War as an Object of Sociological Analysis

War as an Object of Sociological Analysis


Obraztsov I.V.

Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Prof., the Department of Sociology, Head of Sociological Laboratory, Moscow State Linguistic University, Moscow, Russia igorobraztsov@rambler.ru

ID of the Article:


The reported study was funded by RFBR, project No. 19-111-50079


For citation:

Obraztsov I.V. War as an Object of Sociological Analysis. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2020. No 10. P. 106-116




Abstract

The article discusses the problems of sociological analysis of modern wars and armed conflicts. For all the variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, there is still no consensus in the scientific community regarding the determination of the essential characteristics and mechanisms of the emergence of wars. An interdisciplinary approach, on the one hand, opens up opportunities for a comprehensive study of such a complex socio-political phenomenon as war, and on the other hand, erodes the boundaries of sociological analysis proper. The issue of the name and status of sectoral sociology, the subject of which includes war, continues to be debatable. The author seeks answers to questions: What is the modern understanding of war, and on what theoretical basis can it be based? How is war different from other types of military conflicts, what are its essential features? What is the specificity of the sociological approach to the analysis of war? What branch of sociology should/can study war as a social phenomenon and / or as a state of society?


Keywords
war; armed forces; armed conflict; military organization; military sociology; sociology of war

References

Adler M.J. (1944) How to Think about War and Peace. New York: Simon and Shuster.

Alekseeva-Karnevali O.A. (2020) Topology of War. War as a “Transformation”: From Clausewitz to Soviet Military Theory. Moscow: URSS. (In Russ.)

Alexander J.С. (2012) Trauma. A Social Theory. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press.

Aron R. (2000) Peace and War between Peoples. Moscow: NOTA BENE. (In Russ.)

Beck U. (1992) Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.

Berndt O. (1897) The Numeral in War. Statistical Data from Recent War History in a Graphic Representation. Wien: Verlag von G. Freintag und Berndt. (In Germ.)

Blank S.J. (ed.) (2019) The Russian Military in Contemporary Perspective. Carlisle, PA: US Army War College Press.

Bliokh I.S. (1898) A Future War in Technical, Economic and Political Aspects. 5 vols. St. Petersburg: Izd-vo I.A. Efrona. (In Russ.)

Centeno M.A., Enriquez E. (2017) War and Society. Cambridge: Polity.

Clausewitz K. (1932–1933) On War. 3 vols. Moscow: Gosvoyenizdat. (In Russ.)

Collins R. (1975) Conflict Sociology. New York: Academic Press.

Cotesta V. (2017) Classical Sociology and the First World War: Weber, Durkheim, Simmel and Scheler in the Trenches. History: The Journal of the Historical Association. Vol. 102. No. 351: 432–449. DOI: 10.1111/1468-229X.12456.

Cru J.N. (1929) Witnesses. Essay on Analysis and Combatants of Critical Memories Published in French from 1915 to 1928. Paris: Les Etincelles. (In Fr.)

Duprat G.L. (ed.) (1932) Sociology of War and Peace. Paris: Marcel Girad. (In Fr.)

Filippov A.F. (ed.) (2015) State of War: Human Condition and Social Orders. Russian Sociological Review (Special Issue). Vol. 14. No. 4.

Geisman P.A. (1898) War, its Significance in the Life of the People and the State. St. Petersburg: Izd-vo A.A. Porokhovschikova. (In Russ.)

Golovin N. N. (1931) The Russian Army in the World War. A Sociological Study. New-Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.

Golovin N.N. (1937) On the Sociological Study of War. Osvedomitel' [Belgrade] [Informant]. No. 4: 1–13. (In Russ.)

Golovin N.N. (1938) The Science of War. On the Sociological Study of War. Paris: Izd-vo gazeti “Signal”. (In Russ.)

Golovin N.N. (1992) About the Sociological Study of War. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 3: 139–147. (In Russ.)

Gulin V.P. (1997) On a New Concept of War. Voyennaya mysl' [Military Thought]. No. 2: 13–17. (In Russ.)

Gusti D. (1915) Sociology of War. Bucharest: Editura C. Sfetea. (In Roman.)

Homans G.C. (1946) The Small Warship. American Sociological Review. Vol. 11. No. 3: 294–300.

Joas H., Knöbl W. (2012) War in Social Thought: Hobbes to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jones E. (1985) Red Army and Society. A Sociology of the Soviet Military. Boston: Allen & Unwin.

Kalmanson A.A. (1995) Look at the War through the Eyes of a Sociologist. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 8: 119–121. (In Russ.)

Kestnbaum M. (2009) The Sociology of War and the Military. Annual Review of Sociology. Vol. 35. No. 1: 235–254. DOI: 10.2307/27800077.

Kokoshin A.A. (2014) Political Science and Sociology of Military Strategy. 2nd ed. Moscow: LENAND. (In Russ.)

Kokoshin A.A. (2018) Issues of the Applied Theory of War. Moscow: VSHEH. (In Russ.)

Kołodziejczyk A. (2001) From the Military Sociology to the Sociology of National Security? In: Kołodziejczyk A. (ed.) Security in the Sociological Perspective. Warsaw: Wojskowe Biuro Badań Socjologicznych. (In Pol.)

Kononov I.F. (2019) Donbass: Laboratory of the Modern War and a Place of Social Disaster. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 7: 152–163. DOI: 10.31857/ S013216250005802-5. (In Russ.)

Korf N.A. (1897) General Introduction to Strategy Understood in a Wide Sense (Military Sciences Essays). St. Petersburg: Tipografiya shtaba Otdel'nogo korpusa zhandarmov. (In Russ.)

Kravchenko S.A. (2020) Development of the Subject of Sociology: from Monodisciplinarity to Interand Post-Disciplinarity. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 3: 16–26. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250008794-6. (In Russ.)

Krzyżanowski A. (1918) Sociology of War. Kraków: S.A. Krzyżanowski. (In Polish.) Kuznetsov V.N. (2003) Sociology of Security. Moscow: ISPI RAN. (In Russ.)

Kuznetsov V.N. (ed.) (2005) Sociology of the Great Victory. Moscow: ISPI RAN. (In Russ.)

Lederer E. (1915) On the Sociology of the World War. Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik [Archives for Social Science and Social Policy]. No. 39: 347–384. (In Germ.)

Lederer E. (2006) On the Sociology of World War. European Journal of Sociology. No. 47: 241–268. DOI: 10.2307/23999083.

Maciejewski J. (2012) Dispositional Groups. Sociological Analysis. Wrocław: Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. (In Pol.)

Malešević S. (2010a) How Pacifist Were the Founding Fathers?: War and Violence in Classical Sociology. European Journal of Social Theory. Vol. 13. No. 2: 193–212. DOI: 10.1177/1368431010362298.

Malešević S. (2010b) The Sociology of War and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Milovanov V. (1994) Military Оrganization of the State. In: Military Encyclopedia. In 8 vols. Vol. 2. Moscow: Voyenizdat: 135–136. (In Russ.)

Novicow J. (1894) War and its Alleged Benefits. Paris: Colin. (In Fr.)

Park R.E. (1941) The Social Function of War Observations and Notes. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 46. No. 4: 551–570.

Pipping K. (2008) Infantry Company as a Society. Ed. and transl. into English by P. Kekäle. Helsinki: Edita Prima Oy.

Ryazantsev S.V., Ivanov V.N. (eds) (2020) The Great Victory of the Soviet People: Socio-Political and Demographic Aspects: [monograph]. Moscow: Econ-Inform. (In Russ.)

Salomon G. (1938) About Sociologies of War. Revue Internationale de Sociologie [International Sociology Review]. Vol. 46. No. IX–X: 432–438. (In Fr.)

Scott H.E., Scott W.F. (1980) Threat: The New Red Legions. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Segal D.R., Burk J. (eds) (2012). Military Sociology. 4 vols. London: Sage Publications.

Serebryannikov V.V. (1998) Sociology of War. Moscow: Os’-89. (In Russ.)

