Camouflaged or deserted? A systematic review of empirical military research in public administration

Abstract

Over time, several researchers have observed that military organisations and personnel are not studied in public administration. This study synthesises the state of knowledge regarding the place of military organisations and personnel in empirical public administration research in thirty-one journal articles published from 1978 to 2019. The 71 empirical articles published in the past four decades focused mainly on human resource (HR) management of veterans and procurement contracts rather than on current members and military organisations. Public administration researchers, particularly outside the United States, are not studying active military personnel and the function of military organisations. Our argument is that, in our collective view of the state, we tend to disregard the state’s punitive or security missions, especially if they are foreign rather than domestic. Another explanation is that accessing military personnel and organisations involves negotiating restricted access. Our collective neglect of studying the military deprives the field and students of good practices that may be replicable in civilian organisations.

Graphical abstract

Keywords:

• military
• systematic literature review
• army
• navy
• air force

Aknowledgements

We are deeply thankful for the (re)constructive comments offered by the editors and Pr. Shields. This article was dramatically improved by their suggestions. Our thanks to Maj É. Arbour, Maj M. MacLeod, Capt G. Charbonneau, and MCpl (ret.) B. Ladouceur, all four from the Canadian Army, for their comments on an earlier version. We also thank S. Roussel for his comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. There are articles that were analysed in this paper, but not cited. They are Afanassieva (2015), Burk and Kallberg (2016), Boeke (2018), Cellini (2010), Durant (2007), Gray et al. (2017), Hahm et al. (1992), Harrington et al. (2001), Hennessey (1998), Johnson and Walker (2018), Kim (2016), Lewis and Frank (2002), Liao (2012), Milliman et al. (2006), Mizrahi et al. (2010), Molina (2018), Nesbit and Reingold (2011), and Tyszkiewicz et al. (2012). Please note, the asterisks in the reference list are to indicate the following: * is to mark articles analyzed and cited in body of the text; ** is to mark articles analyzed but only cited in the note section.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canada Research Chairs programme.