Legitimacy of violence: extra-military versus intra-military legitimacy

ABSTRACT

This article is conceptually motivated. By drawing on cases from the U.S. and Israeli militaries, it aims at demonstrating the existence of two separate systems of legitimacy of military violence – extra-military and intra-military – and mapping the gaps between them. It conceptualizes the legitimacy of violence and then maps seven conditions under which gaps are created between the two systems, as follows: the uniqueness of military culture, the extent to which the military does not mirror society, field command’s broadening improvisation and interpretation, ambiguous political directives, the extent to which the military leverages a legitimacy dispute, troops’ resistance, and the diachronic systems of legitimacy. The appearance of these gaps is more likely to present with weakening of civilian control and the break-up of military hierarchy.

KEYWORDS:

• Civilian control
• legitimacy
• violence

Acknowledgments

This article was first presented at the workshop “Legitimacy of Violence” organized by The Open University of Israel and the Israeli Sociology Society in February, 2020. I would like to thank the participants for their valuable comments. For incisive suggestions at various stages of this project, I thank Eyal Ben-Ari, Ofra Ben Ishai, Edna Lomsky-Feder, Kobi Michael, and Orna Sasson Levy. I would like to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and especially to Victoria Basham, editor of Critical Military Studies, for her guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation [719/18].