by
Ljubiça Jelusic, Giuseppe Caforio, Karl Haltiner, René Moelker, Tibor Szvircsev Tresch
Draft not for quotation.
INTRODUCTION
If it is true, as is written in the presentation of the conference of Cranfield (1), that today
“the boundaries between military and civilian ... have blurred,”
also the comparison and the relationship between the two cultures has taken on greater importance than in the past.
This is even clearer at the moment, when public opinion regarding the war in Iraq has shown, in more or less in all countries of the world, how these two cultures can clash, or at least have trouble understanding each other.
These observations, as well as recognition that an empirical research on this subject has never been carried out outside the United Sates, have led to the initiative of our research group to promote a cross-national survey on the cultural gap between the military and the parent society.
Our choice is borne out by statements that we find in sociological literature on this cultural gap.
To synthesise, we can in fact say that two main positions are present in the literature, one is that there is a necessary cultural gap between the military and the civilian, and that particular gap is not negative. Another side also accepts the idea that the military has a different culture from the civilian society, but argues that traditional military culture now serves a less essential purpose: according to them the military has no functional imperative to retain a culture contrary to the prevailing civilian values.
On this situation, we can cite what John Hillen writes for the States (Hillen, 1999) i.e.: “the cultural gap between the two entities is not necessarily dangerous to American democracy in and of itself , but can and should exist so the military can accommodate both the society it protects and the battlefield on which it must perform…To many observers, the values and social mores of 1990s America – narcissistic, morally relativist, self-indulgent, hedonistic, consumerist, individualistic, victim-centered, nihilistic, and soft – seem hopelessly at odds with those of traditional military culture.”
Despite that, “Whether politically motivated by the agenda pushers or not, there is now [in the
States] an inexorable momentum to ‘close the gap’ between the military and society without clearly identifying the nature of the gap, the extent to which it might in fact be healthy and desirable, or how such a gap might be narrowed.”
A similar opinion is expressed by Hew Strachan (Strachan, 2001) for the U.K., who writes:
“In the United Kingdom the gap can be seen as the product of continuity” and “If the price of political utility is armed forces that make a virtue of their separation from civilian society, then it may be worth paying,” and, in the end, “In Britain the civil-military gap should be recognised for what it is, rather than wished away.”
Leaving off from this set of considerations, our working group decided to set up a broad cross-national empirical research on the subject, taking its cue from the research performed by
Feaver and Kohn in the U.S. but completely revising both the theoretical framework and the empirical methodology of the research. The aim of this report is to present and discuss this theoretical framework and the empirical tools that the group has set up for this purpose.
Therefore, we deal here with the following topics:





 a clarification of the general concept of culture adopted by us, and especially of culture of democratic countries then the concept of military culture, along with its subcultures, and the process of change a short description of the existence and the rising of a gap, a note on civil-military relations, a discussion on the possibility of a cross-national research on the subject an indication of the concrete survey tools that we propose to use. 
1. DEFINITION OF CULTURE
As every scholar knows, we have many definitions of culture.
Hofstede, for instance, gives us a very synthetic definition, writing that : „culture is the collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.” (1991: 5).
A more articulated definition is provided by J. Soeters, D. Winslow and A. Weibull, (2002) who state:
„Culture refers to common ways of seeing the environment, it relates to values and priorities in life, as well as to subconscious convictions, ideas, interpretations and norms that are taken for granted. Culture is shared by collectivities of people: nations, regions, organisations, schools, churches and families. Culture is a group phenomenon, hence leaving the impact of personality structures outside.“
And a third and last definition (last, in order to avoid to bore the reader) is that by Edgar
Schein, i.e.: „Culture can now be defined as
(a) a pattern of basic assumptions,
(b) invented, discovered, or developed by a given group,
(c) as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration,
(d) that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore, (e) is to taught to new members as the
(e) correct way to perceive, think, or feel in relation to these problems“ (Edgar Schein, 1990:
110).
Inside this last definition, especially, we find some common elements that can satisfy our needing in the scope of this paper. Therefore, we propose to make this definition more suitable to our purpose –to compare civil and military culture – , as follows:
Culture
1.
is the pertinence to a group of people and, particularly, to an organised group
2.
it constitutes a pattern of basic assumptions that become a collective programming of the mind
3.
as such, it has to be learned by newcomers
4.
it indicates a particular way to cope with problems of internal integration and external adaptation
5.
this particular way needs to have worked in the past well enough to be considered valid
Keeping in mind these elements, you can easily realise that all they fit both the civil and the military environment.
If we limit our assessment to democratic societies, as our societies are, we realise that the military culture is a subculture of the culture of the national society as a whole, i.e. of the civil society which, in a democracy, is clearly predominant over the military. Therefore, our

