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The world of military uniforms has always attracted attention by the rest of society. The film and literary image of the military in the history lays stress on power, honour, discipline, privileges, high social position of warriors and also dependence of the social welfare on military power and military campaigns. Those images impose to our minds that the military was an important institution and also that it was something really special. How does the society see the military today? And how does the military regard itself and its functions? Since the development of military sociology in the middle of the 20th century, there have been two opposing views on civil-military relations: one that strictly differentiates the military and society and the other that seeks the similarities between them. The recent military-sociological debate in the United States has also been devoted to the issue of the relationship between the military and its parent society. The experts found important differences between the US military and US society (including cultural ones) and some are very concerned about a growing gap between them. The classical antagonism between Huntington's uniqueness of the military and Janowitz's convergence of the military and civil society is renewed in debates about a so-called civil-military gap (e.g., Ricks, 1997; Holsti, 1998; Cohn, 1999; Snider, 1999; Hillen, 1999; Feaver, Kohn, & Cohn, 2001).

Slovenia has joined the club of peacekeepers in 1997. The decision was made under pressure of foreign expectations that a country which strives for NATO membership should prove its willingness to co-operate in common defence efforts. First military units, sent to UN-led peacekeeping operations, comprised volunteers on an ad hoc basis and were very small (platoon level). There were also a few policemen who joined missions abroad, first under WEU leadership in Albania. The governmental need ‘to show the flag’ in many operations increased the number of soldiers needed for peace operations and the number of policemen. Currently, there are around 200 soldiers and 30 policemen in different operations abroad. In the period 1997–2001 all soldiers and policemen entered the missions on a voluntary basis. In 2002, there was the first contingent of Slovenian SFOR soldiers that used its home military structure (infantry motorised company) in a peace mission. It marked the end of ad hoc units, comprised to serve the goals of the mission only, and the start of more organised, and also more ordered co-operation of soldiers in missions. They could still refuse participation in the mission, but that would have led to risks of losing unit cohesion. In the transition from voluntary peacekeepers to peacekeepers on duty, or by order, the Slovenian Army realised the need to understand what helps soldiers to fully accept the terms of operations abroad.

Slovenian society was historically very ambivalent towards the military. In former Yugoslavia (1945–1991) many people understood the military as the socialising agent, the organisation that would help their sons to grow up, and as provider of social assistance in cases of natural catastrophes. The role of defence of the homeland was perceived as legitimate task of the military, but the expectation of foreign military threat was gradually decreasing, especially in 1980s. The prioritisation of national security function of the military has been changed into expectations of more civilianised and liberal armed forces. The Yugoslav policy of active participation in non-alignment movement helped people to believe that they live in a neutral country without foreign enemies. The perception of low military threat in public and on the other side very tough and enemies-searching former Yugoslav military elites caused tensions between Slovenian civil society and Yugoslav military elites. The associations of civil society asked for recognition of conscientious objection, which was not permitted in former Yugoslav military until mid-eighties. Even then, the status of conscientious objectors was given to religious believers only, and they had to serve the military duty within the military, without arms. The citizens’ movements asked for use of mother tongue for conscripts in the army, while the military pushed forward one of the Yugoslav official languages, the Serbian one. In 1991, Slovenian decision to gain independence, caused an armed conflict with former Yugoslav army in June–July 1991, and in 1992, Slovenia was a internationally recognised sovereign state.

This chapter deals with the effects that the socialisation process, both primary and professional, has on the cultural attitudes of young people interviewed with regard to national security.The data show the great importance of primary socialisation, especially among cadets, who form a military mindset already before entering the training academies. The process is less accentuated for youths who attend civilian universities.Professional socialisation then operates in both environments, at times in contradictory ways with respect to the aims of the profession for cadets, and with respect to greater awareness of security issues for university students.

