Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

This article contributes to the literature theorizing military social order, embodiment, and resistance in IR. The military institution is known to resist change, and much research have been devoted to challenges to the gendered order of the military. One area that has received little attention, however, is the reluctance of many militaries in the West to facilitate veganism during service in spite of the increasing demand for vegan food options, diversity, and sustainability. Drawing on research on the military social order and gender theory, I conduct an unpacking of conflicting elements and representations of military and vegan bodies, and theorize this reluctance as institutional resistance. Typically, the military does not offer motivations for its stance – which makes it difficult to detect and counter. As a consequence, vegans are silenced and excluded, not facilitated to enter the military. This is a challenge to increasing attempts at governing sustainability and diversity in the military.

The Russian war against Ukraine in February 2022, unleashed an unprecedented wave of non-governmental, external resistance directed against Russia. In many ways, previous literature on war and resistance does not capture the characteristics of this phenomenon. Besides noting the presence of civilian war protests outside of the warzone, most research has focused on internal resistance during war. In this article, we draw on a wider array of resistance literature and present an analytical framework that allows us to capture the broad elements of non-governmental, external resistance during war – including the power-resistance nexus at work. The analytical framework sorts the various kinds of resisters, it categorises the form of resistance and the targets pursued. The usefulness of the analytical framework is demonstrated through an exploration of empirical examples and illustrations drawn from media reports gathered during the first 10 days of the war in Ukraine. It is concluded that new analytical tools are necessary in order to capture non-governmental, external resistance during war as it is waged in Europe in the 2020s.

Purpose – Previous studies show that the implementation of gender equality encounters resistance in military organizations, but it is often invisible or seen as confined to anonymous structures or troubled individuals. This paper aims to show how the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) use organizational principles to resist implementing gender equality measures.

Design/methodology/approach – The study is a qualitative analysis of discursive strategies in the SAF’s 2013–2018 annual reports to government.

Findings – The organizing principles of instrumentality and distance, while existing in parallel with gender equality efforts, actually pursue logics that prevents the SAF from implementing gender equality. The principle of instrumentality in this context means that gender equality in the SAF is of secondary interest to organizational members. The principle of distancing from the problem includes strategies that alienate female from male officers.

Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is the finding that the use of organizing principles represents conscious organizational resistance to go gender equality efforts. This kind of use needs to be revealed and criticized to change military organizations.

This article explores individual resistance related to a military organization’s gender equality work as expressed in online contexts. Resistance is explained as expressions of wider social conflicts, grounded in experiences of threats towards military masculinities, challenged by societal and political transformation processes perceived as feminine. The data consists of defence-related blogs and comments. A thematic analysis finds that individual resistance can be understood as blaming and shaming strategies. Five sub-themes are identified: blaming the “feminised” organization, blaming and shaming women’s abilities to serve, individualisation of structural problems, verbal violence and violations, and objectification of men working with and supporting gender equality initiatives. The analysis exemplifies how social conflict is transferred to organizations through individual resistance. As gender equality policies are questioned, organizations need to confront resistance also within the online context.

Als ‚gendered Organisation‘ basiert die organisationale Identität des Militärs unter anderem auf dem, was als stereotype Männlichkeit angesehen wird: starke, mutige und zähe Männer repräsentieren den idealen Krieger. Die zunehmende Zahl weiblicher Soldaten bedroht diesen Teil der Organisationsidentität. Soziale Medien wie Instagram dienen als Mittel zur Reflexion der Organisationsidentität. Der folgende Beitrag untersucht daher, wie die Streitkräfte mit der geschlechtsspezifischen Natur des Militärs umgehen, indem er die Darstellung von Frauen auf den Instagram-Profilen der schwedischen und der Schweizer Armee vergleicht. Unter Berücksichtigung des gesellschaftlichen Kontextes sowie der militärischen Besonderheiten beider Länder wird analysiert, ob Geschlechterstereotypen im Militär hervorgehoben oder reduziert werden und wie der weibliche Körper in Bezug auf die militärische Identität behandelt wird. Eine visuelle Inhaltsanalyse der Instagram-Posts aus dem Jahr 2018 zeigt, dass Frauen im Falle der schwedischen Streitkräfte in stereotypen männlichen Rollen dargestellt werden, während die Instagram-Bilder der Schweizer Armee, die Frauen zeigen, stereotype weibliche Attribute hervorheben.

Kriget i Ukraina har redan fått många återverkningar, även i samhällen som inte direkt skakas av de fruktansvärda krigshandlingarna. I traditionella och sociala medier funderar människor kring vad som skulle hända om det blev krig i Sverige och hur detta skulle påverka vår vardag och våra relationer. En ofta förbisedd fråga i detta sammanhang är relationen mellan människor och djur. I denna artikel diskuteras hur totalförsvaret som samhällsorganisation och verksamhet kan utmanas av 2020-talets normer om förhållandet mellan människor och djur och djurs status som säkerhetssubjekt. Mot bakgrund av den traditionella totalförsvarstanken presenterar vi ett antal områden där djurens relationer med människor kan tänkas väcka frågor och komma i konflikt med delar av totalförsvaret: synen på säkerhet, juridiken i kris och krig samt utvecklingen av den sociala relationen mellan människor och djur. Artikeln avslutas med tankar kring hur ett totalförsvar som inkluderar djur skulle kunna se ut samt kring hur dagens totalförsvar i så fall skulle behöva förändras.

This article proposes that children constitute a new climate precariat. This conceptualization contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the vulnerability of children in relation to the climate crisis. Previous literature tends to treat climate change in an abstract fashion that renders today’s children invisible. Climate precarity consists of three main elements of vulnerability: temporality problems, insecurity and an identity vacuum. In relation to temporality and security, children are suffering from the potential loss of a sustainable future, which spurs the need for urgent action and constant consciousness – in the present. World leaders’ inaction creates an uncertainty regarding whom should be held responsible for taking action in guaranteeing children the future which climate change is at risk of depriving them. The concept of climate precarity could be used to explain children’s collective action in relation to the climate crisis. Children’s concerns in relation to the climate crisis suggest that agency and empowerment are spurred through their resistance towards these vulnerabilities.

National security discourses have entered teacher’s classrooms. A strand of largely critical literature in education studies have noted that new security tasks clash with the roles of teachers. However, few studies have yet approached this audience about their views on security. This article analyses how Swedish teachers conceive of security in relation to the school system. Data consists of semi-structured interviews with teachers and principals, conducted in medium-sized municipalities in Sweden. The analysis finds that teachers maintain a conceptualisation of security that focuses on the individual. Simultaneously, teachers rarely adopt national security discourses (except regarding school violence) and several argue against emphasising the concept of security in relation to schools. The results offer an opportunity to analyse the views of teachers as audiences in relation to the extension of the security field into the educational domain.

This is a commentary to the article "The framing of environmental citizenship and youth participation in the Fridays for Future Movement in Finland" by Janette Huttunen and Eerika Albrecht. In the piece I reflect on the analysis and results of this interesting research, focusing in particular on adult's depoliticization of children's protest and the potential collective social and political impact of the Fridays for Future movement for youth.