comparison is between the culture of the democratic society in general and its military subculture.
We should try, first of all, to characterise and to define the culture of a modern democratic society.
1.1. Modern democratic society and its culture;
To define the culture of a democratic society means to find – following our theoretical scheme – the pattern of basic assumptions that constitutes the collective programming of the mind of the members of the society and that determines their behaviour, as well as values, way of thinking and the like. As we have already a complete and valid research on this theme, carried out in the
States (Feaver and Kohn 2001), we are taking it as a model and trying to adapt it to the different reality of countries that are not the U.S. Thus, we create several normative benchmarks, reported in the following scheme, in which the two models are compared:
A democratic society is
TISS Definition *
1.
A society that respects the Constitution and
1.
Our definition
A society that trusts the democratic ideals such as: equality of people, regardless supports the ideals and values contained within of it such as the natural and unalienable rights of of all people, the essential freedoms of assembly, speech, the press, and the right to bear arms, etc. gender, race, religion etc; freedoms assembly, ideas, speech, press, etc.
A society that respects its basic law and by the laws and regulations approved its parliament
2.
A societal system and a way of life worth defending by all citizens.
2.
A society and a way of life worth defending, even to the point of death.
3.
A society that places high value on respect for the individual persons regardless of gender, race ethnicity, or religious persuasion.
4.
A society that includes soldiers and their peaceful families, having never given up their role as citizens to become soldiers.
5.
3.
A society that places high value on respect for individual persons.
4.
A society that wants to be in a relationship with all other national societies in the world.
5.

A culture that emphasizes both individual individual opportunities and responsibilities. Soldiers attend to both of these within their profession and expect that the citizens they defend should also attend to both.
6.
A society wherein cultural diversity of groups is accepted and respected, but subordinated leadership, to the unity of the nation, a society where „E pluribus unum“ applies. like). The
* See Snider and others, 2001
A culture that emphasizes both opportunities and responsibilities.
6.
A society where the military is subordinate to the political through its legal representation
(government, ministry and the military is fully integrated into the parent society.
2. MILITARY CULTURE
Organizations are – from a sociological point of view – goal-oriented cultural systems. The task of an organization is the key to the understanding of its specific structure and culture (Etzioni 1975).
Military organizations, unlike other coercive organizations such as for instance the police, are specialized on threatening and making use of collective violence. In other words: They are focused on inter-social macro-violence or on ‘hard power’. Warfighting “determines the central beliefs, values and complex symbolic formations that define military culture” (Burk, 1999). Functionally, the use of focused and massive macro–violence calls for a high degree of coordination. The organizational culture of the military is therefore based on a leadership strictly structured from top to bottom with a closed chain of command organized according to the principle of centralization. This assures that the central forming of willpower and planning processes can develop into the actions of the organization as a whole. The information relevant for action moves from the top down, the competence to initiate action is strongly limited at the bottom of the hierarchic structure (Feld 1959; Lang 1965 Snider,
1999).
The borderline case of a war, in other words the management of an anomic phenomenon such as war is, a measure of the quality of the military culture not only in times of war but also in times of peace
(2). The organization culture and structure in all its details is imprinted by the capability for massive force application and the risk of macro-violence. The expectancy of violence is therefore constantly prevalent in the organizational rationale. The military is probably the only organization that is ready to risk its partial destruction and to put the lives of its members willfully at risk when aiming to reach its goals. Consequently, the preparation of force operations is aimed at including as many uncertainties as possible. An extreme degree of formalization, ritualization, and standards of procedure are supposed to guarantee calculable and coordinated behavior of the members of the organization under conditions of extreme stress and in case of the destruction of parts of the organization.
In democratic societies military operations including violence on a large scale, on which the military culture remains focused, have become rather rare (Moskos et al. 2000:3). However, if they do occur, they normally demand the use of a great number of people and resources. Therefore, military culture is
Janus-faced: In times of peace it tends towards routine and bureaucracy, in case of emergencies it is to face the utmost turbulence (Geser 1994; Soeters et. al. 2003:238). Because missions of that kind are comparatively rare it is mainly simulation, hypothetical suppositions and the reliance on past operations on which military training is based. The low amount of feedback from the social

environment is apt to lead most military cultures to an overly strong inward orientation. This promotes a tendency towards ritualization of behaviour. Functionally, ritualization serves to “guide individual conduct” and to “provide a semblance of order to the harsh reality of death and destruction that often threatens to be overwhelming” (Snider, 1999; Lang 1965:838).
As a rule, armed forces are accommodated in barracks and garrisons separated from the civilian world.
Members are taken care of in a totalitarian fashion. Soldiers generally live in “total institutions”
(Goffman 1961). For functional needs the community is valued higher than the individual, there is a clear primacy of the collective. In military culture the individual is instrumentalized and deindividualized in favor of the group, i.e., it is expected that the soldier sacrifice his individual freedom and, if inevitable, his life for a collective goal he may not be able to enjoy anymore. This “Social
Dilemma” (Olson 1965) is solved by a specific socialization oriented at a professional ethos, a high corps spirit and discipline (Soeters et. al. 2003:242). The professional ethos implies a “set of normative self-understandings which for the members define the profession’s corporate identity, its code of conduct and, for the officers in particular, the professional work” (Burk, 1999 ). Morale and cohesion are vital ingredients for combat motivation and are part of the soldier’s education and training. Discipline means that the organization members can be forced to set back their individual interests in favor of the collective goal. It serves as an instrument of control in extreme risk exposures and “to minimize the confusion and disintegrative consequences of battle by imposing order on it with a repertoire of patterned actions” (Burk, 1999). Therefore, extrinsic motivational instruments, such as money, are usually insufficient incentives. As a rule, intrinsic motivational elements play a role as well
(Lang 1965; Geser 1994). The military culture, while highly bureaucratic, has therefore strongly communitarian and even authoritarian features (Soeters et. al. 2003:240). This only reinforces the tendency towards inward orientation, or even “castellation” (Huntington 1964).
To sum up: Military organizations are, according to their internal rationale and culture, top-down organizations. In order to be capable to apply collective force they are structured along the principles of centralization and formalization, and they traditionally rely on socialization procedures based on moral and repressive means of behavior-control. Consequently military cultures are based inherently on anti-individualistic and anti-market ideologies and differ therefore in a principal way from the civilian democratic culture and the social organization of modern societies.
2.1. Changing Military Subcultures
However, on the inside, the military is not something unique and homogeneous. If you go down from the macro to the micro level, little by little you shall discover that armed forces themselves are a mosaic of subcultures (J. Soeters, D. Winslow and A. Weibull, 2002).
We find, in fact, internal subdivisions of a structural as well as geographical nature.
Structural subdivisions appear to be of two different kinds, at least: vertical among services and horizontal among different categories of personnel, such as the classic one among officers,
NCOs and the rank and file (where the officers’ culture is dominant). Some scholars add other structural subdivisions such as the distinction between the soldier on the battlefield and the one in the garrison , between the military professionals working at the MoD and the commanders in the field
, between the „ corporate
” and the „ muddy boots
” army, so to speak (McCormick, 1998).
Subcultures due to the geographical location are overall the national ones, because what influences „the culture of military organisations are factors such as history, the professional ethos, geography, the milieu within that organization operates, recent military experience, and the Weltanschauung of the external society“ (Murray, 1999), so that you can talk about
„national military styles“. ( J. Soeters, D. Winslow , A. Weibull; see Bland, 1999, too).
In our study we consider the particular subculture of officers, because it appears to be predominant inside the military, it shapes the relationship among the military and its parent society, it appears to be the only one that belongs to a professional group. Therefore, we are trying to draw here a general scheme of the professional officer culture, adapting the Feaver and Kohn (2001) scheme again to non U.S. realities

