Kümmel / Caforio / Dandeker Armed Forces, Soldiers and Civil-Military Relations

Essays in Honor of Jürgen Kuhlmann
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-3-531-91409-1
Verlag: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 286 Seiten, eBook

Reihe: Schriftenreihe des Sozialwissenschaftlichen Instituts der Bundeswehr

It is an honor for us to introduce this collection of essays, which is dedicated to an old friend and colleague who is no longer with us. It is an honor, but also a pleasure because we feel like continuing a dialogue with Jürgen; one that has never broken down over the years, revisiting and recalling the diff- ent places and occasions where we met, discussed, collaborated and had fun. We, that is, Giuseppe Caforio, Christopher Dandeker and Gerhard Kümmel who have been friends and/or colleagues of and research collaborators with Jürgen and who represent three prominent institutions and organizations with which Jürgen worked, felt that this book is something we owe to Jürgen and we are grateful that many people who at different times and at different places had contact with Jürgen and his work were willing to contribute a chapter to this anthology. Most of Jürgen's studies, professional work and research activities took place at the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences (SOWI). Jürgen, born in 1938, had joined the Bundeswehr in 1957 and had already worked at the SOWI's predecessor institution, the Scientific Institute for Education in the Armed Forces from 1971 onwards after having finished his university? st- ies. Since this institute was renamed SOWI in 1974, Jürgen belonged to the first generation of researchers that worked at the SOWI.

Dr. Gerhard Kümmel is Senior Researcher at the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences (SOWI) in Strausberg near Berlin.
Dr. Giuseppe Caforio is President of the Research Committee 01: Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution (RC 01) within the International Sociological Association (ISA) and lives in Pisa.
Prof. PhD. Christopher Dandeker is Professor of Military Sociology in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

Zielgruppe

Professional/practitioner

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kümmel, Gerhard

Caforio, Giuseppe

Dandeker, Christopher

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Table of Contents;6
2;Foreword;8
3;Funeral Oration;10
4;I Soldiers and Armed Forces;13
4.1;Seeing Through the Stereotype: British Army Culture – An Insider Anthropology;13
4.2;‘My Pink Uniform Shows I am One of Them’: Socio- Cultural Dimensions of German Peacekeeping Missions;37
4.3;Looking for a New Identity in the Argentinean Army: The Image of the ‘ Good Soldier’;58
4.4;The Hybrid Soldier: Identity Changes in the Military;73
4.5;New Roles for the Military: The Hellenic Armed Forces and the 2004 Olympic Games;81
4.6;Rhetorical Persuasion and Storytelling in the Military;87
4.7;New Methodological Approaches: Aspects of Online Questionnaires;98
5;II Civil-Military Relations;115
5.1;The Public and the Military in Slovenia;115
5.2;Increasing Military Influence in Danish Civil-Military Relations;136
5.3;To Go with the Flow? Change and Persistence in Patterns of Civil- Military Relations in Germany before and after the End of the Cold War;152
5.4;Conscription in Germany Today: A Military Necessity or a Mere Symbol?;173
5.5;Thinking Globally: U.S. Cadet and Civilian Undergraduate Attitudes toward Social Problems1;185
5.6;Public Opinion and European Security;205
5.7;From the ‘War on Terror’ to the Terror of War: Spanish Defense Policy after 9/ 11;225
5.8;Disillusionment and Hope: A Brief Reminiscence about Perceptions of the Russian- American Relationship in the Second Term of Putin’s Presidency;239
5.9;Borders: Which in Between Most of Our Lives Has Gone;254

