This book examines the connection between sociology and international military affairs by analysing the work of key social and political scientists in the field.The book demonstrates the renewed relevance of older sociological concepts such as imitation, unanticipated consequences of policies, structural violence, the governance of the commons, collateral damage, McDonaldization, the Garrison State and many others. It also proposes new notions, such as the dynamics of hostilization...

What do you really know about what happens in NATOs and UNs military missions? What do nationwide broadcasting and newspapers not tell you? This book provides a look behind the screen seen through the lens of an outsider. It contains fascinating stories with unexpected observations about military life in Afghanistan, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia, Congo, Japan, Jamaica, Lebanon, Liberia, Northern Ireland and Taiwan. Those stories are not just simple travel stories, nor are they journalism or shor...

This book examines the connection between sociology and the challenges faced by the modern military.Military sociology has received little attention in the broader academic world, and is mostly focused on civil-military relations. This book seeks to address this gap and combines ideas, theories and insights from sociology’s founding authors, with each chapter focusing on a specific thinker. There are chapters on Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Jane Addams, W. E....

This book connects findings and insights authored by famous scholars in management and organization studies with challenges the military is facing today.One assumes that management and organization studies is only about the rational, predictable, and manageable, and that military action is predominately irrational, unpredictable, and unmanageable; both assumptions are wrong. This book argues that the discipline of management and organization studies is highly relevant for the milit...

An on-site testimony of the Dutch military mission in Urugzan, Afghanistan from 2001 to present day.Presents fresh data and probing analyses to address many crucial issues with regard to mission Uruzgan: from political decision making to rules of engagement.Offers insight regarding the logistics of leadership at many different levels in Afghanistan.From autumn 2001 onwards, the Netherlands armed forces have been involved in military operations in Afghanistan. These ...

Jane Addams stands as perhaps one of the most prominent female voices in social theory of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While built through books, essays, journal articles, and speeches, her intellectual legacy has seldom been recognized as academic by contemporary audiences. Yet, over the last forty years, her contributions to sociology, philosophy, conceptions of democracy, inquiry, feminism, care ethics, community engagement, social ethics, community engagement, peace, municip...

What are the implications of philosophical pragmatism for international relations theory and foreign policy practice? According to John Ryder, “a foreign policy built on pragmatist principles is neither naïve nor dangerous. In fact, it is very much what both the U.S. and the world are currently in need of.” Close observers of Barack Obama’s foreign policy statements have also raised the possibility of a distinctly pragmatist approach to international relations. Absent from the three domina...

In the early 1990s a number of violent civil wars and large-scale ethnic crises shocked the world. In Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere atrocities were committed that led to hundreds of thousands of dead and displaced people.Explaining the origins and dynamics of such inhuman actions and events, this new sensitive and detailed analysis includes:full analysis of the origins of civil wars, terrorism and ethnic strifeinsights drawn from across the social s...

This volume explores ethnicity and gender developments in relation to the military.In some countries, the armed forces have a long history in responding to ethnic diversity, while elsewhere it has come up only recently as a policy issue. An even-handed representation of ethnic minorities in the military is recognized as crucial for enhancing its social legitimacy and professional quality. The same can be said about the integration of women in the military, which during a few decade...

This volume offers an overview of the methodologies of research in the field of military studies.As an institution relying on individuals and resources provided by society, the military has been studied by scholars from a wide range of disciplines: political science, sociology, history, psychology, anthropology, economics and administrative studies. The methodological approaches in these disciplines vary from computational modelling of conflicts and surveys of military performance,...

This edited volume uses theoretical overviews and empirical case studies to explore both how soldiers cope with the new forms of cultural diversity occurring within various multinational military operations, and how their organizations manage them.Military organizations, like other complex organizations, are now operating in an ever more diverse environment, with the missions themselves being ever more varied, and mostly conducted in a multinational framework. Members of the milita...

This volume explores the interpersonal, organizational, and technological enablers and barriers to information and intelligence sharing in multinational and multiagency military, humanitarian, and counterterrorism operations. To this end the contributions present case studies and other empirical research. UN and special operations headquarters are studied, along with multinational operations in Mali, Iraq, and Afghanistan by the UN and by U.S. Central Command. Perennial themes are the need...