(iPoster) “To Doff the Chapeau and Epaulets?” Career Longevity in U.S. Army Officer Corps

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security I

Abstract

Why do some military officers have long careers while others serve a short while and then rejoin civilian life? Given that long-serving officers tend to be the leaders upon which most states rely to prosecute wars, this is a critical question to understand. Who makes up the senior officer corps? I test a series of hypotheses related to professional, personal, and economic motives using a new dataset on the military careers of Antebellum U.S. Army officers. I find strong evidence that officers who were able to take advantage of lucrative civilian opportunities in the course of their Army career were more likely to remain in the Army, as were officers who had been able to bypass the normally snail’s-paced promotion process. I do not find evidence that officers resigned in response to difficult or potentially morally objectionable duty, but that officers may have resigned in large numbers in anticipation of these duties.

Author

• Peter White, Auburn University