Meaningful service

Pedagogy at Israeli pre-military academies and the ethics of militarism

Bibliographic Data

ID6061001
AuthorsJames Eastwood (SOAS University of London, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume22
Issue3
Pages671-695
Publication date2016-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of International Relations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1354-0661 • E-ISSN: 1460-3713
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1354066115594855
OpenAlexW2229405884
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited53

How can ethics be a militarist practice? This article offers an answer to this question using a study of teaching at Israeli pre-military academies for high-school graduates. It argues that when ethics operates as a practice of subject formation, it is quite possible for it to reinforce the militarist process whereby citizens are turned into soldiers. Based on interviews with teaching staff and participant observation at these academies, this article offers an in-depth analysis of their pedagogy that highlights their increasingly prominent contribution to Israeli militarism. Israeli pre-military academies combine ethics with a programme of military preparation such that military service is presented as an opportunity for individual flourishing and participation in war is imbued with an ideology of ethical soldiering. Given the significance of Israel/Palestine as a theatre of violent conflict, this article argues that this case has wider significance for our understanding of the nature of militarism and of the relationship between ethics and war. It suggests that ethics has become increasingly bound up with militarism, and that there are therefore clear limits to its capacity to constrain the violence of war

Flourishing · Ideology · Militarism · Military medical ethics · Military service · Nursing ethics · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law · War, Ethics, and Justification

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