Suchergebnisse

A changing military structure -- Fight our battles and claim our victories -- Just American soldiers going to do a job -- Serving in the European theater of operations, January 1945-March 1946 -- Life after military service -- Cohesion, conflict, and phenomenology

This is a commentary on Morris Janowitz's article, "Military Institutions and Citizenship in Western Societies," published in February 1976, in Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 185–204. In the article, Janowitz links sociopolitical changes to the rise and subsequent fall of mass popular Armies. Military service during the 19th century was an integral part of citizenship. However, in the 1960s, mass militaries based on compulsory service began to transform into smaller volunteer forces "with profound implications for social structure, political power, and nationalism." In this article, I highlight Janowitz's analysis of the rise and fall of the mass armed forces. I also discuss the three sets of factors Janowitz used in his analysis: (a) technological and organizational change, (b) a rise in small professional militaries that are unrepresentative of the larger society, and (c) ideological and normative change. I end with a brief discussion on how Morris Janowitz's legacy helps to shape our understanding of civil–military events that have taken place over the last 50 years.

This Armed Forces & Society issue is on women in the contemporary armed forces in the United States and other nations to include the South African National Defense Force and the Australian Defense Force. This issue contains a collection of nine papers, each reviewing a current aspect of women serving in the military since the post–Vietnam War Era. There are also two review essays of Megan Mackenzie's book, Beyond the Band of Brothers: The US Military and the Myth That Women Can't Fight. An overview of changing laws and the expanding role of women in the military is provided in this introduction, as well as summaries of the nine articles, and comments on the two book reviews mentioned above.

This study examines the effects of both economic and noneconomic factors on the propensity of junior enlisted (El-E4) personnel to remain in the military, using data from the Armed Forces 1996 Equal Opportunity Survey. Among the findings: (1) years of service, job satisfaction (as a whole), and pride in service are all highly correlated with self-reports of respondents' likelihood of remaining in service; (2) among junior enlisted personnel, African-American men are more inclined to remain in the military than are men and women of other subgroups; and (3) while satisfaction with pay benefits has a significant positive effect on the likelihood that respondents will stay in the military, pride in service is more robust.

This article is a comparison of black women with women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and black men in the U.S. military. Developmental analysis is used to examine historical trends and to hypothesize about the future of black women on active duty. Although there is considerable scholarly literature on minorities (particularly African-American men) and women in the armed forces, no systematic study of the participation of African-American women exists. This omission is significant in view of the fact that the representation of black women has increased more than sixfold over the last 15 years (which marks a greater percentage increase than any other segment of the military population). Results of statistical analysis confirm previous findings that African-American women are accessing the military at a faster pace than other racial and ethnic female groups in the United States; they are more concentrated in the Army than other branches of the military; they are mostly assigned to administrative and support occupations; and they are more likely to be single parents than are military women and men in the comparison groups. The article ponders the consequences of these findings for the future stability of the participation of black women in the U.S. military.

Compares Black women with women of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and Black men in the military.

Equal opportunity (EO) is recognized by the Department of Defense (DoD) as being crucial to maintaining a high state of military readiness. In the last two and a half decades, a number of EO initiatives have been employed by the DoD and each of the military services in an effort to promote fair treatment of minorities and women. Social science literature suggests that the integration of racial minorities, particularly African American males, is a military success story. Some social scientists argue convincingly that the military has far surpassed civilian organizations in integrating African Americans.While the U.S. military has had a long history of addressing racial issues, problems concerning gender have only recently been addressed on a large scale. Some scholars assert that the military is the last male bastion in the United States. It lags behind the civilian sector in integrating women.This study examines the perceptions of active‐duty men and women in the U.S. Army to determine whether minority men are more satisfied with the equal opportunity climate than women and whether minority women are less satisfied with the equal opportunity climate than non‐minority (White) women. The purpose of this study is twofold: One objective is to examine differences within the gender category, i.e., African American, Hispanic, and White women. The other objective is to explore differences across gender. Degree of satisfaction is measured by responses to items on the Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey (MEOCS). The data were stratified by rank level, officer and enlisted, and a General Linear Model (GLM) was performed with race, gender, and the interaction of race and gender as independent variables. In the final analysis, the data were stratified by paygrade, and a GLM was performed on each part separately. Among the findings, race is a more powerful predictor of the attitudes of active‐duty men and women toward the EO climate in their units than either gender or the interaction of race and gender. While gender is significant in most of the statistical models, and the interaction of gender and race is sometimes significant, these variables explain less than one percent of the variance. Although African American men are generally more satisfied with the EO climate than African American women, they are less satisfied than White and, in some cases, Hispanic men and women.