Co-ordinator: Associate Professor, Dr. Thomas Crosbie (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
The study of the Military Professions is one of the centre-pieces of Military Sociology. In many ways, it was through the military case – and especially through the classical debate between Huntington and Janowitz – that sociologists in general became aware of the importance of professions and professional identity when studying social behaviour.
The Working Group "The Military Professions," was founded in 1988 in Vienna during the first biennial conference of ERGOMAS. The group was created by Giuseppe Caforio, one of the founding fathers of ERGOMAS, in Le Levandou, France, 1986. The initial purpose of the group was to study how the military profession adapts to changes in the strategic and operational environment. Throughout the past decades, joint transnational research and intercultural comparisons have characterised this Working Group’s activities.
Indeed, the significance of changes in the strategic and operational environment was the most pressing question in the last days of the Cold War and in the transitional years that followed, when old enemies became friends, and new foes occurred.
Today, however, studying the Military Professions is also relevant in regard to other social transformations. The list below is not exhaustive, but should illustrate the breath of studies that are relevant in regard to this Working Group’s activities.
1) New military professions: Military sociology has traditionally focused on the Officer Corps. Yet, Professionalism cannot necessarily be reduced to the formal commission of tasks. It is also a characterised by a feeling of uniqueness. Such feelings of uniqueness can also be studied among ‘semi-professionals’ in regular militaries (e.g. career NCOs or even privates). They may also be studied among Private Contractors or Foreign Fighters, all of whom are military in the sense that they differentiate themselves from non-militants by supporting the execution of violence in the pursuit of political ends.
2) Part-time professionals: We normally see the military as a total institution in Goffman’s sense, with its own rules, its own housing and its own infrastructure for both employed personnel and their relatives. Yet, few modern militaries are organised in that way. And even to the extent that uniformed personnel still spend time at the barracks, the civilian, administrative employees and civilians engaged in other support-functions, don’t. These people are not in a total institution. They work 9 to 5. Still, given that they are payed to fulfil military tasks, they may be considered as military professionals.
3) The military as a public organisation: The focus on the Officer Corps is also a focus on a particular military ‘caste’ whose norms and values are assumed to differentiate them from surrounding society. Herein lies much of the fascination of studying the military. Yet, this notion also constitutes a potential source of misunderstanding. First, several European militaries, today, are submitting military education to civilian standards, through criteria of accreditation. Second, in order to compete with other operators on the job market, military education and career tracks become less rigid. And third, when competing for public budgets, Top Brass personnel are likely to become more comparable to managers elsewhere in politically regulated organisations, and less comparable to personnel in the military branches the lead. Although, military institutions have some say in regard to the accreditation criteria, although people shifting in and out of the organisation may still be loyal to its general values, and although military managers are still military, the significance of such changes are nevertheless worthwhile studying in regard to the military profession.
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[The newsletters have been discontinued since Guiseppe Carforio's decease in 2015]