Culture’s Backlash on Decision Making

A questão colocada neste artigo é a de saber se as lições aprendidas em Srebrenica (Unprofor) conduziram a alteração de cultura nas relações civis-militares. Foi estudado o processo de tomada de decisão para demonstrar alteração de cultura. Foi o processo de tomada de decisão ao tempo da Unprofor que fez prova de um choque entre as culturas militares e civis. Depois de um inquérito parlamentar sobre Srebrenica, procedimentos de tomada de decisão considerando desenvolvimentos foram aperfeiçoados através da utilização de um conjunto de critérios chamados “Toetsingskader”. Os parlamentares usam estes critérios para questionar o governo sobre muitos assuntos importantes relativos a desenvolvimento. A aplicação dos critérios ao desenvolvimento na Etiópia e Eritreia foi bastante pacífica dado tratar-se de uma situação “clássica” de manutenção da paz de primeira geração. Os critérios contidos no “Toetsingskader” foram submetidos a uma prova mais severa no processo de tomada de decisão respeitante à participação na Força de Estabilização do Iraque (SFIR) em 2003. Por um lado, o “Toetsingskader” provou ser novamente instrumento útil para controlo parlamentar. Provou ser um instrumento capaz de preencher o fosso entre a cultura política, militar e civil. Por outro lado mantém- se o risco de raciocínio teleológico. Os critérios podem facilmente ser usados para justificar a participação pela racionalização dos objectivos de desenvolvimento e/ou ignorando questões críticas

Governance and the decline of violence

Historians and political scientists alike have confirmed a decline in inter and intra state violence. There is broad consensus regarding this decline. The world never will be perfectly safe, but many correlates of violence are known and therefore it is possible to manage safety and security. War, is neither a fate of nature nor a whim of Gods. In this chapter the relation of governance and safety and security is studied. Therefore, we look at the interplay of agency and the opportunity structure, or the interplay between the governance triad and the governance opportunity structure. In more plain words, one should study the tensions between actors within the context of the historically grown structure. This structure restricts action and the degrees of freedom to human action but it is also an enabler. It enables actors to realize their objectives within the limits of political feasibility and these limits are in fact a balancing act. Governance develops from the tensions between actors and the interplay of these tensions with the dimensions of the opportunity structure and governance in its turn is correlated with a decline of violence. To understand the mechanism at work better we should look more closely into the dimensions of this opportunity structure and study how the monopoly of violence and taxation, the rule of law and the moral order contributes to safety and security. The chapter concludes that although in general governance is on the rise, and violence is declining, serious challenges will have to be dealt with

The last knights: a preliminary study of the developments in the habitus of the Cadets' Corps

On the basis of theoretical and empirical considerations the author concludes that values of chivalry, such as courtesy, politeness, etiquette, courage and honour are still relevant for the modern Cadets Corps. In particular rules of conduct, which find expression in etiquette, are the subject of investigation in this article. As a result of a far-reaching democratization of recruitment cadets come from all layers of society the cadets society cannot be called chivalrous anymore. Nevertheless, the values of chivalry are still cherished, as they are functional for the work of the officer. They guarantee safety and security within an environment that is still characterized by a great extent of inequality in rank and Corps status. Moreover, they allow a group of future officers to distinguish itself from other professional groups in civilian society.A number of hypotheses, inviting further research in the subject conclude the chapter

Families and deployment: giving voice to the home front

Soldiers and their home fronts have to take care of themselves during deployment. They have to find and use their inner strenght. Where do these women find the strenght to cope with a difficult period of a half-year separation from their husbands? The voice of the home front is seldom heard. This article is meant to give expression to the voice of the home front. In it the first findings of the research project on how Dutch military families experience deployments

