Internal and External Integration at the Nonelite Civil-Military Interface
Abstract
The nature of civilian-military linkages and their implications for civilian control of the military is an enduring research and policy issue. The advent of the all-volunteer force has resulted in a generally renewed focus on this issue as reflected in a recent paper by Segal, Senter and Segal. Their study addressed the question of how well the military is woven into the fabric of society. They focused on the structural linkages between a cross-section of the civilian population and the military institution and examined the implications of such linkages for civilian control of the military. This paper will examine the general issue of the integration of the military into society but will entend existing analyses by also looking at the structural linkages between a representative sample of Army personnel and civilian society. In addition, the implications of these linkages for the internal integration of soldiers into the military organization as well as for their external integration into American society will be examined. In the ongoing policy debate over the transition to an all-volunteer force, one major concern is whether voluntary conditions will lead to an increasingly isolated military. It has been hypothesized that the military's boundaries are becoming less and less permeable, resulting in less civil-military contact and, consequently, less impact from civilian norms and sensibilities. Career military men have, for example, been found to hold ideological views that are increasingly distinct from their civilian counterparts.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA077857
Entities
People
- John D. Blair
Organizations
- U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences