Abolish the army? The ideal of democracy and the transformation of the Czechoslovak military after 1918 and 1989
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12529447 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Václav Šmidrkal (0000-0003-4056-9851, Czech Academy of Sciences, Masaryk Institute and Archives, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 623-642 |
| Publication date | 2016-06-09 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Review of History Revue européenne d histoire (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1350-7486 • E-ISSN: 1469-8293 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13507486.2016.1182122 |
| OpenAlex | W2416446325 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 8 |
This article deals with the relationship between the democratic transformations in Czechoslovakia after 1918 and 1989 and the armed forces. The democratic ideal of transformation seemed to be alien to the military institution, which upheld the old regime and paradigmatically represented undemocratic patterns of governance. In order to accommodate the popular demand to ‘abolish’ the army, the new political elite strived to initiate an institutional transformation that would re-legitimize the armed forces. Whereas after 1918 the military improved its reputation by changing into a ‘school of nation’, after 1989 the military, expected to become fully professional, went through a period in which its inner organisational culture was liberalized and personal freedoms of the soldiers were strengthened. The decline of previous authorities and the rise of civic self-confidence connected to the process of democratisation also led to the demoralisation of the soldiers. The liminal phase of military transformation was marked by the experience of the first ‘post-war war’, the Czechoslovak-Hungarian War in 1919 and the Gulf War in 1991, which indicated the needs of the new security environment and gave the idealistic thinking about the democratic military a touch of reality
Democracy · Ideal (ethics · Political science · Politics · Transformation (genetics · Chemistry · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2025 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |