Organizational Autonomy in a Mediated Age: U.S. Army Political Strategy, c. 1975-1991.

• In Event: 344 - Regular Session. Peace and Conflict

Abstract

Following Max Weber, sociologists have long consider the monopolization of coercive capacity as a necessary requirement for state legitimacy. Many have also followed Weber in a second step, which is to model the state as having delegated this monopoly to the relatively autonomous organizations of the military. Civil-military relations scholars as well as sociologists of war have supplemented that Weberian understanding with careful attention to formal oversight structures. However, since the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army, for one, has been increasingly oriented to resisting and controlling informal, rather than merely formal, threats to its autonomy. This development has yet to receive focused attention from sociologists. Based on extensive archival research, this presentation advances a new perspective on the U.S. Army, where key actors can be seen to guide the organization toward more beneficial relations with the mass public through the development of both media management structures and internal doctrine and organizational configurations oriented to shaping the informational environment. The findings help refine our understanding of how a state's monopoly on force is qualitatively affected by the political effort of its military to retain autonomy.

Author

• Thomas A. Crosbie, Yale University