Systemic violence against women in the military has existed for decades, but they have mostly refrained from public resistance. However, in the context of the #Metoo‐movement in Sweden, 1768 women published a call for an end to violence and sexual harassment in the military. We analyze this call as a public resistance effort against the military and find that #Metoo is: 1) challenging the norms of the hyper‐masculine military organization, making resistance towards it visible, and 2) resisting the practices of sexual harassment and lack of responsibility in the military organization. The military organization is questioned when it comes to norms and practices, but there are variations in whether the social order of the military is truly challenged. Still, the call highlights the fragmentation of this “last bastion of masculinity”. More research is needed on the erosion of the militarized norms and practices and the effects of the call.
Receiving support and help for physical injuries when returning from a military operation is natural and fully acceptable. As far as doing the same thing when having mental illness is not as likely to happen. The shame of admission in front of the people around you holds you back. The problem might be stigma; you do not want to be seen as odd or different, seen as someone who mentally could not cope with the experience.
If the need for care is unknown to the Armed Forces then there will be an unknown number of individuals who do not receive the support they are entitled to by law.
This thesis aims to investigate how much impact the fear of stigmatization is after an international military operation.
This master thesis examines army officer's view of the social implications of AI within the Swedish Army, as well as what is required of researchers to understand the implications of AI. The thesis is based on an interpretive study of the army officers' narrative and is supported by contemporary research on AI for military use. The theoretical framework includes ideas on social contracts, transrational sentiments, emotions (like love) as meaning making, human life as Holy and bounded rationality. The theme of the Holiness of human life opens up a discussion about the value of trust, hope and love within the activities of the Swedish Army. The analysis describes how the view of AI is partly positive, while simultaneously containing skepticism and fear that technical optimism will lead to a destructive use of it. Participants in the study describe AI's rationality in contrast to human rationality, and war is presented as a non-rational social process. This leads the study to an interpretation of the meaning of the officers distancing and fear towards AI. It addresses the risks of a higher AI usage rate in war, which include; decision makers loss of credibility, devaluation of life and the appearance of war as nonsensical and meaningless, which could contribute to an indifference towards human life and suffering. The conclusion addresses human life as a human responsibility because its meaning and value is socially constructed, the benefits of exploring AI capabilities and the significance of understanding the social culture where the AI is to be used - as it affects the application outcome.
Symbolic politics theory created by Stuart J. Kaufman attempts to give an explanation on what makes people engage in ethnic wars and genocide by combining some rationalist thoughts with social-psychological ideas. This study analyzes the symbolic politics theory by qualitive methods using the war in Kosovo and the peaceful declaration of independence in North Macedonia as cases selected thru strategic selection.
The result of this study shows that symbolic politics theory can help to understand what causes people to follow their chauvinist leaders into ethnic violence by referring to historical nationalistic myths with the use of symbols to create fear and hostility. The theory therefore helps to understand the sequence of events that eventually resulted in the war over Kosovo 1998-1999 thru this study. The result of this study also shows that symbolic politics theory can help to understand why the declaration of independence in North Macedonia did not result in violence or war, even though the premisses in the country where much the same to other war tourn countries in the Balkans at the time. Results show that elites in North Macedonia chose a different path to achieve independence unlike their neighbouring countries in the Balkans. By identifying the destructive ways of using symbols referring to historical myths to create fear and hostility towards another ethnic group, North Macedonia instead displayed an including path and an effort to meet the different needs of different ethnic groups within their own borders.
Based on the impact of the theoretical big five of teamwork model proposed by Salas et al. (2005), the present study aimed at investigating the model within an operational police simulation. One hundred and sixty-seven frontline police officers participated in the study. Based on path analyses, a reduced model excluding trust and leadership obtained a good fit with the data.
