In this paper, I consider how Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959) and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (1985) allegorically treat U.S. Cold War fears of invasion by the Soviet Union. Given the texts' historical relationship to the Vietnam War and their use of very similar science fiction tropes (namely, invasion by communistic, insect-like aliens), I argue that Orson Scott Card reimagines the binary Cold War conflict, softening the rhetoric of Starship Troopers and allowing for a more qualified understanding of the relationship between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. Through this analysis, I also consider how science fiction is a useful tool of cultural criticism in that it posits future worlds so as to reflect contemporary social concerns.

The changing security environment in Asia has led to a renewed interest in the Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF). However, the SDF itself remains a black box: assessed either in terms of its problematic legal standing or physical military capacity, but with limited understanding of the people within; who they are, what they do, and how they think. This dissertation opens up the black box and brings the SDF officers into the analysis of civil-military relations in post-war Japan. I present a theoretical framework inspired by principal-agent theory, in which I hypothesize that the type of control (ex-ante or ex-post) and preference divergence between the civilians and the military produces four different outcomes in civil-military relations: containment, auto pilot, conflictual, and cooperative (possibly excessive). I examine how civil-military relations in Japan evolved over time and across three realms of defense policy making, budget, personnel, and use of force; utilizing the findings from an opinion survey conducted among SDF officers and civilian elite addressing the "civil-military gap," oral history records of former SDF leaders and civilian defense officials, and interviews with active duty SDF officers and civilian officials. My research shows that civil-military relations in Japan was generally calm, not because the ex-ante constraints were strong and suppressed the opposing views of the SDF, but because the policy preferences of SDF officers and civilian bureaucracy converged in support of the alliance relationship with the United States. Such preference convergence made it possible for the politicians to continue "auto-pilot control" of the SDF, which was convenient for politicians who preferred to avoid dealing with military matters in face of the anti-militaristic public. However, this led to two paradoxical outcomes: (1) the SDF came to enjoy their relative autonomy within the ex-ante constraints, and (2) the ex-ante constraints turned out to be self-binding for politicians, possibly hampering their ability to control the SDF ex-post. Institutional changes through the electoral and administrative reforms in the 1990s along with the perceived changes in the security environment surrounding Japan enhanced both the incentive and capacity of politicians to release the ex-ante constraints and to control the SDF in their own hands. Re-interpretation of the constitution to allow for collective self defense is a step in the same direction. Looking towards the future, the shift from ex-ante to ex-post control may result in tension between the civilians and SDF officers, in cases where their preferences diverge.

Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has witnessed a proliferation of civil-military initiatives that have engendered overt and celebratory displays of support for the British Armed Forces. This thesis interrogates two of these initiatives: the annual public relations event Armed Forces Day and the military charity Help for Heroes. Significantly, these initiatives have emerged against a backdrop of morally and politically contentious military violence, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hence, these initiatives raise important questions about the type of politics which underwrite them. In this thesis, I address these questions by critically engaging with a figure who occupies a key position within this UK civil-military landscape: the professional soldier. Adopting a Foucauldian approach, I place this figure within a broader political, social and historical context and show how, since the end of the Second World War, the professional soldier has continually remerged to rewrite the conditions of possibility for liberal war-fighting. Drawing on this insight, I identify a professional soldier, I label the biopolitical military professional, who greatly informs the contours of this contemporary UK civil-military landscape. The biopolitical military professional is an important figure because they are able to co-opt "civilian" political subjects into the service of liberal-warfighting despite a conflict's political context. This is made possible because the biopolitical military professional is a figure who incorporates their military expertise and professional concerns within a wider set of life-administering knowledges concerned with the health and well-being of the population. Crucially, the most overt expressions of biopolitical military professionalism are produced through these UK civil-military initiatives. I demonstrate this by showing how these initiatives mobilise a whole host of "civilian" proto-professional subjects into the active service of liberal war-fighting through an appeal to both their military "obligations" and their fitness and wellbeing. An effect of this is that participating in one of these initiatives becomes more than an act of military support it also becomes a way of partaking in a healthy and life-enriching activity. For example, a day out at Armed Forces Day is a way to get children to take part in active play and educational activities. Supporting the armed forces through Help for Heroes may involve running a marathon or taking part in a long-distance cycle ride. Consequently, via the presence of the biopolitical military professional these initiatives achieve a certain resonance with a civilian population disinterested in the politics of war but increasingly concerned with their health and wellbeing.

In 2018, the compulsory military service will be reinstated in Sweden and will, for the first time, be comprised of both men and women. The Swedish Armed Forces are looking to raise their diversity and wants to reflect the population of the Swedish society and are therefore working actively with their marketing to reach groups that have previously been excluded. The purpose of this thesis is to examine what type of image of Sweden the Swedish Armed Forces are (re)producing through their marketing and how it is used to try and interpellate new, poten-tial recruits. This will be done by examining four advertisement campaigns as well as comments retrieved from the Swedish Armed Forces social media accounts. The analysis will be conducted through a semiotic image analysis and a discourse analysis inspired by Laclau and Mouffe. The essay takes its theoretic starting point in a feminist critique against militarism and highlights the issues of using women and/or LGBTQ-people in the armed forces as symbolic figures of modernity and democracy. The study’s result shows that inclusion becomes a way for the armed forces to improve their own image and elude scrutiny regarding their own problematic structures by positioning themselves as an agency of good. This means that, by the inclusion of marginalized groups, there is as risk of legitimizing the Swedish Armed Forces existence, while still maintaining the problems that these groups are subjected to.

Jewish Israeli Women Soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are marked as the feminine "other" and work to reify the institution's power in Israeli nation-making. As subjects of the militarized Israeli state, women operate as legitimizers of Israel's masculinist authority. They soften the aggressive actions of the IDF through their demarcation in the feminine category, but they are also capable of furthering Israel's arguments regarding its egalitarian modernity through narratives of female "empowerment." As the subjugated "other" within ideas of Jewish Israeli national belonging, Jewish Israeli women soldiers operate for the means of the state's re/production of the nation and therefore of the state's power.

This thesis discusses the politics of conscientious objection in Turkey within a framework of citizenship. In this study citizenship is identified with being political and conceived as a process comprised of acts and practices. According to this conception, while practices reproduce the discourse of citizenship in a given context, acts are the deeds that challenge this discourse. Conscription, within this framework, is defined as a citizenship practice which re/produces the militaristic, nationalistic and gendered content of the Turkish citizenship. Conscientious objection is approached as an act of citizenship that contests and challenges the established citizenship regime in the country. This challenge and contestation is presented through the interviews with the conscientious objectors and activists as well as a review of the already published material by and on them. Conscientious objection challenges the citizenship regime in Turkey on three inter-related grounds: 1. It challenges and exposes the militaristic content of the discourse of citizenship in Turkey. 2. It challenges the political content of &lsquo / Turkishness&rsquo / &ndash / that is the nationalistic content of Turkish citizenship- with particular reference to Kurdish issue / and 3. It challenges the prevailing gender roles and the values of hegemonic masculinity in Turkey.

This thesis engages with the relationship between national identity, security-based narratives, and foreign policy. It focuses on the 1982 Lebanon War as the most controversial in Israel's history because it violated the Israeli societal norm of only fighting wars of self-defence (when there is no alternative to war). Through an examination of Israeli films about the 1982 war – Ricochets, Time for Cherries, Cup Final, Waltz with Bashir and Lebanon – this thesis studies the identity crisis experienced by Israelis after the invasion of Lebanon and the coping mechanisms that helped Israeli society reconcile the war with the security-based narratives that inform collective identity in Israel. / Cette thèse a pour objet la relation entre l’identité nationale, les récits sécuritaires et la politique étrangère. Elle se base sur la Guerre du Liban de 1982 en tant que guerre la plus controversée des guerres israéliennes en raison de sa contradiction avec la norme israélienne de seulement mener des guerres de légitime défense (à savoir lorsqu'il n'y a aucun autre recours que la guerre). À travers un examen des films israéliens qui traitent de la guerre de 1982 – Ricochets, Time for Cherries, Cup Final, Waltz with Bashir et Lebanon – cette thèse discute de la crise identitaire vécue par les Israéliens à la suite de l'invasion du Liban et s’intéresse aux stratégies d'adaptation qui ont aidé la société israélienne à réconcilier la guerre avec les récits sécuritaires qui font partie de la construction de l'identité collective israélienne.

This research examines the relationship between masculinity and recruitment at the University of Toronto during the Great War. Through a gendered framework established by historians such as Judith Butler, masculinity is approached as a constructed process that encompasses a variety of complex relationships between the individual subject and social processes. The following questions are explored: What motivated the administration the University to instate policies that first encouraged, and then forced, male students to enter active service? How did dominant discourses of masculinity influence recruitment efforts and the subsequent movement towards mandatory military training? The research reveals that gendered understandings of war and recruitment on campus presented active service as the defining moment of manhood. Enlisting, then, was understood as more than a willingness to take up arms; it publicly signified that a man was committed to the defense of democracy and to securing the freedom of generations to come.

This research examines the relationship between masculinity and recruitment at the University of Toronto during the Great War. Through a gendered framework established by historians such as Judith Butler, masculinity is approached as a constructed process that encompasses a variety of complex relationships between the individual subject and social processes. The following questions are explored: What motivated the administration the University to instate policies that first encouraged, and then forced, male students to enter active service? How did dominant discourses of masculinity influence recruitment efforts and the subsequent movement towards mandatory military training? The research reveals that gendered understandings of war and recruitment on campus presented active service as the defining moment of manhood. Enlisting, then, was understood as more than a willingness to take up arms; it publicly signified that a man was committed to the defense of democracy and to securing the freedom of generations to come.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 1931. / Vita. Published also as Johns Hopkins university studies in historical and political science. Extra volumes, new ser., no. 17. Spelling of forename corrected on t.p. in manuscript.