Report

During the 2010-2012 academic year, Brian Jencunas assisted me in a new project exploring the links between the institutionalization of the all-volunteer military, the rise of militarism and concomitant tensions between military and civilian authority over the planning and oversight of war-fighting operations. As the study draws upon Robert A. Heinlein's depiction of a militarist duty-based citizenship in Starship Troopers and elsewhere as a means to illuminate the political implications of the disconnect between military service and citizenship rites in the US, we started with Brian coding each chapter of Starship Troopers for analytical categories we culled from my work on patriotic strategies of action in the post-9/11 era. Brian also helped to develop an annotated bibliography of research on military training and the all-volunteer military.

Original proposal

I would like to have a Wheaton Research Partnership student to help me with a new project exploring the links between the institutionalization of the all-volunteer military, the rise of militarism and concomitant tensions between military and civilian authority over the planning and oversight of war-fighting operations. I am drawing upon Robert A. Heinlein’s depiction of a militarist duty-based citizenship–in Starship Troopers and elsewhere–as a means to illuminate the political implications of the disconnect between military service and citizenship rites in the US, including centrally the balance between civilian and military authority, long a cornerstone of our democratic stability.