Slovenian society was historically very ambivalent towards the military. In former Yugoslavia many people understood the military as the socialising agent, the organisation that would help their sons to grow up, and as provider of help in cases of natural catastrophes. The role of defence of the homeland was perceived as a legitimate task of the military, but the expectation of a foreign military threat was gradually decreasing. The Yugoslav policy of active participation in the non-alignment movement helped people to believe that they lived in a neutral country, in a country without foreign enemies. The perception of a low military threat in the public clashed with the very tough enemy-searching of the former Yugoslav military. This caused tensions between Slovenian civil society and Yugoslav military elites. The associations of civil society asked for recognition of conscientious objection, which was not permitted in former Yugoslavia until the mid-1980s. Even then, the status of conscientious objectors was given to religious believers only, and they had to serve within the military without arms. In 1991, the Slovenian public verified its decades-old hypothesis that there is no enemy outside the country, but the biggest enemy is its own military. The war in Slovenia, although the decision to form an independent state was encouraged by Serb nationalism and the totalitarian perception of the Yugoslav Federation, was clearly a war between the Slovenian people, military, and police against the Yugoslav Peoples’ Army and not against other nations or republics of former Yugoslavia.

Data analysis reveals that the sources of information on military security issues that the young elites mainly rely on are first and foremost television news programmes, followed very closely by newspapers and in third place, but lagging considerably behind, is the Internet. So far the information sources appear to be the same ones and to be equally important for the two groups studied, university students and cadets.However, sizeable gaps have to be registered in the opinions of respondents on the media in general, as, for instance, the assessment of the attitude displayed by the media toward the military, or their interest in defence-related issues, the judgment of the level of information on military issues.Other cultural differences arise dealing with the public opinion theme, as far as the armed forces’ public image is concerned, or on the evaluation of the officers’ professional training.After presenting main data on the theme, this chapter tries to discuss them and to reach some general conclusion.

Bahattin Akşit, BA (1968), METU; MA (1971) and PhD (1975) University of Chicago. Dr. Akşit, Professor in the Department of Sociology, Middle East Technical University, conducts research in the following areas: Psycho-social aspects of disaster management; Community participation and volunteer associations; Rural structural transformations, Social change and cleavage in towns and cities; Sociology of religion and secularism; Sociology of Middle East and Central Asia; Army and conflict resolution. Recent publications are: (1) Karanci, N., Akşit, B. and Dirik, G. (2005). Impact of a community disaster awareness training program in Turkey, Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 33(3); (2) Akşit, B., Karanci, N. and Gunduz-Hosgör, A. (2001), Turkey, working street children in three metropolitan cities, International Labour Organization; (3) Akşit, B. (1993). Studies in rural transformation in Turkey. In: P. Stirling (Ed.), Culture and the economy: Changes in Turkish villages. Cambridgeshire: The Eothen Press; (4) Akşit, B. (1991). Islamic education in Turkey: Medrese reform in late Ottoman times and Imam-hatip schools. In: R. Tapper (Ed.), Islam in modern Turkey: Religion politics and literature in a secular state. London: I B Tauris and University of London.

This book is a report of cross-national research on the civil–military cultural differences in democratic societies, particularly centred on the attitudes of national elites, here considered as being mainly composed of professionals.Our research is limited to the democratic countries: This limit is grounded in the consideration that the cultural dynamics, especially in civil–military relations, of countries with non-democratic regimes are completely different.The initial project, written up and published in the ERGOMAS and RC01 newsletters, was later discussed at several conferences, and subsequently elaborated in a restricted working group.Researchers investigated a sample of cadets at military academies and their generational peers at civilian universities (“future elites”). An expert survey was also employed to sample “present elites”, both civilian and military.The book is therefore a report of the cross-national research on the civil–military cultural gap in democratic societies. It is divided into three parts: the first is devoted to describing the project's theoretical framework and the methodology used in the field research. The second part, deals with the results of the research on the main survey themes. The third part is aimed at illustrating the national specificities to the reader for better understanding of the results of the cross-national comparison. Finally, the last chapter presents a comparison between the responses of the two interviewed elites, present and future, and an attempt to draw a few conclusions.