Cold War, the Army has become a force that deploys and ½ghts on a regular basis. The true citizen-soldier-who serves for only a few years and remains, at heart, a civilian-is no longer with us and is not likely to return in the foreseeable future, despite nostalgia for his passing. In the midst of a civilian society that is increasingly paci½stic, easygoing, and well adjusted, the Army (career and non-career soldiers alike) remains flinty, harshly results-orient- ed, and emotionally extreme. The inevitable civil-military gap has become a chasm.