Armed Forces & Society

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of exposure to serving with women on male opinions about gender integration in the formerly all-male Infantry and Armor branches of the U.S. Army. This mixed-methods study used primary survey data collected in 2021 from soldiers serving in the 33 active-duty Army brigade combat teams. A total of 8,798 respondents answered the anonymous electronic questionnaire. Data were examined using descriptive statistics, regression, and content analysis of qualitative comments. Results indicated that the presence of women within an infantry or armor platoon or squad, or exposure to a female leader, predicted that a male respondent was significantly more likely to support gender integration in combat arms and less likely to worry about effects on unit cohesion and performance. Qualitative analysis of 1,121 comments from infantry and armor men revealed five main themes about gender integration in combat arms and offer insight into quantitative findings.

Underemployment is an involuntary condition where individuals consider their employment inferior relative to a standard. This study analyzes underemployment among veterans using data from a large longitudinal study and federal occupational data to explore the relationship between subjective perceptions and objective indicators. Veterans reported their occupations, salaries, and subjective underemployment. Each veteran’s occupation was matched with O*NET job zone, education, and occupational median income data. Four groups were identified: neither subjectively nor objectively underemployed, subjectively underemployed only, objectively underemployed only, and both subjectively and objectively underemployed. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) examined salary differences. Most veterans’ occupations required some education, and higher educational attainment correlated with increased underemployment. Two thirds of cases showed agreement between subjective and objective assessments, with underemployed veterans earning significantly less. This study highlights the reliability of self-reports as indicators of objective underemployment and underscores the need for innovative strategies to address veteran underemployment through early detection.

The long-term effects of a peacekeeping deployment on veterans’ health and quality of life are relatively neglected in the literature. We tested the hypothesis that stressors experienced during a peacekeeping mission about 40 years ago are associated with the health and quality of life of Dutch peacekeeping veterans while taking postdeployment life events and coping styles into account. In total, 785 Dutch UNIFIL (1979–1985) veterans were surveyed about their physical and mental health, quality of life, combat experiences, aftermath of battle experiences, and perceived threat, life events, and coping. Overall, Dutch UNIFIL veterans do fine. However, almost one in five is (still) struggling with their mental health. From the deployment stressors, only perceived threat is negatively associated with veterans’ mental health and quality of life. Our findings show that the influence of subjective deployment stressors should be addressed to better understand the long-term health outcomes of peacekeeping veterans.

Military service has often been a basis for civilian welfare entitlements. If mass wartime service justified collective provision, it is now suggested professional militaries have been co-opted to support reformed welfare models in which entitlement is increasingly conditional on individuals’ commitment, discipline, and responsibility. “Forces Covenants” which explicitly connect the dedication and contribution of service to state assistance, symbolically re-enforce this shift. The U.K. state operates a highly conditional civilian social security system, and an active Armed Forces Covenant agenda. This article assesses the extent to which U.K. veterans who also claimed social security benefits support or reject the principles of conditionality. It contends military service continues to inform values they believe civilian services should follow. Although some align with conditional ideas of entitlement, others are at odds. This analysis adds to the understandings of contemporary welfare and the role of military identities after service.

All democracies wrestle with the problem of representation. Most people intuitively understand this through electoral politics, but this connection is less clear when we consider bureaucracy. And when it comes to civil-military relations, many think about this problem in terms of “civilian control.” We present a different approach and contribute to this literature in three ways. First, we critique assumptions often used in thinking about civilian control. Second, we offer a classification system with three schools of thought on the problem of bureaucratic accountability. These are the (a) political control school (representation through the politics-administration dichotomy and compliance model), (b) responsiveness through institutional design school (representation through formal institutions), and (c) responsibility through values school (representation through informal institutions). We provide examples from scholarship and cinema for each school to aid in understanding and to facilitate teaching and learning. Third, using bureaucratic accountability as an organizing concept, we propose bureaucratic discretion as a different organizing problem or puzzle for civil-military relations scholars to consider. Furthermore, by providing an organizing concept for civil-military relations using insights from the field of public administration, we additionally lay the groundwork to encourage public administration scholars to conduct research on civil-military relations.

