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Purpose – The purpose of the study was to get a deeper understanding of officers’ views of the factors that contribute to army ranger conscripts’ willingness to apply for international military service as well as to look at the officers’ own role in the recruitment process.

Methodology/approach – A grounded theory approach was used. Nine officers from the Swedish Army Ranger Battalion were interviewed.

Findings – Factors that seem to promote the possibility to recruit conscripts to international military service could be understood from five main categories: international military service, education, officers, the Swedish Army Ranger Battalion, and recruitment.

Originality/value of paper – Interviewing key figures in the recruitment process of the Swedish Armed Forces.

Purpose – The aim of this chapter is to explain peculiarities of socialization of conscripts through the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism.

Methodology/approach – The process of socialization of conscripts is considered as a combination of elements of primary and secondary socialization. These elements are defined on the basis of theoretical ideas of Cooley, Mead, Berger, and Luckmann. The potential of this approach is examined by taking the Russian armed forces as a case study.

Findings – Socialization of conscripts is mostly secondary (professional) socialization. But in some countries (with conscription), it includes many elements of primary socialization. In these cases, the army can become a total institution for the conscript inmates.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the PRIME for Life risk reduction program in reducing alcohol consumption and improving knowledge and attitudes towards alcohol use in male Swedish military conscripts, aged 18 to 22 years.

A quasi‐experimental design was used in which 1,371 military conscripts from ten regimens were assigned to either a control or program intervention group. Changes in alcohol consumption, knowledge and attitudes towards alcohol use were assessed with self‐report questionnaires at baseline, and again 5 months and 20 months after the program.

Pre to post program reductions in total alcohol consumption and “high risk” consumption were reported in both the control and intervention group. There were no statistically significant group interactions over time, indicating that factors beyond the intervention alone were responsible for the reductions in alcohol consumption. Attitudes towards consumption improved significantly in both groups at five months before returning to baseline levels at 20 month follow‐up.

PRIME for Life is one of the most widely used alcohol and drug risk reduction programs in the United States and has recently been implemented in parts of Sweden to reduce alcohol consumption and related harm. To our knowledge, this is the first peer‐reviewed evaluation of the effectiveness of the PRIME for Life program.

The purpose of this paper is to explore military service-linked economic and social governing initiatives in early twentieth-century Sweden, and thereby offer a broadened understanding of educational institutions as governing arenas.

Using the term “governing” to describe and analyse various calculated techniques of the state – and/or affiliated governing actors – to influence and direct the behaviour of conscripts in order to deal with particular economic and/or social problems, the author ask what kind of economic and social problems policymakers and social commentators of education were looking to deal with, why military service was considered a suitable means and/or setting for doing so, and what governing techniques they proposed be used. The author furthermore take in consideration the intimate links between citizenship, gender, and military service and argue that the governing initiatives analysed enables us to understand these links in partly new and a more concrete way.

The study shows that there were numerous ideas and requests amongst policymakers and social commentators of education on making use of the nation’s conscription scheme for non-military purposes as it provided the nation with a unique opportunity to reach and influence entire generations of men on the threshold of adulthood. Proposals included, e.g., the use of various forms of instruction in assorted subjects, facilitation of base libraries and an extension of the period of military service, in order to deal with economic and social problems such as, e.g., mass unemployment, alcohol abuse, elementary education deficiencies, and uneducated voters, as well as shortages of skilled personnel in particular branches of great importance for the nation’s economy.

While there is a sizable and growing body of research on governing initiatives in non-military educational settings, proposed and implemented to solve various economic and social problems in society, scholars in Sweden and elsewhere have largely overlooked the use and role of military service in such undertakings. This paper seeks to redress the balance and thereby offers a broadened understanding of educational institutions as governing arenas.

In the 21st century, disputes between military and civilians are to occur in the arena of security or defense policies. The civil–military relations of Korea might be shifted from the political conflicts between political elites and military leaders to the democratic governances of the military sector.

This chapter examines the existence of civil–military gap in the perceptions or attitudes on the security or defense issues. The samples are classified into six subgroups. The military is classified into “commissioned officers (COs) and non-commissioned officers (NCOs)” and “conscripted soldiers,” and the civilians into four subgroups according to sex and age. There is not much acute or urgent, serious civil–military gap in the analysis. Sometimes the perceptional gap rather resides between the male and the female or between the youth and the elder generation than in between the military and the civilian. But there are some differences in perceptions and attitudes between the military and civilians. These are related to the interests of national security affairs, to the military threat from North Korea, and to the confidence in the defense management. Owing to their different life conditions, the perceptional differences between civilians and military are inevitable to some degree. But to develop better civil–military relations and to enhance the consensus in the national security issues in the 21st century, institutionalizing the democratic governance might be necessary. It is recommended to have more discussions between the military and civilians, to share more information about the security issues, to increase transparency in the defense management, and to have more participation of the civilians in the security sector.

This chapter examines the security political attitudes in Finland, a relatively modern, relatively affluent ‘western type’ EU country, where approximately 80% of the male cohort still undergoes compulsory military training. In this chapter, some of the reasons for this are examined as well as the reasons behind the marked differences in relevant attitudes between Finland and some other EU countries.

Many European nations today are willing to give up conscription system. In some other countries a more or less heated debate on maintaining or abandoning conscription has begun. Those countries that hold conscription have significantly reduced the share of conscripts in their armed forces. In our paper, we will argue and demonstrate that conscription has in fact had its day in most European nations. The data base for this paper is twofold. On one hand, we base ourselves on data from the annually published Military Balance of the London International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). On the other hand, we base ourselves on an expert survey among European countries that was conducted in 2001 and has been updated in the year 2005. One major reason for the move from conscript armies to all-volunteer forces seems to be due to the geopolitical changes which have taken place since the end of the Cold War. Another reason is the increasing number of regional conflicts and the ensuing operations abroad. Thirdly, Europe is undergoing a significant social change with an increasing pluralization of life styles and value cultures. The continuing individualization diminishes the willingness for an unconditional commitment to the state. This leads us to the aspect of burden-sharing equality. Where only a constantly diminishing minority of eligible and able young men is drafted, the issue of who has to serve and who does not becomes significant and can produce massive pressure to abolish conscription.

The purpose of this paper is to identify demographic variables that may impact the quality of leader‐member exchange (LMX) relationships within a military platoon.

A total of 109 non‐commissioned officers (NCOs) and 421 recruits from 27 platoons in the Singapore Armed Forces independently assessed the quality of their relationship with their platoon commander using the LMX7 survey instrument.

Bivariate analyses indicated rank and type of service differentiated the quality of LMX between leaders (platoon commanders) and followers (NCOs, recruits).

The paper considers LMX only from the perspective of followers and does not take into account the broader context of the military platoon.

The performance of the entire platoon may be more effective when platoon commanders operate at a distance, respect rank and formal authority relationships, and build closer personal relationships with NCOs than with recruits.

There have been no studies examining the demographic basis for LMX differentiation in an Asian military organization. This paper fills the gap.