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http://afs.sagepub.com/content/34/4/593The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X073120902008 34: 593 originally published online 18 January 2008Armed Forces & Society

Edna Lomsky-Feder, Nir Gazit and Eyal Ben-AriMilitary Worlds

Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants : Moving between the Civilian and

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593

Authors Note: We thank the participants at a workshop on The Military and Reserve Soldiers held at

the Hebrew University in March 2002; the NATO ARW on Systemic Comparison of Professional and

Conscript Forces held in Bratislava, December 2003; Professor Patricia Shields, the editor ofArmed

Forces & Society; and two anonymous reviewers for very useful comments and discussions pertaining to

this article.

Armed Forces & Society

Volume 34 Number 4

July 2008 593-614

2008 Inter-University

Seminar on Armed Forces and

Society. All rights reserved.

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Reserve Soldiers as

Transmigrants

Moving between the Civilian

and Military Worlds

Edna Lomsky-Feder

Nir Gazit

Eyal Ben-AriThe Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This article suggests a new perspective for examining the particular social and organi-

zational characteristics of military reserves forces and the special experiences of serv-

ing in the reserves. To illustrate the unique social position of reservists, the authors

develop a theoretical model that likens them to transmigrants. Accordingly, the authors

suggest that society may benefit from looking at reserves both as sorts of social and

organizational hybrids or amalgamsthey are soldiers and civilians, they are outside

yet inside the military system, and are invested in both spheresand as continual

migrants journeying between military and civilian spheres. The authors end by suggest-

ing that it may be fruitful to study three segments of the military, each of which has its

own dynamics: regulars, conscripts, and reserves. This differentiation allows society to

examine different patterns of motivation, cohesion, political commitment and aware-

ness, and long-term considerations that characterize each segment.

Keywords: Reserves; Reserve Service; transmigrants; civilmilitary relations

In an article published a decade and a half ago inArmed Forces & Society, Walkerobserved that reserve forces are an enigma, a puzzle that has confounded militaryleaders for decades.1 Integrating and synthesizing previous scholarly work, in this

article we suggest a reconceptualization of the particular social and organizational

characteristics of military reserve forces and the special experiences of serving in the

reserves. Through offering a new theoretical framework for understanding such forces

and their experiences, we hope to shed light on the enigma that Walker refers to. In

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594 Armed Forces & Society

a previous article, we reviewed the scholarly literature on reserve forces and proposed

that the peculiar incongruent character of such units lies in their being betwixt and

between the military and civilian sectors of a society.2

In this article, we develop a more complex theoretical model of reserve forces and

the experience of being in the reserves by likening reservists to transmigrants. Our

reasoning is that while conceptualizing reserve forces as being betwixt and between

the civilian and military worlds underscores their structural duality, the picture taken

from the world of migration introduces a much more dynamic and processual empha-

sis to this structural characterization. The advantage of such a conceptualization thus

lies in illuminating how reserves constantly travel, mediate, and sometimes create

critical perspectives between the army and wider civilian society. As such, reserves

reflect changing approaches toward the military in wider society, express attitudes tomilitary service that are different from those of conscripts or regulars, and carry special

resources that other military groups do not have. Accordingly, we suggest that we may

benefit from looking at reserves both as sorts of social and organizational amalgams

they are soldiers and civilians, they are outside yet inside the military system, and

are invested in both spheresand as continual migrants journeying between military

and civilian spheres. Moreover, by moving between these two worlds, reservists are

mediums for a constant flow of ideas, identities, and social links between them.

Let us trace out our theoretical position to frame a basis for the rest of that analysis.

In an essay written thirty years ago, Willet described a major structural tension char-acterizing the relations between the regular (or active) military and its reserve forces.3

Using a functionalist framework, he suggested that such forces as the Militia in Canada,

the Territorial Army in Britain, or the National Guard in the United States are inte-

grated as organizations with both the military and civilian sectors of a given society.

Some fifteen years later, using data primarily related to the United States, Walker

underscored the peculiar dilemmas of using reservists for military missions because

of their unique position within the military and outside of it. While not explicitly stated

as such, their arguments imply that as individuals, reservists are simultaneously

civilians and soldiers, and that reserve forces take on features of both military andcivilian organizations. While these insights are crucial for understanding the nature

of reserve forces, they are essentially static.

In this article, we therefore add a dynamic or processual dimension to the analysis.

Theoretically, we proceed from earlier work carried out by two Israeli scholars. Lissak

and Horowitz proposed that the character of the armed forces could be understood

in terms of the kinds of permeable boundaries that exist between it and the state

and various social groups within civil society, allowing the wider social system to

continue functioning under conditions of stress and strain.4 The concept of perme-

able boundaries led Lissak and Horowitz to focus on those areas or sites of friction,interaction, and linkages between actors within and outside of the military and on the

mutual influence and dilution of the more extreme orientations of both spheres.

But because the overwhelming stress within this approach was on institutions and on



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elites, little was said (or asked) about the potential for rupture, critique, and resistance

potentiated by permeable boundaries. While they did, along the functionalist lines

suggested by Willet and Walker, indicate that reserve forces could operate as a socialmechanism mediating the civil and military spheres, they did not carry out a system-

atic study of the reserves as a unique social and organizational institution. Furthermore,

while they focused on institutions and elites, we go on to examine the structural

movement of groups and social actors between the two spheres and the subjective

experiences of individualsthe reservistsmoving between these worlds. What we

suggest is that it is precisely within those zones of friction and interaction between

the military and civilian parts of society that the structural fluidity, potential for con-

flict, and processual nature of reserve forces can best be understood. To be clear,

while our analysis is also rooted in the structural position of reservists, our perspec-tive is much more processual that the one proposed by scholars in the past: we stress

the constant movement of reservists between the two spheres, the interrelationships

between different agents in these spheres, and we focus on the practices that are used

by reservists and those actors they come into interaction with. In other words, our

perspective allows us to explore reserve forces not only in terms of organizational

structures and social arrangements, but as being part of a dynamic field of action

within which reservists negotiate various issues with the military.

We begin by sketching out the assumptions and guiding questions in previous

research about reserve forces. We then go on to explore four sets of concerns: the con-ceptualization of reserves soldiers as transmigrants who move between two worlds;

the kinds of tensions and negotiations that develop between regulars and reserves; the

implicit or psychological contract struck between reservists and the military; and,

using the case of Israel, the distinctive organizational and cultural dynamics charac-

terizing reserve service. Our data is based on secondary sources and cases related to

the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the U.S. military, the armed forces of Western Europe,

and (occasionally) the military institutions of the democracies of East Asia. Even

though these diverse militaries are different from each other in scale, features, goals,

and experience in actual conflicts, our aim in placing them together is theoretical: toclarify the special character of reserves in contrast to conscripts or regulars.

