Military Sociology

This chapter discusses issues germane to military sociology and focuses on explaining how sociocultural factors sap the effectiveness of Gulf armies. The first portion of the chapter is devoted to the social and regional backgrounds of enlisted members of the armed forces and explores the reasons for the introduction of mandatory military service in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE. The following section is dedicated to a comprehensive appraisal of the officer corps from cadets to generals, examining their career trajectories and education at home and abroad. The chapter then explores the age-old practice of Gulf rulers to utilize the services of contract soldiers (aka mercenaries) and foreign advisers. The chapter’s last part focuses on sociocultural issues from education to decision-making and the pervasive influence of tribalism.

Military Sociology in Armenia: Contemporary Development and Prospects

The purpose of the article is to acquaint with the history of military sociology and the peculiarities of its development in Armenia. Military sociology, which developed in connection with the need for theoretical and applied knowledge in the military field, occupies an important place among the sociological disciplines of the middle level. It develops theoretical and methodological concepts and approaches and expands the possibilities of their use. For a better understanding of the theoretical foundations of military sociology, the scope of research and its practical significance, it is necessary to comprehensively consider the scientific environment, prerequisites and reasons for the emergence, as well as the stages of development of military sociology in the country.

Contemporary Approaches to Sociological Reinterpretation of the Functions of Armed Forces

While relatively stable, the functions of the armed forces and the ways of their implementation still undergo certain changes from time to time. This creates difficulties for their theoretical and methodological interpretation, as well as the need to rethink the concepts of the army in military sociology. The late 20th and early 21st centuries are considered by military sociologists to be a key period in terms of changing social roles, mission, functions and structure of the armed forces. The article pays special attention to theoretical approaches to their rethinking in the modern army.

Trust in the military in post-authoritarian societies

Why does the military remain one of the most trusted institutions despite, in some cases, their history of violence, corporate abuses and bloody interventions to overthrow the state and punish parts of society? This article analyses the interaction between individual factors and support for the armed forces in Argentina, Brazil and Chile to understand current forms of opinion and trust-shifts in post-authoritarian societies. It explores whether in these three democracies, support for the military is explained by the extent to which citizens support other political institutions, democracy, partisan ideologies, and novel military missions, such as the armed forces combating crime. The empirical results suggest that trust in congress and the police are statistically significant factors explaining variance in the outcome in the three case studies. The findings then vary by country. Support for democracy is positively correlated with trust in the military in Brazil but negatively associated with confidence in the military in Chile, where support for military intervention when there are increasing levels of crime is also statistically significant with confidence in the armed forces. In both Brazil and Chile, individuals supporting the armed forces are more likely to support the military participating in countering crime. These findings have important implications for the study of military sociology and politics.

THE RELEVANCE OF MILITARY FAMILIES FOR MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS AND MILITARY SOCIOLOGY

Povzetek Prispevek predstavlja zgodovinski pregled odnosa med vojaško družino in vojaško organizacijo, od prepovedi, zanikanja in nadzora do vključitve v vojaško skupnost. Prelomnica v obravnavanju družine je prehod na poklicno popolnjevanje, ko postane lojalnost družine do vojske bistvena za pridobivanje in zadrževanje vojaškega osebja. Hkrati je vojaška družina postala zanimiva vojaškosociološka tematika raziskovanja, tako v kontekstu sociološkega koncepta požrešnih institucij kot v dihotomiji ravnotežja med delom in življenjem. Vojske, ki so nastajale na slovenskih tleh skozi zgodovino, so sledile svetovnim trendom glede obravnave družin, slovenski vojaški sociologi pa so prispevali pomemben delež spoznanj o slovenskih vojaških družinah h globalnim vojaškosociološkim dosežkom. Ključne besede Vojaška družina, zgodovina odnosa med družino in vojsko, celostna skrb za pripadnike SV, raziskovanje vojaških družin v vojaški sociologiji. Abstract This article presents the history of relations between the military family and the military organization, which have varied from forbiddance, to ignorance, regulation, and finally to inclusion in the military community. The turning point appeared at a time of introducing all volunteer force when the loyalty of families towards the military became important for recruitment and retention of service members. This was also the moment for military sociology to discover the military families as interesting to deploy the general sociological concepts of greedy institutions, work-life balance, negotiation between military and family, etc. The militaries in Slovenian territory followed these trends. Slovenian military sociologists contributed an important part of the knowledge of Slovenian military families to global social science achievements. Key words Military family, history of relations between military and family, comprehensive care for service members of the SAF, the research of military families in military sociology.

MILITARY FAMILIES: THE PROFESSION'S INVISIBLE BACKBONE

Last year's final issue of Contemporary Military Challenges, which was dedicated to organizational culture, also included two articles publishing the results of a survey on young people's interest in the military profession. This is a very topical issue as, in the last decade, the Slovenian Armed Forces has been facing a decreasing interest in the military. This is reflected in the gradual reduction in the number of personnel, although the interests of the state in terms of military activities are not reducing – quite the contrary. Ever since the beginning of the European migrant crisis in 2015, the Slovenian Armed Forces has been combining its regular functions with additional tasks assigned within the protection of the Schengen border, and recently has been actively involved in the activities around the Covid-19 epidemic. Nataša Troha and Nuša Gorenak from the Slovenian Armed Forces conducted a survey on a sample of 7,418 high school students and described the results in their article, Job characteristics through the eyes of the young generation: survey research “Youth and their motives for the military profession”. Nina Rosulnik and Janja Vuga Beršnak also conducted a survey of 221 male and female students, and presented the results in an article entitled What motivates the young people of the 21st century to join the military? The results of both surveys are interesting and very useful for all those involved in the Slovenian Armed Forces’ manning efforts. Their task is not easy for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is that the manning of the Slovenian Armed Forces is not only a challenge for the military, but also for the Slovenian state, its government and the state administration. It is a systemic challenge and it should be tackled as such. Interestingly enough, the police have managed to retain the number of their employees compared to previous years, while the Slovenian Armed Forces has not. So, what is the difference between the police and the military as professions? At times they seem similar, but again, at other times, we find them completely incomparable. Scientifically, this challenge, among others, is examined by military sociology. Returning to the research of our four authors and their findings we learn that for young people who do not yet have their own families, the notion of family as a value is a very important factor influencing their choice of profession. Troha and Gorenak established that, from a total of 24 statements, the question of whether it would bother them to be away from family and friends for a long period of time due to work ranked second among high-school students’ priorities, with an average score of 3.3 out of 5. Rosulnik and Vuga Beršnak, on the other hand, found that family ranks first among the values that are most important to young students. These facts provide yet another reason to devote more attention to issues related to military families. In the preparation of our thematic issue, we consequently agreed on a collaboration with Janja Vuga Beršnak, a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana, who is project manager of a research project entitled Military specific risk and protective factors for military family health outcomes (J5 1786), funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. It is true that we are focusing on military families for the first time in the history of Contemporary Military Challenges; however, in military sociology, this has been a long-researched topic. Military families are a very important, though often invisible, pillar of the functioning of every armed forces. The approach to military families is decided by each country, army or commander individually, depending on a variety of factors which will be revealed in more detail in the articles.