Defence Research Centre at Faculty of Social Sciences has published a book, at German publishing company Nomos, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the professionalization of the Slovene Armed Forces. In the book authors analyse structural and functional aspects of the professionalization of the Slovene armed forces. Special attention was given to finding an answer to the question if and in what manner has the participation of the Slovene Armed forces in international missions abroad influenced the level of the functional professionalization. Book is based on several research projects done in the Defence Research Centre during the last twenty years. First part of the book is dedicated to the functional professionalization of the Slovene Armed Forces. In the second part, the authors focus themselves on the participation of the Slovene Armed Forces in missions abroad, and in the third part authors are discussing Slovene public’s attitudes towards armed forces.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33310557
The article presents public trust in institutions, especially in military, in theoretical and empirical perspective. Namely, today almost as a rule the military boasts a high level of public trust throughout the world. Also the Slovenian Armed Forces are among the most trusted institutions in the country. A comparative analysis of the public trust in the military in other countries, however, shows that the level of trust in the Slovenian military is below the global average. In this article, the level of trust in the Slovenian Armed Forces is presented and compared with the public trust in the military in other countries. This article presents the concepts of trust of Almond and Verba, Inglehart, Banfield and other authors, and discusses the level of trust in the military in Slovenia through these concepts. The analysis shows that several factors diminish trust in the military in Slovenian society: from a lack of knowledge and little interest in the military, defense and security matters, to dissatisfaction with political processes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33231197
The frequency, scope, and intensity of natural disasters are increasing, and so too are the number of victims, related deaths, and the amount of economic damage. The increasing frequency of disasters often overwhelms civilian management structures and demands the engagement of the military. This has generated new problems and controversies. However, mainstream scholarship in this field has so far failed adequately to address civil-military relations in disaster management. This article highlights the issue and addresses the various arguments used to advocate or reject military involvement in disaster management: militarisation, utilitarian, security-strategic, functional-humanitarian, and rejection-isolation arguments. This epistemological and ontological approach identifies, depicts, and classifies the arguments. It also identifies the various controversies that accompany military engagement in disaster management as a basis for future research into civil-military relations in the field.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33282909
The following article considers the challenge the cross cultural cooperation among service members in field. Based on presumption that the culture is manifested through the values, rituals, symbols, practices and language the thesis about the existence of peace operation’s culture was tested. The study was conducted among Italian and Slovenian service members. The main research questions were: 1) how are national and military cultures manifested in a peace operation?; 2) does the culture of a peace operation exists?; 3) do service members of various nationalities identify themselves with a peace operation? The results show that peace operation develops common practices, values, symbols, rituals and common language. The service members’ identification with the peace operation vary depending on one’s position in the peace operation (i.e. national unit, multinational HQ). Service members in HQs develop a strong sense of belonging to the multinational working team, while the main source of common identity for bigger national units is the local environment.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33443933
Inter-organizational cooperation within national counterterrorism communities has improved since 9/11, yet some disturbing difficulties have also been reported. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of inter-organizational cooperation, the potential opportunities for improvement and the threats in the case of weak cooperation using a sample of 100 counterterrorism experts. The results of a quantitative SWOT analysis reflect a deep division between the strengths and weaknesses of inter-organizational cooperation that strongly affects the extent to which emerging opportunities to improve it are being undertaken. The paper proposes a three-dimensional strategy to improve cooperation that focuses on interactive, procedural and analytical measures
COBISS.SI-ID: 32034653