Finnish Military Officer Identities and Micro-Political Resistance

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Finnish Military Officer Identities and Micro-Political Resistance © The Author(s) 2021 Published version Kouri, Suvi Kouri, S. (2022). Finnish Military Officer Identities and Micro-Political Resistance. Armed Forces and Society, 49(1), 160-178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327x211054116 2022 Original Manuscript Armed Forces & Society 2021, Vol. 0(0) 1–19 © The Author(s) 2021 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0095327X211054116 journals.sagepub.com/home/afs Finnish Military Officer Identities and Micro-Political Resistance Suvi Kouri 1  Abstract Drawing on the concept of micro-political resistance, this article presents an empirical analysis of how officers of the Finnish Defence Forces challenge, resist, and reinforce the collective military identities constructed within the prevailing organizational discourses. There is a need for identity work to meet the norms and ideals of the military, but individuals can also work as change agents. Micro-political resistance derives from feelings of othernessaswellasconflict between the dominant organizational identities and individuals’ personal interests. This study presents a thematic discourse analysis based on texts written by 108 officersand12interviewsonthethemeof“the ideal soldier.”Three main discourses of micro-political resistance were identified: perceiving the profession of a military officer as a job like any other rather than a sacred calling, putting family first,andbeing oneself instead of embodying the traditional masculine ideal soldier. Keywords military organization, gender issues, ideal soldier, identity work, military identity, micro-political resistance 1 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyv¨ askyl¨ a, Finland Corresponding Author: Suvi Kouri, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyv¨ askyl¨ a, PO Box 35, Jyvaskyla 40014, Finland. Email: [email protected] An institution is legitimated in terms of values and norms: that is, a purpose transcending individual self-interest in favor of a presumed higher good (Moskos, 1977, p. 42). Introduction According to Moskos et al. (2000), one of the features of what social theorists refer to as the postmodern age is a decreasing consensus about what the public good might be and what values it entails. People are less willing to defer to authorities and more eager to question old truths, often sustained by traditional institutions (Moskos et al., 2000). In terms of military institutions, this development not only affects civil–military relations but also challenges the power of the organizational regulation of military identities. In this study, the concept of micro-political resistance (Davies & Thomas, 2004)is employed to examine discursive forms of resistance, that is, resistance at the level of identities and meanings, as Thomas et al. (2004) phrase it. This study provides insight into the ways in which military officers of the Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) contest organizational identities constructed within the prevailing discourses. Prevailing discourses refer to the social power and control practiced by an organization over the actions and minds of its members (van Dijk, 1996). The concept of micro-political resistance can be defined as subtle forms of disruption in an organizational setting. This derives from feelings of difference and otherness and conflict between the dominant organizational identities and individuals’personal interests (van Dijk, 1996). According to Woodward and Jenkings (2011), traditional military sociological research has paid limited attention to the soldier at the individual level and the conceptualization of individual identity. Even though the military is considered a total institution (Goffman, 1961), it is important to acknowledge that individuals are not passive entities who submit to organizational control and construct their identities accordingly. Individuals are creative agents who shape the organizations they inhabit (Collinson, 2003). This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how power, subjectivity, and agency are negotiated within the rigid framework of a military institution and how individual identities may further the process of change within an organizational culture. Regardless of voluntary subjection to certain forms of organizational control, military officers’identity work is an ongoing process. Military identities are not fixed but are subject to change (Kümmel, 2018). Identities, in general, are socially constituted and expressed (Woodward & Jenkings, 2011). They are contingent and shaped by time and space (Woodward & Jenkings, 2011). This study aims to address the following questions: 1) What kinds of discourses of micro-political resistance can be identified among FDF officers? 2) What kinds of possibilities does micro-political resistance create to practice soldiering when the officers’personal identities and the dominant organizational identities are in conflict? 2Armed Forces & Society 0(0) First, the article begins with a short review of the literature on military identities and how identities are affected by the process of constant change within postmodern militaries. Second, the features of Finnish military officer identities are mapped. Following this, the approach of micro-political resistance used as a theoretical and conceptual framework in this study is presented. The subsequent sections present the method of thematic discourse analysis and the data, consisting of 108 texts and 12 interviews with military officers working in the FDF. The findings section introduces the prevailing discourse of the greater good and three discourses of micro-political resistance: 1) perceiving the profession of a military officer as a job like any other,2) putting family first, and 3) being oneself. Military Identities in Motion Identity theory (IT) has been developed over the past 50 years (Stets et al., 2020). According to IT (Stets et al., 2020), identities are organized in salience hierarchy. Identity salience means the probability of an identity being activated across situations. Stryker (2002 [1980], p. 84) states: “The greater the commitment, the higher the identity salience, the higher the probability that role performance will reflect institutionalized values and norms.”The salience hierarchy of identities is not established, but identities may move up and down within the hierarchy. The salience hierarchy of identities and its dynamic nature may help to understand the constant negotiation of soldierly subjects aiming to find a balance between organizational and personal values, roles, and identities. The construction and formation of military identities are, to a certain extent, influenced by the organization through socialization and training (Kümmel, 2018). According to Kümmel (2018), military organizations have specific role expectations for each individual soldier. The goal of the process of socialization is to internalize these expectations. However, the individual soldier may resist organizational identities, at least in part, and feel that they conflict with their personal identity (Kümmel, 2018). Castells (2010) argues that collective professional identities are becoming more fragile and are being replaced by personal identity work and different ways of practicing a profession. According to Norheim-Martinsen (2016), the image of the military as a “unique organizational entity”needs to be updated. Norheim-Martinsen (2016) states that the security sectors in Europe are becoming increasingly like “normal”organizations with the same dynamics and demands as other public and private organizations. Over the last 20 years, change has become a normal state for European armed forces (Norheim-Martinsen, 2016). When the objective of the militaries was narrowly defined as defending the national territory, the competence requirements for soldiers were mainly related to combat fighting, and their identity followed the ideals of a warrior (Kümmel, 2018). One of the most well-known findings in military sociology is the shift from the combat leader in the early modern period to the managerial technician in the late modern period as the dominant type of military professional (Janowitz, 1960). Postmodern militaries, as Kouri 3 described by Moskos et al. (2000), need a more versatile professional soldier. According to Kümmel (2018, p. 488), they are in search of a hybrid soldier: “He/she is a warrior and a fighter as well as a constable, a policeman, a diplomat and an armed global street worker.”The postmodern professional military officer is required not only to understand the realities of war and combat fighting but also to have knowledge of the local culture when working abroad, language and negotiation skills, the ability to cooperate with both military and civilian actors, social skills, and empathy (Kümmel, 2018). Despite changes in warfare and organizational culture, as well as the new demands and expectations of a postmodern soldier, studies have shown that military organization and military identities also resist change (e.g., Do & Samuels, 2020;Holmberg & Alvinius, 2019;Pendlebury, 2020). Holmberg and Alvinius (2019) argue that certain elements of military organizational characteristics may inhibit some change processes that are expected by the state and public opinion. The so-called normative pressures in terms of changes in values and normalization especially challenge the bureaucratic, hierarchical, narcissistic, and greedy traits of military organizations. Pendlebury (2020) argues that the basis of a dominant identity is rarely questioned in the military context, and contesting dominant identities is often actively discouraged. According to Pendlebury (2020), this partially explains why military identities are so enduring. The explanation according to IT (Stryker (2002 [1980]), would be the individuals’commitment to the organization followed by high identity salience. In his study on the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), Pendlebury (2020) argues that efforts to achieve a representative and inclusive military are decelerated by ideal identities that value “the classical model of the heroic masculine (p. 163).”According to Pendlebury (2020), the warrior ethos is becoming less relevant as technology changes warfare, and only a small number of officers conduct duties related to active combat. An even smaller number fits the mold of a traditional warrior and reinforcing such an exclusive identity in military education may marginalize those who do not fit the frame (Pendlebury, 2020). Do and Samuels (2020) make similar observations in their study on USAFA. The Academy’sofficial guidelines define “warrior ethos”as “tough mindedness, tireless motivation, an unceasing vigilance, [and] willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the country (Do & Samuels, 2020;USAFA, n.d., p. 1).” Men often seem to pursue the valuation of other men when constructing their identities (Collinson, 2003). Masculine identities are typically constructed, negotiated, and achieved through a process of identifying with some men and differentiating themselves from other men and from women (Collinson & Hearn, 1994). According to Giddens (1991), identity is reflexive, and any threat to it may create a sense of ontological insecurity, which one aims to avoid by sustaining coherent biographical narratives. Expanding on this idea, Knights and Willmott (1989,1990) argue that insecurity is an existential condition of identity. The more individuals search for a stable identity and attempt to provide a sense of order, the more likely they are to be threatened by change (Knights & Willmott, 1989,1990). When military identities are constructed through the attempt to maintain order and the appreciation of men, female officers 4Armed Forces & Society 0(0) automatically become “others”who are a threat to men’s sense of self and ontological security. This mechanism of othering also affects men who are, for one reason or another, considered to be outside the desired masculine military ideals. While most Western militaries have moved away from conscription to professional armies (Moskos et al., 2000), Finland has retained conscription as a basis of national defense. This continues to be the main task of the FDF, particularly for geographical reasons. According to Leinonen et al. (2018), this has also retarded the process of professionalization in the FDF. In the following section, the national characteristics of the FDF and Finnish military identities are presented. Finnish Military Identities Before the cadet flag, the symbol of loyalty and bravery, honor and comradeship, I pledge to devote my work and life to the Fatherland. During my cadet years and afterwards may my objective be the liberty of Finland and the felicity of our people. May the heroic memory of our former generations remain sacred to me, and may soldier’s honor be the guiding star of my activities. May the incentives to and objectives of my thoughts and actions always be noble. I will not avoid hard work, battle, suffering or death in order to fulfill this promise. May God help me remain strong on the road of honor. (The Cadet Vow, Liene, 2000, p. 52) According to the latest Annual Report on Personnel (Defence Command, 2020), the officer corps in the FDF consists of 3007 military officers, out of which 84 (2.8%) are women. The average age of the officers is 38.4 years. One of the obvious reasons for the profession of military officer being so heavily male-dominated is male-only conscription. Compulsory military service for men makes the FDF a special institution in Finnish society (Leinonen et al., 2018). Women’s voluntary military service was established in Finland in 1995. It has grown in popularity over the past few years, but the number of female conscripts has remained around 3–5% of the approximately 24,000 annual conscripts (Defence Command, 2020). Completing military service is the only pathway to a career as a professional soldier. In 1992, 1998, 2003, and 2007, a survey was carried out among the officers of the FDF (Hein¨ anen, 2012). These four nearly identical surveys posed questions about officers’ethical conceptions and values. Six different factors were used in the research: officer qualities,pursuit of interests and human weaknesses,idealism,professionalism, traditions, and war and killing. As reported in the 2007 survey, 80% of those surveyed considered the officer profession to be their vocation. This number was lower than in previous years. Nevertheless, vocation appeared to be the most significant reason why individuals chose a career in the military. According to Hein¨ anen (2012), 90% of officers reported being proud of their education and training and expressed having a strong professional identity. Solidarity and loyalty toward other officers were highly regarded among the participants, with 91% of participants supporting this claim. Kouri 5 The factor called traditions described Finnish military officers’strong commitment to military traditions. Hein¨ anen (2012) argues that the significance of officer traditions is at a turning point. The cadet vow (the significance of the cadet vow) has traditionally been seen as the most important and binding pledge for a military officer. However, the significance of the cadet in everyday life was considered controversial among the participants, and there was a clear division: 43% of them felt that they obeyed the vow, while 40% felt they did not follow it in their everyday lives (Hein¨ anen, 2012). Hein¨ anen also examined officers’relationship with work and leisure. He found that although officers’commitment to the institution had become weaker, their professionalism had grown. Being a soldier was considered to be more of a job like any other, rather than something that guides and defines all aspects of life. Organizational control and normalization as forms of power are mentioned explicitly in the goals of training and education offered by the Finnish National Defence University (NDU). The General Staff Officer Course is a course for officers who aim to hold the highest positions in the military. The NDU website describes the course objectives as follows: The specific responsibility of the Postgraduate Programme is to educate and train General Staff Officer Students to become General Staff Officers who have internalized the military behavior and norms in order to serve their country. (NDU, 2021) It is explicitly expressed that the behavior and norms are not just performed but they are expected to be a part of the officer’s personal values and identity. The institution is not satisfied with controlling the employee’s professional identity but aims to create a coherent identity where professional and personal are the same entity. The process of normalization starts during military service and continues through cadet school and even in upper-level courses practiced upon officers of higher ranks. Once an individual internalizes organizational norms and values, there is no more need for external control—the individual controls themself and often other members of the same community as well. Identity work is a necessity in almost every human activity and a significant medium as well as an outcome of organizational control (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). Nevertheless, the organizational regulation and molding of employee identity are balanced with other influential institutions and elements of life history. Furthermore, organizational control does not necessarily increase employee commitment and loyalty, but it may catalyze resistance (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002). Micro-political Resistance Resistance in the workplace is often framed within a worker–management dialectic and understood as a negative form of disruption in an organizational setting (Davies & Thomas, 2004). According to Thomas et al. (2004), a number of studies during the late 1980s and early 1990s suggested that workplace resistance had declined. Julkunen 6Armed Forces & Society 0(0) (2008) argues that collective and organized forms of workplace resistance, in particular, such as strikes, have decreased everywhere during the past decades. Sociological research on work has become more interested in more individual, subtle, secret, hidden, and unorganized forms of resistance (Julkunen, 2008). According to Julkunen (2008), there are always reasons and places for resistance; where there is power, there is resistance. Resistance enables and creates room for autonomy even though it is restricted in the workplace (Julkunen, 2008). This study adopts poststructuralist feminist theorizing of resistance. Instead of seeing resistance as something negative, the emphasis is on a generative paradigm of individual agency (Davies & Thomas, 2004). The agency lies in the individual challenging the prevailing organizational discourses and the gendered subject positions offered by them by presenting spaces for alternative meanings and subjectivities. Davies and Thomas (2004) call this “micro-political resistance.”According to Thomas et al. (2004, p. 6), “This offers an agential self, a thinking subject with the will and capacity to resist through the reflection upon, and challenging of, the hegemonic ways of being, offered in the dominant discourse.” The concept of micro-political resistance may be used to illustrate more subtle and hidden forms of disruption, which should not be overlooked as forms of individual agency. According to Kondo (1991), small everyday practices in the workplace and resisting hegemonic ideologies usually tend to go unnoticed, even though they can be observed as political acts. Thomas et al. (2004) argue that small-scale change can trigger larger-scale changes and question the dichotomy of micro-political and collective forms of resistance. Data and Methodology This study reviewed 108 texts written by military officers in the FDF and thematic interviews with 12 of them. At the time of data collection, the respondents were approximately 30–40 years old and had worked in the FDF for 10–15 years. All the respondents had attended or were attending a career course at the NDU. Attending the Senior Staff Officer Course (SSOC) or applying to the General Staff Officer Course (GSOC) determines an officer’s future career prospects and has a huge effect on their personal life as well. Attending the GSOC gives an officer the opportunity to reach the highest ranks of the FDF. It also means that the officer will be re-stationed in a 2-year cycle. This can cause a lot of strain on the officer’s family, which is one of the most common reasons why officers choose to attend the SSOC instead of the GSOC. The SSOC lasts for 5 months, whereas the GSOC is a 2-year course. The period during which officers ponder the question of whether to apply to the GSOC or attend the SSOC is also a time of critical reflection on one’s professional identity, career aspirations, and the significance of one’s family or personal life in general. At this stage of their careers, officers are about to gain more power and a more privileged position in the military hierarchy, as they become middle managers after completing either of the courses. Kouri 7 Both the courses were visited and around 160 students were reached (around 80 per course) and 57 students from GSOC and 51 students from SSOC sent their short texts about the officers’conceptions of the ideal soldier to participate in this study. As a part of data collection for this study, the students were given 30 minutes to write about how they perceive themselves in relation to the ideal soldier and how their career and other aspects of their lives have influenced their conceptions. There were only a few women in the courses. Eight of the texts were written by women, while the rest (n = 100) were written by men. Majority of the texts were from half a page to one page long, but some consisted of a few sentences or a short list of preferred qualities for the ideal soldier. In addition to the texts, thematic interviews were conducted with eight of the male participants and four of the female participants. The interviewees were selected based on their texts and their expressed willingness to be interviewed. A standardized interview guide was used as a starting point but also the themes that arose from the respondents’texts were discussed. The interviewees represented a wide range of different conceptions of the ideal soldier. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The duration varied from 45 minutes to a little more than 2 hours. All responses have been translated from Finnish to English by the author. Thematic discourse analysis (TDA) (Braun & Clarke, 2021) was used in this study to examine what kinds of military identities were constructed in and through discourse—both dominant and resistant. Discourse analysis views language as social practice and is helpful in identifying the discursive production of personhood and subject positions (Braun & Clarke, 2021). Through TDA socially produced patterns and themes could be identified from the data. The key themes were guided by the theoretical and conceptual choices as well as the overall research questions posed to the data. According to Braun and Clarke (2021) the phases of thematic analysis are familiarization, coding, generating initial themes, reviewing, and developing themes, refining, defining, and naming themes, and writing up—and repeat when necessary. All of the 108 texts were reviewed, and initial discursive themes and codes were identified. The 12 transcribed interviews were used to deepen the understanding of the identified themes. The themes were then categorized into codewords according to similar content. The codewords were highlighted and counted. Based on these codewords, a prevailing discourse was identified, as well as discourses in which dominant discourses were resisted. The quotations included in the findings section were selected from both the texts and interviews; “W”indicates a written response, while “I”indicates an interview response. Somewhat unexpectedly there were no significant differences between the responses of SSOC and GSOC students—not even concerning the balance between work and family life. Therefore, the course is not mentioned in the quotations. In terms of anonymity, the less information about the respondents was provided, the better. This concerned especially female respondents who were few in number. The presented quotations do not represent the whole data or any ideal types but serve to illustrate the prevailing discourse, discourses of micro-political resistance, and the way the respondents constructed alternative meanings and identities. 