The Changing Face of European Conscription

Download or read book The Changing Face of European Conscription written by Pertti Joenniemi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conscription is seen as forming a site and an issue-area around which different identities are struggled over and core political relations established in a security-related context. The unravelling of conscription thus unavoidably pertains to a set of essential ideational issues and has significance far beyond the military sphere. The contributors to this book explore the more profound issues such as the meaning of conscription in the context of the increasingly feeble relationship between the state and the nation. The analysis relates the question of changes or lack of change in recruitment to broader social, political and cultural issues, thereby breaking new ground. Attention not only focuses on what the military manpower systems do, but also on what they represent. As such, conscription has meaning far beyond the sphere of military affairs.