Professional officer culture
1.
is a culture that considers the officership as a service to the country, in order to provide the security to the national community;
2.
is a culture that stresses the group cohesion and the professional ethical code
3.
determines a group that considers individual leadership as a duty and responsibility
4.
determines a group strongly motivated by their social obligation of a pursuit of excellence
5.
determines a group submitted to the political leadership and characterised by a strong loyalty to the country basic law
6.
determines a group characterised by duty, honour, self–abnegation, example, communal character, hierarchy, discipline and control
7.
determines a group passed through an accurate selection and a deep professional education
Furthermore, we cannot consider the military culture as something of constant and identical over the times, on the contrary „Change is characteristic of military culture because of the many influences that constantly affect the values, behavior, and beliefs that together define it.“ (John Hillen, 1999).
From ever, the process of change is characteristic of the military culture, that needs to adapt both to cultural change of the parent society and to the changing face of war.
Nowadays we seem to be seeing the return to a Hobbesian world in which (Mearsheimer,
1990) ethnic, religious, national and/or regional antagonisms, kept in check for over forty years by the balance of power between the superpowers, are being unleashed (Caforio, 2001).
This is the reason for the extraordinary growth in the 1990s of the operations generically called peace support operations (PSOs); this is why the military instruments of most countries are called on today to place side by side the traditional function of making war to the quite different one of ensuring peace.
This set of changes brought about several important development inside the military culture of many countries.
Substantially, following the statement by Soeters, Winslow and Weibull, nowadays: „various developments point at the emergence of a more contemporary civilian or businesslike culture in the military. This new culture will most probably consist of a general tendency towards occupationalism and team–based, self–steering practices relying on general, 'enabling' frameworks of rules and operating procedures. Obviously, there are national culture–related variations on this axis, and not every branch or unit within the military – not even within one nation – will be the same in this respect. Differentiation pervades the military; that is for sure. In these macro–developments the Janusian character of the military plays a role as well. In the current era of „New Wars” it looks like the organisation–in–action – the ‘hot’ organisation – becomes more dominant in the design and command philosophies of military organisations, at least compared to earlier Cold War times when the ‘cold’ military organisation provided the model for organising activities (Vogelaar and Kramer, 1997). These general developments will induce changes in the uniformed organisations’ cultures which merit further research.“
(J.Soeters, D,Winslow and A.Weibull, 2002). Where, as 'cold' organisation you have to intend the bureaucratic one ( the military working at the MoD and in garrison) and as 'hot' organisation, the soldier on the battlefield.
2.2. Demilitarisation of societies and remilitarisation of the militaries: The rising of a gap

The question to what degree military culture should be considered as unique and to what extent it should be given the status of an ethical and organisational special case, whether and to what degree the military is and should be an institution “sui generis” has been a concern of sociologists for a long time both from a macro- (Comte 1842; Spencer 1897; Tocqueville
1835; Weber, 1972) as from a micro-perspective (Huntington 1957; Boëne 1990). Thus,
Comte and Spencer assumed that the principles of modern market societies were opposed to those of the military and that the former and latter would be increasingly incompatible. They inferred from this an increasing incompatibility between the organisational culture of modern societies and that of the military. In a certain sense, they predicted a rise of a civil-military gap concurrent with the further differentiation of labour-divided societies (see Caforio
2003:10pp).
Huntington and Boëne thoroughly analyzed the organisational dilemmas of armed forces. If military organisations are to be effective, strong in combat, and successful, they have to observe the functional imperatives outlined above. As institutions of democratic societies, on the other hand, they have to meet the socio-political requirements of integration and legitimisation of modern societies and to accept a certain degree of civilianisation and adaptation to the democratic way of life.
With the rise of citizen-soldier system and the „nation in arms“-based mass armies in the
United States and in Europe in the 18 th
and 19 th
century an historically unique phase of civilmilitary relations was begun. It seems as though – with reference to the mentioned dilemma concerning the integration of the military – the soldier-citizenry was a kind of workable compromise between the demands of both, the functional and the social imperatives, which reconciled the civil-military cultural differences. Conscription promoted the militarisation of societies but it did this at the cost of a certain civilianisation of the military. Thus, up to the present day, the predictions of incompatibility made by the sociologists of the 19 th
century proved to be incorrect.
Now, however, due to social and geo-stategic changes, the period of the citizen-soldier and the mass armies is coming to an end (Haltiner 2003).
Among the driving forces of these processes we find technological progress and the market penetration into all spheres of life and society. This development implies an increasing degree of individualization and normative pluralization as well as a decreasing importance of traditional values and an erosion of community-based life styles in modern societies. The development of military systems, technically, economically and socio-politically, follows the same logic of change based on differentiation and economisation. The deeper the division of labour in the military cuts, the greater is the tendency to rely on highly trained professional soldiers (Burk, 1992, 45). This means that the armed forces of modern societies are fully professionalised and become leaner in personnel size. After Great Britain and the USA continental Europe is now also shifting to small all-volunteer systems.
By the end of 2002, twelve out of some thirty European nations from the West to Russia had given up conscription or decided to do so soon (Czech Republic,
Belgium, United Kingdom, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia,
Slovakia, Spain, Portugal). In ten countries a public debate on whether or not to maintain conscription can be observed (Austria, Denmark, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Romania,
Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Sweden).
The thesis can be put forward that, after a two hundred years tradition of soldier-citizenry, with the suspension of the draft and the downsizing of the mass armies a de-militarisation of societies and a re-militarisation of the militaries is taking place and, as a consequence of this process, a civil-military gap is developing in Europe the same way as it can be observed in the
United States.
In our context, the term “militarisation” refers to the fact that the spread of the draft on the
European continent made quantitatively representative parts of the population mobilisable for

military ends and thus familiar with military norms and behaviors. The term “Civilianisation”, on the other hand, implies that the strong presence of civil societal norms and behaviours in a system of conscription strongly limited the cultivation of classic military virtues and the stressing of solely functional imperatives. There are indicators that with the end of the reciprocal process of militarisation of society on the one hand and civilianisation of the military on the other the civil-military divergences predicted by Comte and Spencer have started to grow.
The decline of conscription is reducing the share of society involved in the defence sector and the military. The sheer quantity of people having the chance to experience the military personally is shrinking considerably. The formerly close relation between the citizenship and the military is getting looser on a quantitative level and with the growing social distance very probably also in a qualitative sense. Simultaneously to the reduction and professionalization, support parts of the armed forces are removed organisationally from the forces. Increasingly, some of the logistical charges and areas without immediate combat function are civilianised and even transferred to private enterprises through outsourcing–measures.(Private security companies are often hired, nowadays, for the guarding of barracks and military bases, private catering companies take over the sustenance of entire brigades, the civilian flight control controls the mission of the air force up to the point of combat-like events etc). The actual military combat capability is concentrated in a downsized organisational nucleus. This creates the paradox that with the increasing civilianisation and economisation of the military an actual re-militarisation is taking place in the core area dealing with combat tasks. The soldier's own role-definition is newly discussed and promoted, military professionalism becomes the borderline of all thinking and acting in military culture, the importance of military functional imperatives, as opposed to socio–economic ones, is again stressed and traditional military virtues are revitalised. With the end of conscription the pressure towards equality inherent to the citizen-soldier system has fallen away. The social homogeneity that was a typical feature of the mass armies (van Doorn 1975) is disappearing. Consequently, a return to the elitist warrior ethos as a military subculture is encouraged.
Obviously, this opens a historically new divide between the democratic culture of modern, highly differentiated societies on the one hand and the military culture of tradition on the other. The pluralizing value and norm orientations of the individualised civil market societies and the normative and behavioural profiles of the functionally orientated military seem to be drifting apart.
2.3. The existence of a gap.
The present existence of such a gap is proved, in our experience, by several indicators. Let we cite some of them.
As this theoretical framework has the purpose to allow a carrying on of an empirical research on the existing gap between civil and military culture, it seems important to realise if there are some indicators of that gap.
A first indicator is that an advanced post–modern democracy, as the US are, shows the existence of that kind of gap. Feaver and Kohn (Feaver an Kohn, 2001b) at the end of their empirical research in the States, write: „The overall project concluded that the concerns [about the gap] expressed by the Secretary of Defense and others are justified but should not be exaggerated. Our research identified numerous schisms and trends that have undermined civil–military cooperation and, in certain circumstances, could degrade military effectiveness, but these problems do not constitute any emergency, at least in the near term“. Another American scholar writes: „We assist a potentially dangerous gap between the military and the society it protects, particularly as fewer and fewer Americans, especially American leaders, participate in our national defense“ (Harvey Sicherman, 1999). Referring to this last statement, we have to keep