8Armed Forces & Society 0(0) and organizational roles in conflict. As collective professional identities are becoming more fragile (Castells, 2010) and constant change is becoming a dominant feature of postmodern militaries (e.g., Moskos et al., 2000), there seems to be more space for resistance as well as alternative identities. From the data collected in this study, a dominant discourse (the greater good) and three micro-political discourses were identified. First, perceiving the profession of a military officer as a job like any other instead of a sacred calling that should not be openly discussed or criticized. Second, putting family first instead of work, regardless of the gender of the officer. Third, being oneself instead of performing the traditional role of a masculine warrior. The findings show that the micro-political resistance of military officers in the FDF derives from both men’s and women’s experiences of being “other.”Women are automatically othered in military discourse because of their gender. The feeling of otherness among men derives from personal features that somehow do not meet the norms and ideals of a military officer. These feelings of otherness force officers to search for alternative subject positions instead of adopting those offered by the prevailing organizational discourses. The discourses of micro-political resistance identified in this study reflect changes in the norms and values of Finnish society, such as individualism and a more equal division of parenting responsibilities. When a military organization resists normative changes (Holmberg & Alvinius, 2019) or adopts them too slowly, individuals within that organization feel the need to resolve the conflict between the norms and values. As seen in the data, the participants in this study were highly committed to the military organization and therefore needed to develop a strategy to be able to continue to work as professional officers. Resistance to the dominant at the level of the individual subject is the first stage in the production of alternative forms of knowledge or where such alternatives already exist, of winning individuals over to these discourses and gradually increasing their social power. (Weedon, 1993,p.111) To be effective in a military context, micro-political resistance calls for solidarity between officers regardless of gender and especially supporting those who are more marginalized. By engaging in collective acts of solidarity and by gaining more power in the organizational hierarchy, officers who are changing meanings at the microlevel might also act as change agents in terms of the organizational culture of the military. This study participates in the discussion concerning military identities and presents insight into the ways relatively enduring military identities could be challenged and changed. It is most directly applicable to other Nordic militaries with conscription and a common framework of welfare society (see, e.g., Johansen et al., 2014). Perhaps even more interesting would be to examine how micro-political resistance is enacted within professional militaries. Kouri 15 Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Aida Alvinius and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and encouraging comments. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. ORCID iD Suvi Kouri https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3578-096X Note 1. I (N. N.) promise and affirm before the almighty and all-knowing God/by my honor and by my conscience that I am a trustworthy and faithful citizen of the state of Finland. I want to serve my country honestly and, to my best ability, seek and pursue her edification and advantage. I want everywhere and in every situation, during peace and during war, to defend the inviolability of my country, her legal system of government and the legal authority of the Republic. If I perceive or gain knowledge of activity to overthrow the legal authority or to subvert the system of government of the country, I want to report it to the authorities without delay. The unit to which I belong and my place in it I will not desert in any situation, but so long as I have strength in me, I will completely fulfil the task I have received. I promise to act honorably and with integrity, obey my superiors, comply with laws, and decrees and keep the service secrets entrusted to me. I want to be forthright and helpful to my fellow service members. Never will I due to kinship, friendship, envy, hatred, or fear nor because of gifts or for any other reason act contrary to my duty. If I am given a position of command, I want to be just to my subordinates, to take care of their well-being, acquire information on their wishes, to be their mentor and guide and, for my part, set them a good and encouraging example. All this I want to fulfil according to my honor and my conscience. 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Routledge. 18 Armed Forces & Society 0(0) Weedon, C. (1993). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory (2nd edn). Blackwell. Woodward, R., & Jenkings, K. N. (2011). Military identities in the situated accounts of British military personnel. Sociology,45(2), 252–268. https://doi.org/10.1177% 2F0038038510394016. Author Biography Suvi Kouri is a doctoral researcher in sociology at the University of Jyv¨ askyl¨ a (Finland) and a former military chaplain of the Finnish Defence Forces. Her research interests include gender and military, the notion of the ideal soldier and transformations of military culture. Kouri 19