Soldiers and Armed Forces.- Seeing Through the Stereotype: British Army Culture — An Insider Anthropology.- ‘My Pink Uniform Shows I am One of Them’: Socio-Cultural Dimensions of German Peacekeeping Missions.- Looking for a New Identity in the Argentinean Army: The Image of the ‘Good Soldier’.- The Hybrid Soldier: Identity Changes in the Military.- New Roles for the Military: The Hellenic Armed Forces and the 2004 Olympic Games.- Rhetorical Persuasion and Storytelling in the Military.- New Methodological Approaches: Aspects of Online Questionnaires.- Civil-Military Relations.- The Public and the Military in Slovenia.- Increasing Military Influence in Danish Civil-Military Relations.- To Go with the Flow? Change and Persistence in Patterns of Civil-Military Relations in Germany before and after the End of the Cold War.- Conscription in Germany Today: A Military Necessity or a Mere Symbol?.- Thinking Globally: U.S. Cadet and Civilian Undergraduate Attitudes toward Social Problems.- Public Opinion and European Security.- From the ‘War on Terror’ to the Terror of War: Spanish Defense Policy after 9/11.- Disillusionment and Hope: A Brief Reminiscence about Perceptions of the Russian-American Relationship in the Second Term of Putin’s Presidency.- Borders: Which in Between Most of Our Lives Has Gone.

Leseproben

"Rhetorical Persuasion and Storytelling in the Military (p. 89-90)

Giuseppe Caforio

1 Introduction

When I joined the platoon of parachutists that had been assigned to me after being commissioned as a lieutenant and completing the necessary specialization courses, I found the non-commissioned officers (sergeants and corporals) of the platoon waiting for me in line in a dormitory on the first floor of the barracks. The sergeant presented the force to me, I asked them for their names and exchanged a couple of words with the group, to then say, ""Let’s go down to the canteen and have a drink together"" and dismiss them. The NCOs saluted, one after the other, to then, one after the other, jump out of an open window onto the courtyard. I understood that I had to follow them without any hesitation, even if I didn’t know how I would land on the cobbles, otherwise I would lose face. I jumped and luckily there was a big heap of sand left by bricklayers who were working on the outer wall in the courtyard beneath the window. It was a way of putting a newly arrived officer to the test, but also of establishing a kind of complicity, a bluff experienced together and then who knows how it would have been told?

We find various definitions of rhetoric and a great number of studies on rhetoric as a discipline. For the purposes of this study it seems sufficient to point out that rhetoric can be defined as ""eloquence of speaking and writing"" (Devoto 1971: 1918) or, in a way more oriented to our purposes, ""the study of effective thinking, writing, and speaking strategies, rhetoricians analyze and evaluate what works and what does not work in a specific context"" (Hadley Porter 2004: 2). Storytelling is narration, understood as a ""literary activity that aims at the artistic transfiguration of real or imagined events arranged in a chronological way"" (Devoto 1971: 1919). Helen Hadley Porter defines it thus (2004: 5): ""Narration is storytelling and is frequently paired with specific and concrete description in essays with an expressive purpose. An autobiographical, writer-focused, or personal experience essay will basically be a ‘descriptive narrative’ with event, character, and setting developed with specific sensory details.""

I thought it would be interesting to report Porter’s definitions as well because they always appear to be oriented towards a purpose, and this orientation seems consonant with the project of this paper that assumes in its conceptual background: ""Rhetoric and narratives are basic instruments for making sense of situations and events, facilitating decisions to happen, for creating opportunities and for committing people to projects. They allow the members of organizations to make sense of their professional or work situation."" (Bonet 2006: 9) It is the same sense that Robert Einarsson (2003: 6, 11) gives when, referring in particular to narratives, he considers it as the ""fabric of culture and tradition"" and, later on, identifies the instrumentality of narrative with respect to ideology, writing: ""Narratives are clearly a primary vehicle of ideologies, both nationally and on the individual level."

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. Gerhard Kümmel is Senior Researcher at the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences (SOWI) in Strausberg near Berlin. Dr. Giuseppe Caforio is President of the Research Committee 01: Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution (RC 01) within the International Sociological Association (ISA) and lives in Pisa. Prof. PhD. Christopher Dandeker is Professor of Military Sociology in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.