ABSTRACT
Hitherto, the literature on citizen and professional armies has focused on two essential questions; why do some states maintain citizen armies based on compulsory conscription while others prefer professional armies based on volunteers? and what can explain the shift from one type of military institution to another? These issues, which were a matter of concern to Huntington (1957) as early as the mid-1950s and later to Janowitz (1982), assumed particular prominence after the end of the Cold War, when the shift from conscript to all-volunteer armed forces assumed widespread dimensions, especially in the US and Europe (see Table 6.1). The result was a spate of studies on the state–society–military nexus, some focusing on the strategic context of the phenomenon and others on its societal, cultural and economic dimensions (See, e.g., Skocpol 1992; Avant 2000; Moskos 2000, 2001; Desch 2001; Feaver and Kohn 2001; Posner 2003; Vasquez 2005; King 2006; Levy 2007).