The results provided some support for the model by confirming six out of 10 proposed direct effects and four out of seven indirect pathways. Shared mental models directly affected team adaptability, and backup behavior affects adaptability and team effectiveness. Team orientation affects mutual performance monitoring and backup behavior, and finally, reciprocal monitoring affects backup behavior. Monitoring influenced both team effectiveness and adaptability through backup behavior. Two paths from team orientation towards effectiveness were found. One flowing through monitoring and another through back-up behavior. Our study expands former knowledge of the big five theory by empirically testing the totality of the model and identifying important pathways.
A well-functioning collaboration can be of decisive importance for the management of a crisis. Although it is a common endeavour, there may be obstacles that give rise to conflicts (Bondesson et al., 2019; Bynander & Nohrstedt, 2019; Deverell et al., 2019a; Hedlund & Lönngren, 2021; Svedin, 2009; Ödlund, 2010). In these contexts, competition is mentioned as an obstacle and something that happens in the periphery (Deverell et al., 2019b; Palm & Ramsell, 2007; Ödlund, 2010). The research provides a limited description of competition and its conditions within inter-organizational cooperation. Based on a social psychological perspective, 10 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted. The result shows that competition was first considered non-existent and later as hidden and hindering. Competition was managed through group identification as well as factors such as trust, adaptation and co-leadership. The conclusion is that the competition in a collaboration can be described. Finding a balance between competition as an obstacle and cooperation was important for the actors. The experience shows the complexity that can exist regarding competition linked to crisis management. This study shows that there is an ambition on the part of the actors to achieve a good collaboration, where efficiency and good preparation for crisis management become increasingly important elements. However, the results showed that there was competition which took the form of internal interests and mistrust. Competition, as an opportunity, was considered by the actors to have less importance for cooperation
A lot of relatives to officers who has served in international operations have been af-fected by negative physical and psychological impacts. But in what way has this affected the officer when it’s time to readjust to the normal work or when preparing the next mission from a psychosocial working environment point-of-view? And does this change in accordance with new Swedish laws of official duty and rehabilitation responsibility? That´s the first issue in the essay. The other issue covers how the future Swedish relative support can be designed.
The essay has shown a tendency to causality between the relatives’ perception of well-being and the officer´s psychosocial working environment. Further, the essay proposes that future relative support shall be based on the principles previous experienced, flexibility and availability with a limited mandatory part.
Trots att Sverige är det mest jämställda EU-landet och fortsätter att utvecklas i en positiv riktning håller Försvarsmakten inte jämna steg med denna utveckling. Försvarsmakten som organisation präglas alltjämt av en omfattande jämställdhetsproblematik där socialt genuskodade maskulina praktiker medför destruktiva effekter för såväl män som kvinnor i form av fenomenet hypermaskulinitet.
En förklaring till problematiken kan stå att finna i Mosher och Tomkins utvecklingspsykologiska sociokulturella teoribildning om hypermaskulin socialisation och enkulturation. De menar att maskulinitet formas och reproduceras genom prototypiska reaktioner när maskulinitet utmanas. Särskilt stor påverkan har reaktionerna från individer med stor normerande påverkan i form av maskulin status och rangordning. Denna teori prövas i uppsatsen genom att Norman Faircloughs tredimensionella modell för kritisk diskursanalys appliceras på två reaktioner från överbefälhavare Micael Bydén och arméchef Karl Engelbrektsson.
Analysen visar att Mosher och Tomkins teori kan förklara Försvarsmaktens högsta företrädares reaktioner då maskuliniteten utmanas. Den kritiska diskursanalysen visar på hur såväl Bydén som Engelbrektsson i sina reaktioner ger uttryck för det som Mosher och Tomkins benämner som den motverkande prototypiska reaktionen. De två ytterligare prototypiska reaktionerna, den defensiva respektive reparativa, lyser med sin frånvaro. Bydén och Engelbrektsson vänder hotet mot den egna maskuliniteten från sig själva och mot omgivningen genom att demonstrera än mer maskulinitet. Sociokulturella förklaringsmodeller och genusaspekter åsidosätts och genusaspekter utelämnas fullständigt. Istället görs enstaka individer ansvariga för destruktiva beteenden vilket förnekar maskulinitetens och organisationens roll. I förlängningen riskerarar reaktionerna att leda till en reproduktion av hypermaskuliniteten i Försvarsmakten.
