The military as a vehicle for social integration

Militaries since World War II and decolonization have come to play a major role in influencing the direction of societal development and in some cases supplanting civilian authorities altogether. One of these roles - the military as a vehicle for social integration - can best be discussed by formulating three basic questions: How (on a micro level) do young men and women who are conscripted or who enlist in military service become socialized and changed by their experience? Might these individual changes in the aggregate affect the larger civilian society? And might the civilian and military sectors come to reflect one another over time? The systemic focus almost inevitably raises the matter of the state, and regardless of whether one takes the side of the neo-Marxists or the non-Marxists, the literature on the state offers some useful leverage for analysis.