in mind that there is a clear trend toward the professionalisation of the armies and this event will touches, soon or later, every European country (Haltiner, 1998) where fewer and fewer citizens will have direct military experience with the military, due to the passage to the conscription to the all volunteer force in many countries.
A second indicator is provided by the findings from an European research that we carried out in
1992–93 (Caforio, 1994). By these data we realise the existence of a deep gap from the level of prestige the officer thought that public opinion should assign to his/her profession (the desired image) and the level of prestige accorded to the officer profession (the perceived image). This datum is strengthened by the dissatisfaction that officer reveals about the way media deal with defence and military issues: this is a finding that arises by different empirical researches
(Caforio, 1994; 1998, 2001) and that we can summarise using a sentence by Krista E. Wiegand and David L.Paletz, who write: „In general, officers believe the media are very interested in scandalous stories, but only somewhat interested in technical or organizational policy stories. „
(Wiegand and Paletz, 2001). This second set of indicators substantially reveals that the military perceives that the public opinion and the opinion makers cultivate and practise values, ethics and principles often different form the military.
But also officers think that their profession is completely different from the civil ones.
Summarising the findings of the cited research on 1992–93, Caforio wrote (Caforio, 1994):
„However, the convergence of managerial techniques does not at all mean that the military is an organisation like any civilian company: When examining this item, in fact, a large majority of respondents can be found who do not think in this way: they range from 57,1% of the Greek officers to 92,6 % of the Italians. A similar disagreement is expressed by respondents about the possibility that the military organisation is becoming like any civilian company“.
From empirical to theoretical assumptions, if we look at the theme of our research, „The cultural gap between the military and civil society in the modern era“, we realise that it leads us to the post–modern democracies. In this scope we have to take account of what David
Segal writes in his paper „Are post–cold war militaries postmodern?“, presented at Montreal
1998, i.e.: „ most of the changing dimensions of military organization being discussed in the sociological literature are still rooted in a modern context, even though the Cold War is over in Europe. It may be more appropriate to argue that the military, as a conservative organization, has resisted some of the changes toward modernity that have been observed in the past in other organizations and institutions, but is now moving more strikingly from a more primordial organizational form“
If this assumption is correct, we can conclude that a cultural gap between the ( postmodern ) civilian society and the ( modern ) military is already inherent to such a situation.
Beside that, we have several national studies that state the existence of such a gap between civil and military culture. In addition to the cited American research, we have on the UK a statement by Hew Strachan (see below) and following passage by Pascal Vennesson (Vennesson, 2001) on France, who writes „The relation between the military and the nation is a powerful political myth, associated with conscription and nationalism“ omissis „In short, civil–military relations in France are good with some sectors of the society, poor with other. If the most dynamic sectors have the greatest influence, and will tend to dominate in the future, civil– military relations might deteriorate in the years to come.“ omissis „The public does not believe that the military is well integrated within the society“ omissis „In general, the military milieu is perceived as being distant. 73% believe that the milieu in which military personnel live is not known (2000). Several values traditionally associated to the military profession – spirit of sacrifice, civic duties toward the state, patriotism, order and discipline – and several political priorities also associated to the military profession – humanitarian aid, national independence, construction of Europe, the military defense of French interests, and the military solidarity with other European countries – are the values and policy priorities considered less important in the society“

For Canada too, Frank Pinch in his country paper presented in Portorose (3), states that
„The research and publications of social anthropologist Donna Winslow, from 1997 onward, suggested that there was a „gap“, at least between the expectations of government and the
Canadian public and those in the military“.
Anyway, to realise the existence of a gap between these two cultures, does not at all mean that that gap needs to be cancelled or reduced. We have in fact different opinions on this subject, that are reported in the introduction of this paper
3. THE CIVIL–MILITARY RELATIONSHIP
Having examined both cultural sides of our interest, that of a democratic society and its military subculture, chiefly the officer's one, it seems the time to deal with civil military relationship in a modern democracy.
Most studies in the field are centred on democratic control of the armed forces. As all you know, the subject of the democratic control of armed forces refers to the question: who guards the guards?
The answer is not the same for every country: as Hans Born states (Born, 2002) „ Generally speaking, a state’s system of democratic control is a product of its system of government, politics, history and culture. Additionally as there are many different cultures and political systems, many different norms and practices of democratic control also exist.“
We cannot deal here with theories and practices of democratic control, we want add only that changes arising in the post cold war era are affecting systems of democratic control too. As Hans
Born again states: „the post Cold War era requires a new look at the democratic control of the armed forces. The post Cold War brought about more attention to peace missions, enormous reforms of the military in nearly every country and military activity increasingly is taking place at an international level“
To summarise, civil military relationship in a democratic system seems to be based on the following principles (Snider and others, 2001)
1.
the military exists for the defence of the country and its interests
2.
this defence implies to guarantee a peaceful and free trade international arena
3.
the military profession is subordinate to the political leadership, through its legal representation (government, minister and the like)
4.
Civilians and military must share the same basic values
5.
The civilian world must give to the military the needing autonomy in order to professional fulfil their obligation
6.
The military has a threefold responsibility: representative, advisory and executive.
4. THE POSSIBILITY OF A CROSS–NATIONAL RESEARCH AS SUCH.
As the reference for our project is the TISS research already carried out in the US, we have of course to ask ourselves if it is possible to compare the American reality with the one of
Europe and that of other post–modern countries. The US situation with regard to the civil military gap can be in fact quite different from what we face in other countries for many reasons: difference in state size, difference in the function of the military in foreign and security policy, differences in political and social culture, difference in the history of civil– military relations, and the like.