This introduction to the Special Forum on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in Military Services begins with a discussion of zero-tolerance approaches to sexual assault and sexual harassment, arguing that such approaches tend to be ineffective and result in problematic outcomes. Furthermore, zero-tolerance approaches are associated with the same hypermasculine cultural practices that contribute to the prevalence of sexual assault and sexual harassment within the military. The articles that are summarized in this Forum cover a range of inquiries, which apply differing substantive, theoretical, and methodological approaches to address issues related to sexual assault and sexual harassment. Together, the articles in this compendium demonstrate the importance of aligning structural interventions with the cultures of the institutions in which the interventions will be implemented. They also reinforce the futility of zero-tolerance approaches and the importance of recognizing the significant complexities associated with sexual assault and sexual harassment in military services.

Interviews and focus groups with active-duty U.S. military service members and students at military service academies investigated relationships between espoused and enacted culture in perceptions of sexual assault and harassment versus other types of offenses. Results show that participants widely understood and accepted an espoused culture that is intolerant of sexual misconduct. The enacted culture included tolerance of some forms of sexual misconduct, differences in conduct in private versus public settings, and widespread resentment of frequent trainings. Results also showed cynicism about service treatments for all types of offenses, but especially for sexual misconduct. Of note is that participants tended to perceive inconsistencies in consequences for sexual misconduct in terms of who faced punishment, whereas for other offenses, they tended to see inconsistencies in what types of consequences were administered. Results demonstrate the value of efforts to align trainings with cultures that consistently discourage behaviors trainings are designed to eliminate.

The social inclusion of military women is negatively affected by dominant masculine norms. Often, military organizations try to promote inclusion through top-down policies. However, little is known about solutions military personnel themselves propose, and what is needed to implement those. Drawing on an action research project in the Netherlands Armed Forces, we identify four systemic collaborative requirements to implement initiatives aimed at improving inclusion: (a) awareness and recognition of women’s (negative) experiences, (b) a safe environment for dialogue and joint ownership, (c) organizational trust, support and mandate, and (d) the implementation of interventions in the organizational structure. We discuss two paradoxes we identified (a) addressing inclusion in unsafe workplaces requires safety and (b) creating awareness about women’s social inclusion without putting women in the spotlight. Our results show that a dialogic and collaborative approach is promising, especially to address the complexities that arise when trying to strengthen inclusion.

While the workforce is becoming increasingly more modernized and diverse, masculine norms are prevalent among certain organizations that remain male-dominated. Namely, the military is an institution that promotes masculine stereotypes and a culture where such stereotypes form a normative system of hierarchy. This study, surveying 145 military cadets at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), found that social dominance orientation, or preference for in-group superiority and out-group inequality, was associated with higher conformity to masculine norms. Moreover, higher levels of social dominance explained the relationship between masculine conformity and less acceptance toward cultural reforms in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). These findings suggest that achieving true organizational culture change in the military involves challenging not only masculine norms but, more importantly, the dominant and nonegalitarian attitudes of social dominance.

This study addresses the nature of harm and betrayal following sexual misconduct from the perspective of military personnel and veterans with lived experience, and its impact on military cohesion. A total of 67 semistructured interviews were originally conducted to explore experiences seeking related support in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). A secondary analysis revealed descriptions of interpersonal and institutional betrayal, which damaged their trust and regard for the organization and weakened organizational commitment and connection. Participants framed these impacts in relation to their peers, their leaders, and the organization more broadly, demonstrating that harm from poor organizational responses destabilizes the fundamental bonds that support military cohesion on multiple levels. These findings provide insight into the subjective experience of betrayal associated with sexual misconduct and highlight how organizational responses can substantially mitigate or exacerbate this harm.

Studies on conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) emphasize the need for the integration of a victim-centered lens into Feminist International Relations (IR) frameworks on sexual violence victimization in conflict or war. However, our understanding of the perpetrator-centered lens is limited. Drawing from ethnographic accounts of Nigerian security agents, male victims of CRSV, and aid workers, we analyze moral injury as a framework for discussing CRSV. In Nigeria, counterterrorism operations can lead to morally detrimental circumstances due to the government’s poor management of counterterrorism operations, resulting in the loss of lives and subsequent feelings of betrayal, anger, and guilt by security agents. Some security agents often display these emotions through violent acts to others, such as CRSV against men and boys suspected of terrorism, thereby exacerbating moral injury. The guilt-based moral injury arises when security agents witness CRSV against men and boys by colleagues and fail to seek justice for victims, as this contradicts social and institutional norms. Our article broadens the concept of moral injury by elucidating its significance to CRSV. In doing so, it advances the concept’s disciplinary focus on psychology to IR or international security—counterterrorism and CRSV—for conceptual sophistication and interdisciplinary exchange of thoughts. This article offers valuable insights into trauma-informed international humanitarian interventions for security agents and victims.