The Scholarly Study of the Reserves: Assumptionsand Guiding Questions

By reserves we refer to the forces that during routine times stand outside the regu-

lar military organizational system but can be relatively easily mobilized in times of

emergency. The mobilization of reserves is rather rapid because, unlike conscripts,they have already been trained and thus do not need long periods of time to reach a

level suitable for deployment. Reserves have existed in a variety of forms for the past

few hundreds of years with the most notable examples being civil militias.5 At the

Lomsky-Feder et al. / Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants 595



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conclusion of the cold war, many countries decided to downsize their armed forces,

including their reserve components.6 Downsizing was reinforced by demands for cuts

in security budgets, technological developments in war fighting necessitating differ-ent training and skills on the part of soldiers, and the engagement of troops in non-

traditional military missions (such as peacekeeping or humanitarian operations).7

At the same time, reserve forces continue to exist around the world, and in many

cases represent extensive fractions of a given countrys total military strength. Thus,

for example, in the United States, reserves make up 47 percent of the total force, run

to about 1.3 million men and women, and are considered an integral part of the coun-

trys strategic forces.8 They also make up some 40 percent of the American forces

deployed in Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and about one-quarter of the American

dead soldiers in Afghanistan.9

In Britain, the reserve component has actually grownsomewhat in the past decade or so to 320,000 soldiers making up about 52 percent

of the nations total force, and is also considered an integral part of the countrys

defense planning.10 In Germany, the end of the cold war brought about a dramatic

decrease of 50 percent in the reserve force and today it encompasses about 390,000

persons.11 In ways similar to the case of Switzerland, from their beginnings the reserves

in Israel were conceived of not as simple auxiliary forces tasked with secondary

tasks, but rather as full-fledged units and the only way that Israel as a small nation

could offset the demographic imbalance with its neighbors.12 Thus, although consid-

erably downsized, reserve components still comprise the bulk of Israels forces.13

Like Israel, the Taiwanese reserves are seen as the primary military component in

times of national emergency and according to some estimates they number about

three million soldiers.14

Despite reserves continuing to provide substantial shares in the total forces of

Western militaries, it is surprising how relatively little scholarly attention has been

devoted to them. Even a cursory review of the social scientific literature on the mili-

tary reveals that the overwhelming amount of research during the past decades has

been carried out on the standing army, comprised of regulars or conscripts. Accordingly,

a recent wide-ranging anthology on the sociology of the military does not carry evenone article on, or related to, the reserves.15 Furthermore, since the publication of the

edited volume by Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins on supplementary forces, no compa-

rable comprehensive volume devoted to the reserves has been issued.16 To be sure,

analyses of reserve forces do appear in such contexts as American discussions of the

model of total force17 or many countries debates about the costs and benefits of

downsizing.18 And indeed,Armed Forces & Society has published a number of articles

focusing on issues related to reserves, such as the impact of deployment on the reten-

tion of military reservists, the integration of, and support for, these soldiers families,

the willingness of decision makers to consider casualties among reservists,19

orIsraeli reservists motivations or the weakening of the idea of the IDF as a peoples

army.20 But when compared to the sheer amount of preoccupation with issues related

to standing armies, conscripts, regulars, senior commanders, or civilmilitary relations,

one cannot but be struck by the dearth of studies about reserves.




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As we previously showed, in many countries, popular imaginings and academic

treatises tend to center on three main images: young recruits (often conscripts) serv-

ing in combat roles, somewhat older professionals in field units, and senior comman-ders at the head of large formations.21 Good examples of predominant images of

citizen soldiers who were called up for national service and then return to their civil-

ian lives can found in such historical volumes asBand of Brothers22 or The Deadly

Brotherhood.23 During the cold war, the stress in much of the historical and social

scientific literature was on conscripts while today (with the termination of conscrip-

tion in most industrialized countries) it is overwhelmingly regulars that are studied.

In addition, a good deal of the sociological study of the military has centered on such

issues as civilmilitary relations,24 professionalism,25 and professional selection.26

These kinds of scholarly foci derive from three basic assumptions.First, because conscription was to a great degree the definer of citizenship and

national identity for many years and in many countries, many social scientists have

tended to focus (often unquestioningly) on such troops as both normative and social

scientific ideals. These young men seemed to somehow represent the epitome of sol-

diering in many societies. Indeed, in Israel this view was especially strong given the

strong cultural stress on linking youth, Zionist ideals, and conscription as the essence

of service to the country.27 Along these lines, the overwhelming majority of works

published about Israels armed forces tends to concentrate on soldiers in their com-

pulsory term of service. Even when scholars have interviewed reservists, it is usuallythese soldiers period of conscription that has interested them. Lieblich, for instance,

interviewed reservists but was interested in the ways that the experience of compul-

sory enlistment was related to their maturation.28 Similarly, while Ben-Ari investi-

gated a unit of reserve soldiers, he analyzed the ideals of soldiering common to all

parts of the IDF.29

The second assumption that many scholars have adopted originates in the self-

image of almost all regular military personnel that they are the true professionals.

This assumption implies the idea that military skills demand a degree of expertise

acquired only through lengthy, institutionalized training and thus that reserveslikeother supplementary forces such as paramilitary units, border patrol police, civil

guards, or local defense unitscannot be considered truly professional.30 This

kind of stress has been boosted with the move toward much more technologically

advanced militaries in which, it is assumed, supplementary forces cannot compete

with regulars in terms of skills and proficiency. What is of significance in these cir-

cumstances is the very choice made by scholars about what merits or is worthy of

scholarly attention. To put this point simply, but not incorrectly, the governing idea

has been that if one wants to study the military then the regulars are the prime site

for doing so.This point is reinforced by a closely related third assumption that the dominant

organizational culture of the military is dictated by the hard core of the military,

the regulars. This assumption seems to imply that when conscripts and reserves are




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mobilized they routinely internalize the dominant ethos and culture of the regulars.

To be sure, while recent years are marked by a greater awareness of the cultures of

different units (for example, the difference between field or support units, or the dis-tinction between the army and air force), as of yet there has been almost no scholarly

attention paid to the variations between different experiences of soldiering (conscripts,

regulars, and reserves). This point should be understood against the background of

the tendency found among almost all of the psychological and socialpsychological

disciplines to focus on individuals at the expense of an analysis of the context within

which they live and work.31 As a consequence of these trends, Moskos older conclu-

sions still hold: while the study of reserves has not remained a terra incognita, there

is still a dearth of sustained studies.32

Against this background, we suggest that the assumptions placing the analysis ofreserve forces at the periphery of military sociology paradoxically underscore the

uniqueness of reservists and the (social and theoretical) challenge that they pose: they

are not young conscripts undergoing a nationalized period of their lives, nor regulars

who are full-time soldiers. Rather, while they do serve for many years in military

contexts they are also very much rooted in the civilian sphere. These are not soldiers

whose lives are almost totally appropriated by the armed forces but troops who are

involved only partially. They are also not professionals in the proper sense of the

word but often their military work draws on their civilian experience and knowledge.

Finally, their social status may be anchored in contexts outside the military. Thus, aswe shall see, the peculiarity of reserve service lies in its dynamic elements: reservists

constantly move between dimensions of space and time and mediate social contexts

of involvement and knowledge.

Reservists as Transmigrants:Moving between Worlds

Why use the image of transmigrants to characterize the peculiar features of mili-tary reserves? At a minimum, transmigration refers to some combination of plural

membership in social groups or social networks, and cultural identities reaching

across and linking people and institutions in two or more nation-states in diverse pat-

terns.33 Probably more than any other area in the social sciences, the study of trans-

migration focuses on the flow of people, identities, and ideas between different worlds.