Not only, but referring to Europe, according to several analysts, „ the US revolution in military affairs (RMA) will, in turn, widen the gap between American and European military strategies and capabilities. In addition, a so–called value–gap seems to be opening……Politically, strategically and culturally the United States and Europe appear to be slowly drifting apart“. (Peter van Ham in „Western unity and transatlantic security challenge“, Marshal Center Papers, No. 4 /2002).
Besides that, this is not the only difference we can find in a cross-national analysis. If we look, for instance, at post communist states, Christopher Jones and Natalie
Mychajlyszyn(2002) found a set of common (inside the post communist states) differences from these countries and the western ones in civil military relations, as, for instance:
1.
the difficulties of developing cultures of democratic civil–military relations
2.
the lack of development of a cadre of civilian defense experts as members of legislatures or as high–level officials in ministries of defense or other key national bureaucracies
3.
the lack of experts on military–security issues in the media
4.
no complains about military officers intruding into civilian politics
5.
the high ratio of paramilitary forces in respect to the regular forces.
In order to face this issue – the possibility of a cross-national analysis – in a more concrete way, we analysed some research findings as written in the TISS report, i.e.:
1.
Our first finding was that there are many „gaps“ to be explored, reflecting multiple dimensions and between different segments of the military and civilian populations.
2.
The gap between the U.S. military and civilian society is growing.
3.
As we leave the 20th century, the number of people have served in the military or have other personal connections with the military is declining. This „experience gap“ is an artifact of the shrinking all–volunteer force
4.
The elite military is fairly critical about the quality of leadership in the political institutions
5.
The elite military posses a pervasive hostility towards the media.
6.
Military (and the mass military) have more trust and confidence in government institutions than civilians,
7.
On social values, elite military officers diverge from both elite and mass Civilians
8.
By a very large margin (76%), elite military officers oppose gays and lesbians openly serving in the military. But a majority of civilian elites (55%) and the mass public
(57%) support gays and lesbians openly serving
9.
The civilian population, both elite and especially mass, has very little understanding of civil–military relations and civilian control of the military.
10.
The popular media through fiction and film reinforces a diverse set of stereotypes about the military and civilian society
But, if we think of the European reality, as it emerges from recent surveys on civil–military relations, we find that most of these findings apply to most European and not European civil– military relationship too. If we look, for instance, at the country papers presented at Portorose
(3) and referring to several countries, we find that these conclusions are true for these countries too. Therefore we can consider that a good working hypothesis can be that there are several common features of the civil military gap everywhere, in the post modern democracies at least. Probably other features are regional, continental (East-European/ West
European, for instance), and other ones characteristic of a single country only. But this fact is, and was, common to every cross–national research.

5. POSSIBLE GUIDELINES FOR THE RESEARCH
To conclude, this is a draft of a theoretical framework created to carry on an empirical research on the civil – military culture gap in Europe in comparison with results already given for the U.S., but it can be employed in non European countries too, where living conditions can be assumed to be that of all modern societies.
Having said that and in order to draw something concrete, we try to propose possible guidelines for our research project.
Definitely, we can start from one basic assumption and some working hypothesis.
The basic assumption is that several indicators show the existence in post-modern democratic countries of a gap between the military culture and that one of its parent society, generally speaking. We have several indicators of this fact, some of them are already cited, others are present in literature.
First working hypothesis is that we can consider officers as opinion-leaders/ opinion-makers in the armed forces, as well as we can consider civil professional (in broad sense), among the most significant opinion-leaders in the civil society, so that it seems convenient to carry on an elite research among these categories.
Second working hypothesis is some kind of uniqueness of the military profession (Bernard
Boene, 1990) in respect to the other professions. To be clear, we are making the hypothesis that officer's profession is culturally more distant from the medium mindset of civil professions than single civil professions are among them. Therefore, it makes sense to compare the professional culture of officers with the culture of other civil professions.
Third working hypothesis is that there are several common features of the cultural civil military gap in democratic countries, so that it makes sense to do a cross-national research.
We intend to carry on that research with the purpose to find an answer to the following main questions:
1.
is the gap confirmed and what are its national dimensions?
2.
What is the nature of that gap?
3.
What shapes the gap?
4.
Is there a trend toward a widening of that gap?
5.
Does that gap affect the military effectiveness and/or civil- military relations? I yes, in which way?
5.1. Guidelines of the research
The planned phases of the research project are:
1.To investigate political culture of future (civil and military) elites, simultaneously surveying cadets and students on 3 levels: a) cognitive – beliefs, attitudes, opinions a) evaluative – values, norms, moral judgements b) expressive or affective – emotions (identity, loyalty) or feelings (affinity, aversion, indifference)
2.
To interview experts in order to assess changes in civil-military relations