This study examines the differences in perception between officers at unit level regarding personnel replacement in war. The army has reintroduced the ability to replace personnel in the manoeuvre units, which has been out of the organization since the 1990s. The officers currently serving at unit level have little to no experience of how the previous replacement system worked and the Armed Forces have not explained how the system is supposed to work. This means that especially the younger officers create their own understanding of the conceived system.
The study shows that there is basically a common opinion about the replacement system, but also that there are three areas with tensions (different perceptions of the system) between lower and higher unit levels. The difference lies in the fact that the lower level ascribes a different meaning to the categories of competence, experience and esprit de corps than the higher level. This could have been addressed through more active sensegiving from managers in the organization as they have the opportunity to create common meaning with the system.
The study was conducted to increase the understanding of the different perceptions the officers have and with sensemaking interpret the difference in perception there is in the officer corps, regarding personnel replacement. The study is inductive and qualitative and has used interview as a method for collecting data. The material has then been analysed using thematic analysis.
Key words:
Personnel replacement, Sensemaking, Sensegiving, inductive, qualitative, thematic analysis, Swedish Armed Forces.
Många delar av Försvarsmaktens verksamhet är dyr, relativt riskfylld och kräver stort men-talt fokus vid utförandet av olika uppgifter. För att uppnå önskvärd effektivitet och säkerhet är det därför eftersträvansvärt att minimera faktorer som stjäl fokus och mental energi från uppgiften. En viktig faktor i detta avseende är arbetsgruppens inre klimat. Detta påverkas till stor del av gemensamma men också skilda uppfattningar, normer och värderingar. Dessa faktorer är också viktiga för analys och hantering av konflikter inom gruppen.En modell för att analysera konfliktsituationer är Galtungs ABC-/konflikttriangel. Denna bi-drar till att ge en bild av dynamiken i en konflikt.Försvarsmakten har med sin ganska unika organisationskultur möjligen delvis andra förut-sättningar i fråga om konflikter inom den egna organisationen. Studien har därför som sitt främsta syfte att pröva om giltigheten i Galtungs ABC-/konflikttriangel gäller oavkortat även i en militär kultur. Modellen testas empiriskt mot en militär och högreliabel organsation med potentiellt relativt hög risk för kulturella konflikter mellan de ingående grupperna, nämligen den utbildningsdivision för JAS39 Gripen där unga elever med kultur ur generation Y för första gången möter organisationskulturen vid en stridsflygdivision.
Resultatet av studien visar att Galtungs ABC-/konflikttriangel i grunden är tillämpbar vid denna typ av militär organisationskultur men att det finns dimensioner i konflikten som inte beaktas i denna modell. Studien visar därför på en möjlig utveckling av modellen.
There are many kinds of joint operations and combinations of combined arms. This thesis puts its focus on Close Air Support, CAS. Throughout history there have been several cases of success, regarding these kinds of operations, but also failure. Much can be taught from organizational behaviour studies, applied on these military organisations in their cooperation with each other. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the cooperation between the Swedish army and air force to determine the functionality of their process. This is done by text analysis and interviews. The study shows that the cooperation works at its bets at the unit level. The Swedish armed forces have a wide range of tasks it wishes to fulfil together with broad priorities. As of now, there is a balance between the two services´ needs and what they can deliver. Although there are indications that the army´s requirements might increase in the future. The air force focus on homeland defence might push this balance even further, though CAS is not a priority in that scenario. If there is a significant change in the balance of demand between the two services, at least one of the services might have to reconsider their whole line of business.
Key words: Collaboration, Organizational development, Close Air Support.