From the sociology of the (military) profession to the sociology of (security) expertise: the case of European national defence universities

ABSTRACT

Few would disagree that European militaries have experienced dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. Much of the discussion on these changes to date has referred to the concept of professionalism. However, this approach became outdated as professions in post-industrialist societies entered a state of crisis as a result of growing competition from a variety of competitors. The present study adapts a new framework from the sociology of knowledge literature – sociology of expertise – into one, sociology of security expertise, which is suitable for study of contemporary armed forces. Its utility is demonstrated through analysis of five European professional military education institutions. The analysis shows that European military organisations are transiting, albeit in various degrees, from one form of social organisation of military knowledge production – associated with the military education model common to traditional military colleges – toward another, which is related to the military education model of national defence universities. Hence it is highly probable that European military organisations lose, either voluntary or unintentionally, their professional character and can no longer be unquestionably assumed to be military professions. Hence, they should be analysed hereafter using the sociology of security expertise framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Military professionalism
• civil-military relations
• military education
• European security
• officership

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Joel Hayward, the editors and two anonymous referees for valuable comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The data for this article was collected as part of a project supported by the Marie Curie Fellowship (FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF Grant No.275456). The theoretical framework for the article was developed within a project supported by a Marie Curie COFUND grant awarded by Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca [grant number 2014 BP_B 00147 (AGAUR)].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Moten (2011, p. 14) eloquently described it this practice as: “From time to time in the United States, a clearly defined word will find itself dragooned by popular culture to serve the common lexicon. Before long, that proud old word will get bandied about so much that it changes and morphs into something that is at once broader and less than its former self. The term professional is such a word. Today, everyone wants to be a professional”.

2. It should be emphasised that the concept of military professionalism maintains its theoretical value for analysis of historical periods or geographical regions in which professions are either not in crisis or are able to win the “battles” over jurisdiction (Burk, 2002a).

3. In most contemporary Western armed forces the military doctrine and military education establishments were consolidated over the last two decades. See Libel (2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions [FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF Grant No.275456]; Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca [2014 BP_B 00147 (AGAUR)].

Notes on contributors

Tamir Libel

Tamir Libel is a former Beatriu de Pinós research fellow at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI). Before joining IBEI he was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, and a visiting scholar at both the Department of Political Science at the University of Trier and the Department of History at the University of Marburg.