In contrast to classic studies of migration that examined the movement of migrants

as unidirectional, linear, and teleological, the movement of contemporary migrants

between worlds is often circular and continual.34 Thus, to illuminate the special char-

acter and dynamics of reserve soldiers, we suggest likening them to transmigrants,those migrants who have (at least) two permanent homes in different countries and

who more or less regularly travel between them. We make this suggestion because,

like transmigrants, reservists move between different cultural and social spaces and




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as a result create the potential for communities and social networks that cross politi-

cal, social, and organizational boundaries and form conduits for the flow of ideas,

interests, and identities. To be clear, we are not arguing that reserve service andtransmigration are identical social situations. We do contend that this analogy under-

scores the dynamic, dualistic, and dialectical aspects of the structural position of

reservists and their personal experiences. In other words, the value of this conceptu-

alization lies in its power to illuminate how reservists as civilianssoldiers cross

boundaries and obliges us to analyze the implications of being rooted simultaneously

in and moving between two worlds.

By likening reservists to transmigrants, we propose a number of insights derived

from the research in migration studies and then develop them in our text. The first

point is the idea that they are a special group that constantly travels, mediates, orchallenges between the army and wider civilian society. Second, we suggest that they

are a military group whose identity consists of both civil and martial elements. Third,

when applied to the case of reservists, this imagery underscores the special poten-

tials and threats that such soldiers represent for the standing army. Fourth and finally,

the idea of transmigration underscores the processual nature of their lives involving

continuous mobilization, service, demobilization, civilian life, and mobilization yet

again. In this respect, however, the likening of reservists to transmigrants calls atten-

tion to their double construction of time. Reservists move in circular patterns of

mobilization and demobilization but also along developmental lines rooted in theirlife course. Just as transmigrants are never the same when they visit their homelands,

so reservists are different each time they enter service.

Mediation: Civilizing and Softening the Military

To begin with, like transmigrants, a number of scholars have noted that when acti-

vated, many reservists bring into the military the resources, skills, and abilities of

their civilian occupations and specializations.35 Indeed, according to American reports,

the most successful military occupations staffed by reservists during the Gulf War ofthe early 1990s were ones most closely linked to civilian specializations.36 More

generally, members of the reserves bring with them into military life valued civilian

experience.37 To give one example, reservists familiarity with organizational inno-

vations outside the military (in civilian workplaces) may be a source of innovation

within the armed forces. Thus, Williams, a marine reservist with expertise in teach-

ing, found himself instructing his fellows using his proficiency in education.38 Along

the same lines, reservists may bring certain standards of civilian management, exper-

tise, knowledge, and methods with them into the military. As we shall see, however,

from the point of view of the regulars, the importation of more civilian managementknowledge and values may weaken the institutional side of the military.

Furthermore, reservists may be better suited for missions that involve policing and

peacekeeping since they are older and perhaps less aggressive and more tolerant.




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A very good example is the IDFs action in the second Al-Aqsa Intifada. As a response

to strong public criticism about what was happening at checkpoints, it established a

special unit of reserve volunteers specializing in the handling of Palestinian civilians.The role of this unit has been to act as a moderating force for conscripts who usually

staff these checkpoints.39 Another example taken from the IDF are the units comprised

exclusively of reserve officers who announce the death of soldiers to their families.

Here again the assumption is that it is such older individuals who have the maturity

to handle such difficult circumstances.40

In addition, as Willett proposed, reserves involve a link between the civilian pop-

ulation and the military.41 Reservists as individuals, and the associations to which

they often belong, often break down the civilmilitary gap and incorporate the military

into parts of wider society. This role seems to be of especial importance given thestrong antinational and antimilitaristic movements and sentiments that characterize

many Western countries and Japan.42 Walker also indicated that most Americans

come in direct contact with military forces only through their local reserve units.43

In other words, in this capacity reservists can act as mediators between the army and

civil society.44 Doing away with reserve forces may thus reinforce a homogeneous

political ideology within the regular armed forces and make control of their actions

actually more difficult.45 A concrete example is Germany. German reservists, like

conscripts, are seen as an important go-between mediating the armed forces and

wider society. From the point of view of the armed forces, such people may act asimage-bearers or spokespersons giving the military a positive image.46 Conversely,

reservists may be seen as cultural carriers introducing military, martial values and

considerations into the civilian part of a given society.

The next point seems especially pertinent to current concerns around the world.

The deputy head of the Inter-allied Confederation of Reserve Officers stated that

reserve officers associations can act as mediators between the state and civil society

by advocating and explaining responsible, democratic government policies within

the public domain.47 More importantly, this role might now be extended to new

countries that have recently democratized such as Poland, Hungary, or the CzechRepublic. Gerry goes further to point out that reserve officers may well address and

teach army regulars about democratic institutions, procedures, and legislation.48 In

this way, reserves may break down the isolation of regulars by not allowing them to

become a caste apart with its own political orientations and priorities.49

As in Germany, so in Japan the threat of the nondemocratic potential of the mil-

itary is one that has a historical precedent and is evident in contemporary society in

a widely shared suspicion that antidemocratic forces are afoot . . . seeking to exploit

the security issue to engineer a reactionary takeover.50 While the existence of reserve

forces does not guarantee a democratic potential, they do not constitute a separatepurposive organization which threatens the legitimacy of the civil authority, from

which they do not usually form, as does the regular military, a detached status group.51

It is precisely this role of reserves as thwarting the potential sectorialization of the




10/23

regular army that stands at base of the arguments of people who oppose the transfor-

mation of the IDF into a small professional army.52

To be clear, we are not making a simple argument that some reservists may bebetter situated to act as intermediaries. Rather, our more general point is that like

transmigrants belonging to two societies, the very structural position of reservists in

between the civilian and military sectors facilitates their potential role as mediators.

To be sure, there are other mechanisms that carry out such roles (local-level politi-

cians, recruitment officers, or the public relations departments of military arms and

units). What is peculiar to reservists then again is their dual rootedness in two

worlds: they are the only players with a firmly planted foot in both the civilian and

military realms.

Double Vision: Challenging the Military World

A major feature of reserve service is the experience of constant mobilization and

demobilization. Williams brings this out vividly for the case of U.S. Marine reservists.53

After returning home from basic training, he comments:

This was my first of many recurring experiences with a process I call reintegration

the mental, physical, and emotional transition from being in a combat-ready Marine

mode to society-ready civilian mode. Active-duty Marines experience reintegration

briefly, if at all, as they pass through hometowns during their ten-day period of

leave. . . . There is little time, and even less necessity for them to return to civilian ways

of thinking, feeling, and acting. . . . Our drill instructors had not prepared us for the

process of reintegration . . . because it is a phenomenon that is unique to reservists.

Analytically speaking, this constant movement maylike the shifting of transmi-

grants between different homesbring about much more critical thinking about

what is going on within the military. Like migrants going back home,54 so reservists

often do not accept what goes on around them as taken for granted and are thus may-

be more challenging of established arrangements than are conscripts and regulars.The idea here is that reservists have a special kind of double vision (or double con-

sciousness): they see things in and about the military organization that people from

inside it or outside it do not see (or do not want to see).

This situation implies that reservists can sometimes act as powerful monitors of

the standing military and hold it accountable for certain actions that external regula-

tors cannot. This special power, we suggest, derives from the fact that the movement

between homes may potentially lead to what are, from a phenomenological point

of view, more unconventional interpretations of reality. But this movement also leads

to a greater relative independence of reservists from military control. Thus, while reg-ulars have strong vested interests in the military organization in terms of their careers

and identity, conscripts tend to be heavily dependent on the institution. Reservists,




11/23

however, because of their dual allegiance to different groups, may be less accountable

to the military hierarchy: they are simultaneously special soldiers and special

civilians. The critical potential of reservists is very striking in the case of Israel.Since the war in 1973, reservists have often led social movements critiquing military

blunders or the moral actions of IDF soldiers.55 Moreover, what is frequently impor-

tant in this regard is that it is reserve service itself, most often in combat units, which

is used as a justification for voicing criticisms. In other words, it is out of a commit-

ment to the military that many reservists feel that they can and should critique IDF

actions.56

More widely, our point is that civiliansoldiers may thus be much more sensitive

to public opinion about the rationale for committing forces to combat and the moral

implications of their military actions. At the same time, however, the other side ofwhat may be termed the regulatory or critical potential of the reserves may involve

the acceptance of the official militarys line by the reservists and their transformation

into informal lobbyists for this point of view. The sociological implication of this sit-

uation is that reserves service at once both reproduces social conceptions about the

militaryit clearly replicates hierarchies and is based on martial considerations

and has a subversive potential to undermine these very pecking orders and concerns.

Legitimacy and the Service of Reservists

Most policies related to the recruitment and retention of reservists focus on issues

of compensation. Yet given that the military (along with the police) is the organiza-

tion most strongly identified with the legitimate use of violence,57 there are certain

institutional aspects related to their deployment. This was the idea that lay at the base

of the American model of total force.58 The plan was that in a force mingling regulars

and reservists, no more wars would be fought without popular support: politicians

would only use the reserves under conditions of widespread public backing. Along

these lines, Brown and Merrill report that there is much more need for public approval

for the deployment of reserves than there is for the assignment of regulars.59

We findsimilar situations in Britain where political decision makers need clear guarantees

those very serious interests are at stake to mobilize reservists. From military leaders

point of view, these kinds of emphases are part of the importance of new criteria for

assessing military exploits,60 and changing public attitudes toward the use of force

and the perpetration of violence.61 In other words, alongside their potential role criti-

cizing the military, reservists can also grant the armed forces and their missions a great

measure of legitimacy and acceptance.

These insights are further reinforced when the Israeli case is examined. A number

of scholars have argued that the effectiveness of armies based on the militia systemas in Israelis based on the existence of a wide consensus over security matters.62

These are the considerations that lay behind the decision not to use reservists when the

IDF occupied southern Lebanon. To complicate matters further, however, reservists




12/23

are not only negative limiting factors because their very presence may grant a mili-

tary action legitimacy and justification. Thus, in the IDFs Operation Defensive

Shield in the Occupied Territories that came in the wake of a spate of terror attacksin 2002, the sight of reservists and the fact that reservists were killed in action

was part of the way in which the acceptability of the operation was created. Indeed,

our wider contention is that it is precisely because reservists belong not only to the

military realm but also to the civilian one that their role as legitimating agents is so

potentially important.

Regulars and Reservists: Tensions

and Negotiations

It is the dual potential of reserves (embedded as it is in the interlaced movement

between worlds), that lies at the base of the relations between regulars and reservists.

Just as transmigrants coming back to one of their homes, so reservists sometimes

understand that they are strangers to what was their home in the past and may perceive

themselves as not being fully part of this local world. The locals, in our case members

of the regular force, thus may look on the transmigrants with ambivalence or suspicion.

Commentators around the world have noted the suspicious, often critical attitude that

regulars show toward reserves.63

Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins mention that reservesare sometimes viewed as marginal organizations within the structure of national

armed forces.64 Similarly, Moskos pointed out that reservists in Operation Iraqi

Freedom felt they were treated as second-class members of the army, because of

inadequate training and poorer equipment compared to the active duty forces.65 And

Pritchard reports that reservists attached to regular U.S. Marine forces felt that the

latter considered that they were somehow better than the reserve community.66

Long ago, Bennell noted that regulars often critiqued reserves because of skill

fade, the reservists rapid loss of military technical skills.67 In France, they are

considered to be only part-time professionals, indicating that they are somehowdeficient in their professionalism,68 and Sarkesian and Connor note that some degree

of friction between the standing army and the militia has been characteristic of the

U.S. armed forces for long periods of time.69 One example that has been cited recently

concerns the roundout brigades of the American National Guard that were deployed

during the Gulf War of the 1990s but which were seen by many generals as ill-

prepared to go directly into combat.70 In Britain and the United States, an added prob-

lem is the disinclination of employers to support reservists and the latters reluctance

to leave workplaces during conditions of high unemployment.71 Underlying such

worries on the part of regulars may be a suspicion about whether reservists will,indeed, turn up: whether they are committed to the same extent as regulars. It is no

surprise then, that reserves in the United States have been characterized by regulars

as no more than fillers72 or indeed Spare Parts.73




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These kinds of reservations are based on deep-rooted assumptions mentioned

before: about the practice of military skills demanding a degree of expertise that can

only be acquired through extensive training in the highly institutionalized settings ofthe standing army. Thus, from the point of view of regulars, the importation of more

civilian management knowledge and values by reservists may actually weaken the

institutional side of the military. In other words, because of the militarys expertise

in the management of violence, it has developed a special set of social structures and

dynamics, and necessitates different kinds of training, incentive structures, and career

paths for its personnel than is found in the civilian sphere.

The worry, from the perspective of regulars, is that reservists may be deficient in

these characteristics. Indeed, this potential, albeit phrased differently, is at the base

of Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins contentions about the citizensoldier whom theycharacterize as an individualist, unimpressed with rank, and to whom the rituals and

rules of the professional militarist are irrelevant and unnecessary.74 Along these lines

and furthermore, whereas maturity and tolerance that reservists may show can be

positive contributions to forces dealing with civilians, such qualities may actually

lead to reduced combat effectiveness. Accordingly, rhetoric aside, reserveslike

similar supplementary forces as paramilitary units, border patrol police, civil guards,

or local defense unitsare often not considered to be truly professional by regulars.75

In the same vein, it may be that the reserves threaten the self-image of regulars that

is based on a combination of expertise, commitment, and responsibility. In fact, today,in the context of rapid technological change in the military, these ways of thinking

center on the professionalism of the reserves. Our impression is that many regular

commanders assume that because they are called up for only limited periods of time,

reservists cannot reach the appropriate level of competence to be on par with regulars

in the operation of technologically advanced weaponry. In other words, in todays

historical context the structural tension between regulars and reserves is intensified

by technological and organizational changes.

In this sense, we go beyond Walkers suggestions that reservists often have great

difficulty in understanding the ethic of the Armys dominant regular combat officers. . . [and that] regular officers do not understand reserve forces, because they have

been socialized into a regular army culture.76 We suggest that this difficulty is

specifically related to the interstitial existence of reservists. Like transmigrants that

constantly negotiate the two societies they are part of, so reservists have a strong

potential for not accepting the taken-for-granted assumptions of regulars. We stress

that this critical potential is not related only to the political level but no less impor-

tantly involves challenging some of the assumptions at base of military culture.

While in the previous section we alluded to the way in which the movement between

worlds leads to a critical perspective on the military as an arm of the state, here werefer to the voice that may contest some of the organizational principles of the mili-

tary. This point leads us to the next section in which we examine the different kind

of contract struck between reservists and the military. This contract has a much




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stronger element of conditionality based on the fact that more than regulars, reservists

may negotiate with the armed forces both about the ground rules of the organization

as the missions they are charged with.

The Implicit Contract betweenReserves and the Military

Against this background, we may understand how members of the standing army

may have an ambivalent attitude toward reserve components. The latter may be a source

of legitimacy yet can also form a social basis for internal criticism; they are ready

sources of manpower but ones that are expensive and potentially troublesome. Morewidely, however, if we understand the permeable boundaries between the military and

civilian sectors as zones of negotiation, friction, and fluidity, then it becomes clear

how reservists may become a major group that bargains with the military. In this

respect, we suggest looking at the informal or unwritten contract between the reservists

and the army, at what is sometimes called the psychological contract between

employees and their organizations or what Mines calls the implicit understandings

between the U.S. National Guard and Reserves and the military.77

According to our research78 and some reports from the American context, reservists

are very wary of time wasted on unnecessary activities during their times of service.79

To put this wider point by way of example, we suggest that the demands of reservist

may be encapsulated in a few sentences: Make my service meaningful, Call me

(only) when I am really needed, Utilize my time in an effective manner, Train

me in a suitable manner, Respect me and my actions, and Give me reasonable

conditions. A very pertinent example can be found in the conflict in Lebanon in the

summer of 2006. When the Minister of Defense visited a recently mobilized reserve

unit, one soldier told him We all entered service with high motivation but use us

prudently. . . . We know what kind of equipment and training we received. Dont

insert us into any adventures that we cannot handle.80

To be sure, just as historically, many Israelis were readily mobilized as reserves

in times of war, so this happened in the United States during the two Gulf Wars.81

The willingness to volunteer for security purposes increases in times of felt national

need. Nevertheless, our point is that in the military, reservists are willing to be mobi-

lized if within this contract the regular army provides them with opportunities for

meaningful service, for respect for the very fact that they are serving, and affords

them substantial nonmaterial incentives.

In Israel, when their expectations have not been met, reservists have left service,

voiced their concerns within the military, organized themselves in pressure groups,or turned to the media. In fact, Israeli reservists have become a rather formidable

lobby group in this societys political arena. Accordingly, among the actions that the

IDF has undertaken to forestall such actions have been a new rhetorical openness to




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reforms in the character of reserve service, a recognition of the various pressure

groups, and many concrete changes made in regard to conditions of service (such as

special payment for those serving beyond twenty-six days or cellular phones forcommanders). In addition, a new positionthat of a regular Chief Reserve Officer

with the rank of brigadier generalwas created to specifically deal with special

problems related to reserves such as conditions of service (of university students, for

instance), equipment, and stipulations about employment. In addition, it is the Chief

Reserve Officer who represents the interests of the reserves in a variety of decision-

making forums. Finally, a recent innovation has been the creation of Reserve Day

during which a host of activities devoted to publicly recognizing and acknowledging

those people taking on the burden of reserve duty.

In contrast to other voluntary organizations through which individuals can actu-alize themselves and link themselves to the collective, the army still has coercive

mechanisms that assure the service of reservists. It is still very much a total institu-

tion based on clear legal grounds binding soldiers to it as an institution and has its

own disciplinary system. Yet the dynamics in and around the implicit contract

demonstrate that there is still a strong element of voluntarism in reserve duty, in the

sense that mobilization to such service cannot be fully explained by the coercive

powers of the state and the military. This would fit very well with the kinds of prob-

lems that all the industrial states are facing with filling in their quotas for reservists.

For example, even before the U.S. military entered the Iraqi quagmire, all of its com-bat arms were already having problems finding recruits for reserves. Perhaps one

reason for the continued problems that such militaries face in terms of their reserve

components is that the implicit psychological contract is sometimes invisible to

members of the permanent force. Thus, for example, according to our impressions,

there are few formal or informal parameters for appraising the degree to which the

contract is carried out.

We use the Israeli case to elucidate our propositions. To begin with, we suggest

that it would be profitable to examine the actual negotiations that take place between

reserve soldiers and their military units. Based on research carried out in Israel, wewould hypothesize that there is much more leeway for negotiations and consultation

between reservists and regulars than among the regulars themselves.82 This may be

true because among the latter, the strictures of hierarchy and discipline are much

stronger. Furthermore, these circumstances may be the outcome of what sociologists

call status inconsistency between age, formal rank, civilian status, income, and role.

Thus, for example, one may find a mid-level bank manager or administrator under

the command of a relatively young officer who has just joined the reserves.

More generally, it seems that there is something about many reservists associa-

tion with the military that is emotional, nostalgic, and embedded in social ties, allfeatures that are reminiscent of the kinds of bonds that migrants have to the home they

have left and to which they return. Yet at the same time, there is something voluntary

about this revisiting because the migrant has another home where his or her life and




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identity are anchored. The analogy to transmigrants thus underscores the voluntary,

emotional, and nostalgic elements that are part of reserve service. It is this rather

unique kind of link to the military that undergirds the kinds of conditions and stipu-lations attendant on the implicit contract we have been examining in this section.

Reservists, like transmigrants, have cross-cutting commitments that demand allegiance

and devotion but also allow autonomy and room for bargaining.

The Organizational and Cultural Dynamics ofReserve Duty: An Israeli Example

Our analysis involves a number of implications for how social scientists formulatetheoretical conceptions for the study of reserve forces. Almost three decades ago,

Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins proposed that the assumption that the basic profession-

alism of the reserves is lacking according to the standards of the regular forces restricts

an understanding of the peculiarities of the latter.83 Accordingly, our proposition,

made earlier in this article, is that because we social scientists have often unthinkingly

adopted the assumptions of regulars in our analyses of reserves, we may have been

blinded to the unique character of such forces. To put our point simply but not incor-

rectly: we need to look at reserve duty as a special kind of military experience that is

not a watered-down version, a deficient model, of active duty but a special socialphenomenon with its own dynamics and features. If we understand that the central

peculiarity of reserve duty lies in its position between and within the civilian and mil-

itary spheres, then we can appreciate that it cannot be examined with the same kind

of analytical frameworks one applies to compulsory or regular service.

In the Israeli case, this structural position of the reservesand their movement

between the civilian and military worldsexpresses itself in the tendency toward

commitment to the military, which is based more on voluntarism, trust, and influence

than on coercion and authority. These characteristics seem especially important in

the case of organic reserve units; that is, frameworks characterized by permanentmembership and structure of roles that are mobilized as one complete organized

entity. In such units, the informal means for the creation of commitment are often

much more important than the formal or legal regulations obliging soldiers to serve

in the military. Moreover, these resources can often be found outside the militarys

official boundaries. For example, many Israeli reserve units conduct parties, family

gatherings, and weekend hiking trips when they are off-duty. Such informal social

activities, which are reminiscent of organizations and actions organized by migrants

groups, nurture cohesion and solidarity among the soldiers, and as many reservists

report, operate as a fundamental mechanism that creates and maintains motivationand sense of belonging.

A focus on families reveals another kind of dynamic. Being mobilized for reserve

duty, whatever the usual division of familial labor, forces families to restructure and




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places women in much more of a homemaker role, both vis--vis such issues as child

care, shopping, and household chores as in relation to the men who are in service.

Spouses, overwhelmingly wives, of reserve soldiers labor during their mens reserveservice: their child rearing, cooking, cleaning, and household maintenance responsi-

bilities necessarily increase. Sociologically speaking, for the duration of reserve duty

these families become single-parent households and through their labor, wives

participate in supporting and maintaining the reserve system. Yet families of reserve

troops are constantly mobilized and demobilized as familial units in ways that are

different from the family dynamics of regulars or conscripts. They necessitate adap-

tations to constantly changing circumstances.

Relations between the civilian and martial spheres are now maintained not only

during off-duty times, but also during active deployments. The spreading use incellular phones, for example, enables Israeli reservists to keep in constant contact

with their families and workplaces when they are in uniform. Many reservists actu-

ally report that they continue to run their businesses or partially participate in civilian

assignments during active service. Thus, it seems that such advanced communication

technology has the potential to narrow the spatial and temporal gap between the two

realms. All of these points underscore how the unique character of reserve service is

affected by the permeable boundaries between the civilian and the martial worlds.

Still, in Israel, and we would propose in many other contexts,84 reserve duty is

often marked by a sudden and intensive entry into the severe demands of army life.For many Israeli men (there are few women who serve in the reserves), this is a yearly

move into a period during which they are allowed, even required, to behave differ-

ently. Thus for example, our argument is that going on reserve duty involves entering

a special behavioral frame that is governed by rules different from those of everyday

life. In Israel, these circumstances allow many reservists to display irregular public

behaviors like cursing and swearing, belching and farting, urinating and spitting, and

talking dirty, all in public.85 This point is reinforced by the fact that reserve forces

are characterized by a special kind of organizational culture what Willett calls a

lively social organization.86

While such an organizational climate is often an exten-sion of the culture of the regular formations it also has some rather unique features.

Thus, Sion and Ben-Ari trace out the peculiar kind of humor that emerges in Israeli

reserve units.87 It is such humor, we would suggest, that allows the rather rapid move

from civilian into military life. Humor is important since it allows men to deal with

organizational tensions, to create a good climate for motivation, and to construct

relatively close, cohesive groups of men.

In a similar manner, if compulsory service in Israel is a rite of passage, reserve

duty underscores how national service also involves rites of affirmation for groups

of Israeli men who serve in the reserves. By periodically reliving their military selves,such soldiers affirm their identity as citizens who contribute to the security of the

collective, as military professionals, and as men. During these periods they are actu-

ally and symbolically torn away from their civilian lives to partake in a collective




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occasion in which certain key values are validated. To put this point by way of an

American example, Williams describes how on entry to reserve duty, Small cliques

of Marines formed around certain racks to celebrate their monthly reunion. Therewas a sense of brotherhood among the Marines of Weapons Platoon. It was a sense

of belonging that I hoped to be part of one day.88

Yet this validation is not based on some kind of developmental trajectory in which

new positions are attained. Rather, what are validated anew are the values of youth.

This cyclical movement is predicated on a return to the criteria used in appraising

soldiership and manhood during the compulsory term of service.89 To put this point

picturesquely, the image is of older men who periodically return to their eighteen- and

nineteen-year-old (male) selves. Thus, reserve duty does not only represent an entry

into a different behavioral frame but is very often a time for celebrating or markingmilitary masculinity and membership in a special group of military men.90

In this manner, while reserve duty affirms the centrality of mensoldiers, it is also

(even more than compulsory service) excludes women who do not participate in it.

This point brings us to the issue of reserve duty and inequality. Some time ago, Willett

mentioned that the Canadian militia was an avenue of mobility91 and Hasenbohler con-

curred that the Swiss militia could enhance a civilian career.92 In Israel, Horowitz and

Kimmerling noted that while reserve duty may be a factor in social mobility it is also

a mechanism for the stratification and hierarchization of social groups.93 The point here

is that the contribution that one makes in the military sphere can be translated intoresources in the civilian sphere: status, access to positions, or influence, for example.

Thus, participation in the reserves may carry a host of advantages from an individual

point of view. Other scholars, for example, maintain that the military is a means to

variously include and exclude different social groups form the social center.94

Conclusion

In this article, we have suggested that by looking at reserves as transmigrants wemay better understand how such forces are distinguished by some rather specific fea-

tures and patterns. At base of our contentions lies a wider proposition (unexplored in

this contribution) that from a sociological and organizational point of view, it may be

productive to conceptualize three segments of the military each of which has its own

dynamics: regulars, conscripts, and reserves. The advantage of this kind of analytical

differentiation is that it allows us to examine different patterns of motivation, cohesion,

political commitment, and awareness, and long-term considerations that characterize

each segment. Such a conceptualization raises new theoretical questions regarding

reserve forces and factors that shape the service of reservists as civiliansoldiers, theirexperiences, and their suitability for combat and noncombat missions.95

More generally, we call for research that examines the dual structure and the fluid

movement of reservists not only from a functionalist perspective. Such perspective will




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allow future scholarly research to explore three key questions. First, it will allow a

richer comparative perspective on different national reserve components that can, at

once, underscore the common features of such forces and the particular national onesin specific reserve systems. Second, our analysis may, and should, point our attention

to other populations and in-between organizations that, in ways similar to reserves, act

on the boundaries between civil society and the military, cross back and forth between

the social worlds, and, more importantly, mediate between them. Third, from an orga-

nizational point of view, enhancing empirical research on the reserves may reveal new

insights about the mechanisms being used by military officials to advance the institu-

tions interests within civilian society and the mutual effects between the martial and

civilian spheres. Clearly the question of what sort of difference might it make to insti-

tutionally recognize reservists transmigrancy is a topic for further investigation.

Notes

1. Wallace Earl Walker, Comparing Army Reserve Forces: A Tale of Multiple Ironies, Conflicting

Realities, and More Certain Prospects,Armed Forces & Society 18, 3 (1992): 303-20.

2. Eyal Ben-Ari, Edna Lomsky-Feder, and Nir Gazit, Notes on the Study of Military Reserves:

Between the Military and Civilian Spheres, inBuilding Sustainable and Effective Military Capabilities:

A Systematic Comparison of Professional and Conscript Forces, ed. Kristina Spohr-Readman (Amsterdam:

IOS Press, 2004), 64-78.

3. Terry C. Willett, The Military Infra-Structure of Contemporary Canada: The Case of the Militia,in Supplementary Military Forces: Reserves, Militias, Auxiliaries, ed. Louis A. Zurcher and Gwyn

Harries-Jenkins (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1978), 126-51.

4. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia (Albany: State University of New York Press,

1989).

5. See for example, Martha Derthick, The National Guard in Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1965).

6. F. L. Brown and A. R. Merrill, Challenges of U.S. Army Reserve Force Readiness, in The U.S.

Army in a New Security Era, ed. Sam C. Sarkesian and John A. Williams (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner

Publishers, 1990); L. Unterseher,Europes Armed Forces at the Millennium: A Case of Change in France,

The United Kingdom, and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute Project on Defense

Alternatives, 1999), http://www.comw.org/pda/9911eur.html; Jan van der Meulen, The Netherlands: TheFinal Professionalization, in The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces After the Cold War, ed. Charles

Moskos, John Allen Williams, and David R. Segal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 101-20.

7. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance (London: International Institute

for Strategic Studies, 2000).

8. Information from United States Department of Defense, The United States Reserve Forces: A

Value Added Force (DOD, April, 2002), www.dod.gov.

9. Charles Moskos, Towards a New Conception of the Citizen Soldier, unpublished manuscript

presented at Foreign Policy Research Institute conference on The Future of the Reserves and National

Guard, held on December 6, 2004.

10. Information from United Kingdom Ministry of Defense,A Territorial Army for the Future, 2003,

http://www.mod.uk/issues/territorial_army/index.htm; L. Unterseher, Europes Armed Forces at the

Millennium.

11. L. Unterseher,Europes Armed Forces at the Millennium.




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12. R. Gal,A Portrait of the Israeli Soldier(Westport: Greenwood Press, 1986); Stewart Cohen, The

IDF and Israeli Society: A Renewed Analysis (BESA Center for Strategic Studies: Bar Ilan University,

2001), 10 (Hebrew).

13. G. Ben-Dor, A. Pedahzur, and B. Hasisi, Israels National Security Doctrine under Strain: The

Crisis of the Reserve Army,Armed Forces & Society 28 (2002): 233-55.

14. Michael E. OHanlon, Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan,International Security 25 (2000):

51-86; Taiwan National Defense, Government Information Office, 2000, http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-

website/5-gp/yearbook/chpt08.htm.

15. Giuseppe Caforio, ed., The Sociology of the Military (Cheltenham: Elgar, 1998).

16. Louis A. Zurcher and Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, introduction to Supplementary Military Forces:

Reserves, Militias, Auxiliaries, Louis A. Zurcher and Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, ed. (Beverly Hills: Sage,

1978), 11-37.

17. Stephen M. Duncan, Citizen Warriors: Americas National Guard and Reserve Forces and the

Politics of National Security (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1997).

18. Brown and Merrill, Challenges of U.S. Army Reserve Force Readiness.

19. L. Gorman and G. W. Thomas, Enlistment Motivations of Army Reservists: Money, Self-

Improvement, or Patriotism? Armed Forces & Society 17 (1991): 589-99; Sheila Nataraj Kirby and

Richard J. Buddin,Enlisted Personnel Trends in the Selected Reserve (Santa Monica, CA, RAND, 1996);

Sheila Nataraj Kirby and Scott Naftel, The Impact of Deployment on the Retention of Military

Reservists,Armed Forces & Society 26 (2000): 259-84; S. J. Perry, J. Griffith, and T. White, Retention

of Junior Enlisted Soldiers in the All-Volunteer Army Reserve,Armed Forces & Society 18 (1991): 111-33;

Lolita Burrell, Doris Briley Durand, and Jennifer Fortado, Military Community Integration and Its Effect

on Well-Being and Retention, Armed Forces & Society 30, 1 (2003): 7-24; Hugh Smith, What Costs

Will Democracies Bear? A Review of Popular Theories of Casualty Aversion, Armed Forces & Society

31, 4 (2005): 487-512. See also B. J. Wilson and L. Gould, Mobilizing Guard and Reserve Forces, inThe Guard and the Reserve in the Total Force, ed. B. J. Wilson (Washington, DC: National Defense

University, 1985).

20. Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari, From The People in Uniform to Different Uniforms

for the People: Professionalism, Diversity and the Israeli Defense Forces, inManaging Diversity in the

Armed Forces, ed. J. Soetres and J. van der Meulen (Tilburd: Tilburg University Press, 1999), 157-86.

21. Ben-Ari, Lomsky-Feder, and Gazit, Notes on the Study of Military Reserves.

22. Stephen Ambrose,Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy

to Hitlers Eagles Nest(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001).

23. John C. McManus, The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II

(Novato CA: Presidio, 2000).

24. Peter D. Feaver, Civil-Military Relations,Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999): 211-41.25. David R. Segal and Joseph J. Langerman, Professional and Institutional Considerations, in

Combat Effectiveness: Cohesion, Stress and the Volunteer Military, ed. Sam C. Sarkesian (Beverly Hills:

Sage, 1980), 154-84; Harry Kirkels, Wim Klinkert, and Rene Moelker, ed., Officer Education: The Road

to Athens!, Special Issue of NL Arms (Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies, 2003).

26. Giuseppe Caforio, ed., The European Officer: A Comparative View on Selection and Education

(Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2000).

27. Eyal Ben-Ari, Zeev Rosenhek, and Daniel Maman, introduction to War, Politics and Society in

Israel: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Daniel Maman, Zev Rosenhek, and Eyal Ben-Ari

(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 1-41.

28. Amia Lieblich, Transition to Adulthood Military Service: The Israeli Case (Albany: State

University of New York Press, 1989).29. Eyal Ben-Ari, Masks and Soldiering: The Israeli Army and the Palestinian Uprising, Cultural

Anthropology 4 (1989): 372-89.

30. Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins, Supplementary Military Forces, 13.




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31. Ben-Ari, Rosenhek, and Maman, introduction to War, Politics and Society in Israel.

32. Charles Moskos, The Military,Annual Review of Sociology 2 (1976): 76.

33. Nina Glick-Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Szanton-Blanc, From Immigrant to Transmigrant:

Theorizing Transnational Migration,Anthropological Quarterly 2 (1995): 48-63.

34. Zygmunt Bauman, From Pilgrim to Tourist: A Short History of Identity, in Questions of Cultural

Identity, ed. S. Hall and P. DuGay (London: Sage, 1996), 18-36.


36. Sam C. Sarkesian, John Allen Williams, and Fred B. Bryant, Soldiers, Society and National

Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 66; Keith Mines, On Fighting a 16-Division War with at 10-Division

Force, Foreting Policy Research Institute, March 8, 2005, www.fpri.org.


38. Buzz Williams, Spare Parts: A Marine Reservists Journey from Campus to Combat in 38 Days

(New York: Gotham Books, 2004).

39. Eyal Ben Ari, Meirav Maymon, Nir Gazit, and Ron Shatzberg, From Checkpoints to Flowpoints:

Sites of Friction between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinians. Gitelson Peace Papers (Jerusalem:

The Hary S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, The Hebrew University, 2005).

40. Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi and Eyal Ben-Ari, A Knock on the Door: Managing Death in the Israeli

Defense Forces, The Sociological Quarterly 4, 3 (2000): 391-412.

41. Willett, The Military Infra-Structure of Contemporary Canada.

42. James Burk, The Decline of Mass Armed Forces and Compulsory Military Services,Defense

Analysis 8 (1992): 45-59 ; J. Van Doorn, The Decline of the Mass Army in the West: General Reflection,

Armed Forces & Society 1 (1975): 147-57; Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National

Security in Germany and Japan (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1998).

43. Walker, Comparing Army Reserve Forces.

44. Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins, Supplementary Military Forces, 14.45. Ibid., 17.

46. Alexander Gerry, Role of Reserve Officer Associations in Sustaining Democracy, 2002, http://

www.unici.org/cior20022004/E; Walker, Comparing Army Reserve Forces.

47. Gerry, Role of Reserve Officer Associations in Sustaining Democracy.

48. Ibid.


50. Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan (Baltimore:

John Hopkins University Press, 1998), 196.