Shibutani T.I. (1948) The Derelicts of Company K: A Sociological Study of Demoralization. Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press, 1948.

Shills E.A., Janowitz M. (1948) Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II. Public Opinion Quarterly. No. 12: 280–350.

Simmel G. (1917) The War and Intellectual Decisions. München; Leipzig: Reden und Aufsätze; Duncker & Humblot. (In German.)

Skvortsov A.S. (ed.) (1996) Concise Dictionary of Operational and Strategic Terms (Military Theoretical Work). Moscow: VAGSh. (In Russ.)

Sombart W. (1913) War and Capitalism, Studies on the Development History of Modern Capitalism. Leipzig: Verlag von Duncker and Humbolt. (In Germ.)

Sookermany A. (eds) (2020) Handbook of Military Sciences. New York; Cham: Springer.

Sorokin P. (1922) War and Militarization of Society. Artel’noe delo [Craftsmanship]. No. 1–4: 3–10. (In Russ.)

Sorokin P. (2000) Social and Cultural Dynamics: A Study of Changes in Major Systems of Art, Truth, Ethics, Law and Social Relations. St. Petersburg: Russian Christian Institute of Humanities. (In Russ.)

Sorokin P.A. (1928) Sociological Interpretation of the “Struggle for Existence” and Sociology of War. In: Contemporary Sociological Theories. New York; London: Harper and Row Publishers: 309–356.

Sorokin P.A. (1937) Fluctuation of Social Relationship, War and Revolution. In: Social and Cultural Dynamics. Vol. 3. New York: Bedminster Press.

Speier H. (1941) The Social Types of War. American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 46. No. 4: 445–454.

Speier H., Kähler A. (1939) War in Our Time. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Sredin G.V., Volkogonov D.A., Korobeinikov M.P. (1981) Man in Modern War. Moscow: Voenizdat. (In Russ.)

Steinmetz R.S. (1907) The Philosophy of War. Leipzig: Barth. Steinmetz. R.S. (1929) The Sociology of War. Leipzig: Barth.

Stouffer S.A., Suchman E.A., Devinney L.C., Star S.A., Williams R.M. Jr. (1949–1950) The American Soldier. 4 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Szerer M. (1916) Sociology of War. Kraków: S.A. Krzyżanowski. (In Pol.) Toffler E., Toffler H. (2005) War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Moscow: AST: Transit kniga. (In Russ.).

Toshchenko Zh.T. (2019) From Phenomenon to Noumenon: а Methodological and Methodic Search. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 4: 3–14. DOI: 10.31857/ S013216250004582-3. (In Russ.)

Toshchenko Zh.T. (2020) Society of Trauma: between Evolution and Revolution (Experience of Theoretical and Applied Analysis). Moscow: Ves' Mir. (In Russ.)

Tyushkevich S.A. (2017) On the Laws of War (Propositions of Military Theory and Methodology). Moscow: Prospect. (In Russ.)

Volkogonov D.A., Milovidov A.S., Tyushkevich S.A. (eds.) (1977) War and Army. Philosophical and Sociological Essay. Moscow: Voenizdat. (In Russ.)

Westmark E.A. (1909) The War: Sociological Study. Leipzig: F. Dietrich. (In Germ.)

Wright Q. (1942) A Study of War. 2 vols. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Yakovenko A.V. (2019) Sociologist in Context of Armed Conflict in Donbass. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 7: 143–151. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250005800-3. (In Russ.)

Yanitsky O.N. (2003) Sociology of Risk. Moscow: ILVS. (In Russ.)

Yanitsky O.N. (2015) Modern Wars: a Sociologist's View. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 5: 156–164. (In Russ.)

Zborovsky G.E., Ambarova P.A. (2019) Sociology of Higher Education in Structure of Branch Sociological Knowledge: A Problem of Constitution. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 5: 139–149. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250004968-7. (In Russ.)

Zdravomyslov A.G. (1996) Sociology of Conflict. Moscow: Aspect-Press. (In Russ.)

Content No 10, 2020