3.
To elaborate and to compare results at cross-national level and to confront them with data from the American (Feaver and Kohn) research
4.
To write a final report of the research study.
5.1.1. Investigation of future civil and military elites.
We intend to investigate in every participating country (4) a sample of 30 cadets, at least, in the military academies (15 in their 1 st
year of course and 15 in their 4 th
year) and to compare them with a sample of 30 (at least) university students in each of the following faculties: economics, law, engineering. We limited our research among university students to three faculties only, in order to make manageable an empirical research as such. The choice of faculties of economics, law, engineering is due to the assumption that from them especially civil elite comes.
For the purpose to prepare a questionnaire suitable to our goal, we drew the following list of significant indicators:
List of Indicators
1.
trust to institutions (how central is military still?)
2.
gender roles (machoism, combat masculine warrior versus feminisation of military)
3.
democracy index
4.
threat perception
5.
new/old missions of the military
6.
patriotism
7.
existence of the armed forces (right to exist, way of existing, being proud of armed forces)
8.
democratic control of the armed forces
9.
values (values to educate children, values within the military)
10.
globalism/localism
11.
warriorism
12.
sources of information on military
13.
evaluation of the media – military relations
14.
social prestige of the military occupation (among other occupations)
15.
professional qualifications
16.
recommendation to peers, children to enlist in military
17.
role of fathers in socialisation on military issues
18.
foreign policy goals
19.
format and size of the military (conscription)
20.
military lagging behind in social modernization
21.
religion
22.
conservativism
23.
materialism/ post-materialism
On the basis of this list of indicators the annexed questionnaire has been created (Annex 1.)
5.1.2. Experts survey
Simultaneously to surveying cadets and students, we intend to interview experts, in order to assess changes in civil-military relations. The interviews allow us to get grip on the time dimension. The idea is to select 10 experts on civil-military relations in every country. Ideally, sampling should be balanced, meaning that it is preferred to interview both women and men, young and old(er), left and right. Composition of experts should comprise


Two expert top-military (colonel or higher)

Two journalists on military affairs (from different nation-wide newspapers, television or other media)

Two parliamentarians specialized in the political-military decision making (different political affiliation: preferably one from the right and one from the left)

Two scientists (for instance a political scientist, historian, international relations etc)

Two managers

Option: Maybe also opinion leader like military union chairpersons, peace movement, etc.
The question is whether they perceive a gap between civilians and the military and, if yes, if this civil-military gap is widening. The method to use is semi-structured interviewing. By use of a limited set of questions (see Annex 2, not necessarily in a prescribed order) the interviewee is asked for his/her thoughts on change over time. If necessary the interviewer has to query deeper using improvisation skills. Probable length of interview: 1-2 hours.
Validity: make protocol of interview and perform member check. A member check means sending the protocol to the interviewee and ask him/her for approval, allow to make changes, etc.
Use of recorder: optional. Some interviewees will feel inhibited being recorded.
Reporting: country report, also mention the positions and describe the people interviewed. In the country report use only the respondents position (“a colonel said ….”).
NOTES
(1)
“Post-modern military: Rethinking the future”, 1 st
Cranfield international conference on defence management, Cranfield University, UK, April 24 – 25, 2003
(2) The fact that since the end of the Cold War armed forces have mainly been used for
Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) has no influence on that but is a source of organisational dilemmas (Caforio 2001, Haltiner 2000).
(3) The reference is to the ERGOMAS VIIII Biennial Conference, held in Portorose,
Slovenia, September 18-22, 2002.
(4) These are: Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands,
Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey.

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