Intervening is frequently encouraged to prevent or respond to sexual misconduct. However, due to the characteristics of military organizations (e.g., hierarchical structure), intervening may be challenging in military contexts. The aim of this study is to examine situational factors present in militaries (e.g., bystander’s rank relative to the perpetrator’s) that may impact the use of direct or indirect intervention strategies. A sample of Canadian Armed Forces members completed a scenario-based experiment. The results revealed that rank of the bystander, gender of the target, and severity of the situation impacted the use of direct intervention strategies, and the bystander’s rank relative to the perpetrator’s, gender of the target, and severity of the situation impacted the use of indirect intervention strategies. These findings highlight where direct and indirect interventions are unlikely to occur and situations that warrant greater focus in training programs and in communications from leadership.

It has been well established that survivors of sexual assault are revictimized as they navigate the civilian criminal justice system. Significantly less is known, however, about how sexual violence is navigated within the military justice system. In this study, we use qualitative interviews with military lawyers about sexual assault cases to explore their constructions of victim legitimacy. Lawyers create a distinction between perceived and actual harm done to a victim and perpetuate the notion that victims falsely accuse men of sexual violence. Through these discursive strategies, lawyers suggest that the issue of military sexual violence is inflated. Finally, lawyers blame the institutional structure of the military for teaching victimization to young women. This helps them explain why victims who they do not perceive as legitimate report sexual violence. These findings emphasize the need for further inquiry into how those working in the military justice system perceive and interact with victims.

The present research examined how military sexual misconduct (MSM) impacts the perceived experiences of unit cohesion in a sample of woman-identifying Canadian military Veterans. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 veterans, asking questions about deployment-related factors (e.g., rewarding/challenging aspects). Although MSM was not explicitly probed for, it was widely discussed in relation to participants’ experiences of unit cohesion. Thematic analysis yielded three themes describing participants’ perceived feelings of unit cohesion—value, acceptance, and unity. In contexts where MSM was present, participants described feelings of being undermined, resulting in a degraded experience of unit cohesion. In contexts where MSM was absent, participants described value, acceptance, and unity as being improved, as well as an enhanced experience of unit cohesion. These findings provide an exploratory model by which to consider the impact of MSM on the gendered experience of unit cohesion.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), like most gender-integrated militaries, has a serious issue with sexual misconduct. However, despite the ubiquity of this form of violence, civil–military relations (CMR), arguably the dominant theory for addressing the politics of the civilian control of the armed forces, has paid little attention to gendered power relations. In this article, we utilize Canada as a case study to question the utility of CMR to address sexual misconduct. We find that major changes to the approach are necessary if CMR is to remain relevant to the study of emerging and increasingly complex challenges faced by militaries, like sexual misconduct. To this end, we suggest three strategies to develop the theoretical and analytical foundations of the CMR approach.

This research note measures the political attitudes held by Canadian Military Colleges (CMC) graduates, as compared with the general population on issues related to Canadian democratic life. It employs survey data from a sample of over 1000 alumni of CMCs, complemented by data on the general population from the 2021 Canadian Election Study. The results show that CMC graduates tend to be more interested in politics and have higher levels of political efficacy than a comparable sample of civilians. However, they are no more satisfied with democracy in Canada. They tend to favor personal, rather than institutional responsibility, and tend to be slightly more right-leaning than their peers. These results show some differences between the military population and the Canadian population, although the differential is insufficient for it to have a material bearing on civil–military relations in Canada. CMC graduates are neither alienated from nor dismissive of Canadian society.

As gendered organizations, militaries generate and perpetuate specific institutional and cultural expectations that construct and inform gendered identities. Neither fully military nor fully civilian, the (largely female) spouses and partners of military personnel occupy a liminal position that requires development of multifaceted, complex, and at times, contradictory identities. Despite well-established identity theory literature supporting myriad positionalities, research exploring military partner identities frequently remains confined to specific contexts, situations, and approaches. Based on reflections from our work with U.K. military partners, this conceptual article presents a summary of multidisciplinary discussions of our collective research relating to partner identity. Through this discussion, we highlight ways in which research, including our own, could (1) move beyond understanding partner identity within situational and contextual “silos,” (2) challenge the conceptualization of partner identities as static and fixed, and (3) acknowledge the visibility (and invisibility) of certain military partners across different military and social contexts. Specifically, to better acknowledge and recognize fluid, flexible, and intersecting identities, we call for research to embrace more interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methods and pursue greater commitment to reflecting the voices of a wider demographic of military partners who continue to be overlooked in present research.