52. Yagil Levy, The Other Army of Israel: Materialist Militarism in Israel [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv:

Yedioth-Aharonoth, 2003).53. Williams, Spare Parts, 54.

54. Edna Lomsky-Feder and Tamar Rapoport, Visit, Separation, and Deconstructing Nostalgia:

Russian Students Travel to their Old Home,Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 29, 1 (2000): 32-57;

Alfred Schutz, The Stranger: An Essay in Social Psychology, American Journal of Sociology 49, 4

(1944): 499-508.

55. Sara Helman, Militarism and the Construction of Community,Journal of Political and Military

Sociology 25 (1997): 305-32; Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari,Identity, Politics and the Military

in Contemporary Israel, unpublished manuscript, 2003.

56. Edna Lomsky-Feder, Life Stories, War and Veterans: On the Social Distribution of Memories,

Ethos 32 (2004): 82-109.

57. Bernard Boene, How Unique Should the Military Be? A Review of Representative Literature andOutline of Synthetic Formulation, European Journal of Sociology 31 (1990): 3-59; Pierre Bourdieu,

Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field, in State/Culture: State-Formation

after the Cultural Turn, ed. George Steinmetz (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 53-75.




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58. Eliot Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free

Press, 2002), 185; Glenn A. Gotz, Restructuring Reserve Compensation, in Filling the Ranks: Transforming

the U.S. Military Personnel System, ed. Cindy Williams (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 167-88.


60. Bernard Boene, Trends in the Political Control of Post-Cold War Armed Forces, inDemocratic

Societies and Their Armed Forces: Israel in a Comparative Perspective, ed. Stuart A. Cohen (London:

Frank Cass. 2000), 75; John MacKinlay, The Peacekeepers: An Assessment of Peacekeeping Operations

at the Arab-Israeli Interface (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).

61. Christopher Bellamy, Knights in White Armour: The New Art of War and Peace, (London: Random

House, 1996), 30; James Burk, Introduction: Ten Years of New Times, in The Adaptive Military: Armed

Forces in a Turbulent World, ed. James Burk (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1998), 12; John H. Faris,

The Looking-Glass Army: Patriotism in the Post-Cold War Era, Armed Forces & Society 21 (1995):

411-34; Charles Moskos, John Allen Williams, and David R. Segal, Armed Forces after the Cold War,

in The Postmodern Military, 5-6.

62. Uri Ben-Eliezer, From a Nation-in-Arms to a Postmodern Army: Military Politics in New Times

Israel,Democratic Culture 4-5 (2001): 79-80 (Hebrew); Stuart Cohen, The IDF and Israeli Society:

A Renewed Analysis (BESA Center for Strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University, 2001), 11 (Hebrew); Dan

Horowitz, Strategic Limitations of A Nation in Arms,Armed Forces & Society 13 (1987): 277-94.

63. Eyal Ben-Ari,Mastering Soldiers: Conflict, Emotions and the Enemy in an Israeli Military Unit

(Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998); Duncan, Citizen Warriors; Charles Moskos, Soldiers and Sociology

(United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Government Publishing

House, 1998); Zurcher and Harries-Jenkins, Supplementary Military Forces, 12; Walker, Comparing

Army Reserve Forces, 305. In addition, as one anonymous reviewer of the draft of this article suggested,

in the United States the disproportionate number of reservists in some branches or units (such as Civil

Affairs or Psychological Operations) give rise to additional tensions centered on the militarys dependenceon them.


65. Charles Moskos, Towards a New Conception of the Citizen Soldier.

66. Tim Pritchard, Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War. (New York:

Ballantine Books, 2005), 18.

67. Anthony Bennell, European Reserve Forces: England, France and West Germany, in Zurcher

and Harries-Jenkins, Supplementary Military Forces, 39-68.

68. Bernard Boene and Michel Louis Martin, France: In the Throes of Epoch-Making Change, in

Moskos, Williams and Segal, The Postmodern Military, 51-79.

69. Sam C. Sarkesian and Robert E. Connor, The U.S. Military Profession into the Twenty-First Century:

War, Peace and Politics (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 146.70. Stephen M. Duncan, Citizen Warriors, chap. 2 and P. 38; Sam C. Sarkesian, John Allen Williams,

and Fred B. Bryant, Soldiers, Society and National Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), 65.

71. CIOR (Internalized Confederation of Reserve Officers), 2004 articles, http://www.unici.org/cior

2002004/CIOROfficialHomepage.htm; Duncan, Citizen Warriors, 38.

72. Mines, On Fighting a 16-Division War.

73. Buzz Williams, Spare Parts: A Marine Reservists Journey from Campus to Combat in 38 Days.


75. Ibid., 13.

76. Walker, Comparing Army Reserve Forces, 309.

77. Mines, On Fighting a 16-Division War, 5.

78. Ben-Ari, Lomsky-Feder, and Gazit Notes on the Study of Military Reserves.79. Pritchard,Ambush Alley.

80.Haaretz, August 2, 2006 (Hebrew).

81. Pritchard,Ambush Alley; Williams, Spare Parts.




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82. See for example, Ben-Ari, Masks and Soldiering; Ben-Ari, Mastering Soldiers; Liora Sion

and Eyal Ben-Ari, Hungry, Weary and Horny: Joking and Jesting Among Israels Combat Reserves

Israel Affairs 11, 4 (2005): 656-72.


84. Williams, Spare Parts.

85. Ben-Ari, Masks and Soldiering.


87. Liora Sion and Eyal Ben-Ari Hungry, Weary and Horny: Joking and Jesting Among Israels

Combat Reserves.

88. Williams, Spare Parts, 60.

89. Ben-Ari,Mastering Soldiers.

90. Helman, Militarism and the Construction of Community.


92. Robert C. Hasenbohler, The Swiss Militia Army, in Supplementary Military Forces.

93. Dan Horowitz and Baruch Kimmerling, Some Social Implications of Military Service and the

Reserves System in Israel,Archives European de Sociologie 15 (1974): 262-76.

94. See for example, Levy, The Other Army of Israel.

95. One reviewer of a draft of our article suggested that analytically speaking, one can even speak of

another segment of the military: veterans. These individuals are an anomaly for the armed forces because

while they still have some privileges, they have no real responsibilities.

Edna Lomsky-Feder is a sociologist at the School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her

research focus is migration and identity, war and the military in Israel from a culture perspective, and edu-

cation and nationalism.Address for correspondence: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School of Education,Mt Scopus, Jerusalem, 91905, Israel; e-mail: [email protected].

Nir Gazit is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University

of Jerusalem. His main fields of interest are militarized occupations, low-intensity conflicts, and culture

and politics. His current research deals with the experiences of Israeli soldiers during the second

Palestinian uprising.E-mail: [email protected].

Eyal Ben-Ari is a professor of anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Previous publica-

tions include Body Projects in Japanese Childcare (1997) and Mastering Soldiers (1998). Among

recently edited books are (with Edna Lomsky-Feder) The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society

(2000), (with Daniel Maman and Zeev Rosenhek) War, Politics and Society in Israel (2001), and (with

Timothy Tsu and Jan van Bremen) Perspectives on Social Memory in Japan (2006). E-mail: feba@

netvision.net.il.


Documents

Armed Forces & Society 2008 Lomsky Feder 593 614