Hidden Women: Women in the Netherlands Armed forces

Discussing the visibility and cultural factors that inf luence the position of women in the armed forces is the object of the study that is presented here. The Netherlands do not have a martial tradition and are believed to have a feminine ‘soft’ culture , but nevertheless women have always been underrepresented. Nowadays conscription is suspended, the threat to national security is low and the tasks the armed forces are most actively participating in are related to peacekeeping, peace enforcing, conf lict resolution and nation building. Since 1991 the budget has constantly been cut. Downsizing and reorganization go hand in hand. These changes and activating personnel policies promote the presence of women in the organization. Women are necessary to solve the recruitment problems of the All Volunteer Force, equal opportunity acts require higher female participation and make discrimination a criminal offence, peace keeping missions benefit from the skills women bring into the armed forces, legitimacy is raised by higher participation of women and many units could simply not function without female personnel. Despite all changes for the good, paternity care, equal opportunity regulations, networking, international UN resolutions, etceteras, women are still not very visible as is demonstrated by the stagnating participation of military women in the Armed Forces at a meager 9 per cent in 2006. In four years hardly any increase has been realized. The policy target of 12 percent in 2010 seems impossible to reach at this pace of development. Culture and masculine norms and values form barriers to the higher participation of women in Armed Forces and these norms and values prove very resistant to change. In the end all resistance and opposition stems from a demographic logic. Women will rise to equal status only when they are represented in larger numbers. Most importantly, they need to be represented better in higher ranks because the higher ranking female officers serve as a role model for the upcoming generations. When women are represented in the top of the organization in sufficient large numbers eventually the culture of masculinity might lose its sharp edges. However, these numbers are not attained easily and masculine culture is resilient. This is why more research into demographic developments and masculinity is recommended. The demographic logic implies that it is very difficult to reach the policy target of 3 percent females in the rank of colonel or higher by the year 2010 unless recruitment by horizontal intake is applied. A recommendation that follows from the need to analyze and to keep track of demographic developments is to better and more systematically study the statistics regarding women in Armed Forces to allow evaluation of emancipation policies concerning key concepts such as occupational segregation, type of contract, retention. Present (half yearly) reports by the MOD, thorough as they are, do not supply all core statistics systematically and are not made subject to prognostic demographic study. A yearly monitor study by independent scholars, commissioned by the MOD, is a necessity. Equally important would be an in depth study of the culture of masculinity within the Armed Forces. This culture is probably one of the most persistent barriers women in the Armed Forces are facing. The effects of masculinity are complex; on the one hand it is one of the attractions of the military profession, on the other hand it is the mechanism responsible for the in- or exclusion of groups and individuals. Masculine individuals (males and females) are included, feminine personnel (softies, wimps) is excluded. Probably there are more complexities involved, therefore the working of the mechanism should be studied in order to finally come to policy recommendations

Respect and responsibility: tensions between cultural effectivity and moral responsibility in morally and culturally critical situations

Doing the wrong things for the right reason captures the intention of what the authors aim at. They point at the very awkward situation wherein soldiers on mission try to respect the indigenous population so much, that they almost neglect or look away from their own moral anchors. Respecting the other stems from lessons learned from operations and is implemented in mission-oriented training, but when soldiers respectfully look away from injustice, cultural competences result in moral disengagement. Chai boys or dancing boys may be a phenomenon in some mission areas, but to intervening soldiers they do pose a moral problem. Lessons in moral competences should bebalanced with ethics training in order not to end up in trained incapacity

Ver van huis en toch verbonden: welzijn en communicatie van Marinepersoneel met hun thuisfront

Het thuisfront van marinepersoneel verzucht soms als marinevrouw weet je dat je wel eens langere perioden alleen door moet brengen, dat is nooit leuk, maar je kunt er wel, met je kinderen, het beste van maken. Een LTZ1 merkte op dat de invloed van de vrouw groot is op het personeelsverloop in de Marine. Deze citaten stammen uit onderzoek uit de jaren tachtig (zie voor een overzicht van onderzoek in Nederland: Ernstsen e.a., 2015), maar ze klinken nog steeds actueel

There and back again: How parental experiences affect children’s adjustments in the course of military deployments

As a consequence of various causes, numerous children are confronted with parental separation. By following families in the course of military deployments, this study aimed at enhancing knowledge on temporary father—child separation. Data were part of a longitudinal study of military families and were collected among Dutch service members and their partners before, during, and after a deployment to Bosnia or Afghanistan. Results revealed that the great majority of the children adapted quite well to the separation and reunion. Furthermore, the general well-being of the children, the mothers, and the fathers in the mission area was positively related. Unlike separation characteristics, maternal well-being was predictive of children’s adjustment in the course of paternal deployment. Hence, the findings underline the importance of helping spouses cope with the absences of service members as it increases the chances that children will also be doing well in the course of parental absence

Parents’ voice: The intergenerational relationship, worry, appraisal of the deployment, and support among parents of deployed personnel

Because of the high-risk deployments into Afghanistan, soldiers’ parents have become more important in public opinion as well as in activities of family support groups. Although their voice is heard louder than ever before, research into parents’ experiences in the course of deployment is sparse. This study among 1,098 parents of Dutch soldiers reveals, among other things, that the relationship between service members and their parents can be described as strongly cohesive and may even be strengthened by a deployment. Moreover, parent– child cohesion and parents’ appraisal of their child’s deployment predict parents’ support for the armed forces and its missions. ‘‘Parents,’’ said one recruiter in Ohio who insisted on anonymity because the Army ordered all recruiters not to talk to reporters, ‘‘are the biggest hurdle we face.’’ (Cave, 2005