Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:49:55.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Mercenary to Citizen Armies: Explaining Change in the Practice of War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2003

Deborah Avant
Get access

Abstract

Mercenary armies went out of style in the nineteenth century; it became common sense that armies should be staffed with citizens. I argue that even though realist explanations focusing on the fighting prowess of citizen armies and sociological explanations focusing on the fit between citizen armies and prevailing ideas can rationalize this change, they cannot explain it. I examine, instead, the politics behind the new reliance on citizen armies and argue that material and ideational turmoil provided important antecedent conditions for change. Beyond this, individual states were more likely to move toward citizen armies when they had been defeated militarily and when the ruling coalition was split or indifferent about the reforms tied to citizen armies. Finally, the apparent success of citizen armies in France and then Prussia made do mestic conditions for reform easier to obtain in other countries, reinforcing the likelihood that the solution would be replicated. I conclude that the interaction between domestic politics and path dependency provides a promising source of hypotheses for explaining the conditions under which new ways of war emerge and spread.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , Winter 2000 , pp. 41 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addington, Larry H. 1984. The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Eugene Newton. 1939. Nationalism and the Cultural Crisis in Prussia, 1806–1815. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.Google Scholar
Avant, Deborah. 1999. The Market for Force: Exploring the Privatization of Military Services. Paper presented at the Council on Foreign Relations, Study Group on Arms Trade and the Transnationalization of Defense, New York.Google Scholar
Bailes, Howard. 1981. Patterns of Thought in the Late Victorian Army. The Journal of Strategic Studies 4 (1): 29–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, Correlli. 1970. Britain and Her Army, 1590–1970: A Military, Political, and Social Survey. New York: William Morrow and Company.Google Scholar
Barnett, Michael N. 1992. Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Barry, Brian. 1978. Sociologists, Economists, and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H. 1981. Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bawn, Kathleen. 1996. Constructing “Us”: Coalition Politics as the Foundation of Ideology, Identity, and Empathy. Paper presented at the 92d Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 29 August–1 September.Google Scholar
Bayley, C. C. 1977. Mercenaries for the Crimea: The German, Swiss, and Italian Legions in British Service, 1854–1856. London: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Biddle, Stephen. 1997. The Gulf War Debate Redux: Why Skill and Technology Are the Right Answer. International Security 22 (2): 163–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
General SirBiddulph, Robert. 1904. Lord Cardwell at the War Office: A History of His Administration, 1868–1874. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Bien, David D. 1979. The Army in the French Enlightenment: Reform, Reaction, and Revolution. Past and Present 85: 68–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binmore, Kenneth, and Samuelson, Larry. 1994. An Economist's Perspective on the Evolution of Norms. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Politics 150 (1): 45–63.Google Scholar
Black, Jeremy. 1994. European Warfare, 1660–1815. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanning, T. C. W. 1996. The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787–1802. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Bond, Brian. 1966. Prelude to the Cardwell Reforms, 1856–68. Journal of the Royal Services Institution 104 (22): 229–236.Google Scholar
Bond, Brian. 1972. The Victorian Army and the Staff College. London: Eyre Methuen.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Crane. 1967. Enlightenment. In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edwards, Paul. Vol 1. New York: Macmillan Publishing and the Free Press.Google Scholar
Burmester, H. C. 1978. The Recruitment and Use of Mercenaries in Armed Conflicts. American Journal of International Law 72 (1): 37–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst. 1951. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cobban, Alfred. 1960. In Search of Humanity: The Role of the Enlightenment in Modern History. New York: G. Braziller.Google Scholar
Cohen, Eliot A. 1985. Citizens and Soldiers: The Dilemmas of Military Service. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Cortell, Andrew P., and Davis, James W.. 1996. How Do International Institutions Matter? The Domestic Impact of International Rules and Norms. International Studies Quarterly 40 (4): 451–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, Gordon. 1955. The Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640–1945. New York: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Dawes, Robyn M. 1988. Rational Choice in an Uncertain World. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Delbruck, Hans. 1985. The Dawn of Modern Warfare. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Downing, Brian M. 1992. The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Eyre, Dana P., and Suchman, Mark C.. 1996. Status, Norms, and the Proliferation of Conventional Weapons: An Institutional Theory Approach. In The Culture of National Security, edited by Katzenstein, Peter J.. 79–113. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Niall. 1999. The Pity of War. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Finnemore, Martha, and Sikkink, Katherine. 1998. International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International Organization 52 (4): 887–918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey, and Weingast, Barry R.. 1993. Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Constructing the European Community's Internal Market. In Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change, edited by Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., 173–206. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gates, David. 1994. Transformation of the Army 1783–1815. In The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army, edited by Chandler, David and Beckett, Ian, 133–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gooch, John. 1980. Armies in Europe. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul.Google Scholar
Gourevitch, Peter. 1978. The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics. International Organization 32 (4): 881–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hazard, Paul. 1954. European Thought in the Eighteenth Century: From Montesquieu to Lessing. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Henderson, Ernest F. 1911. Blucher and the Uprising of Prussia Against Napoleon, 1806–1815. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Holborn, Hajo. 1986. The Prusso-German School: Moltke and the Rise of the General Staff. In Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Paret, Peter, 281–95. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1964. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. 1990. The International Spread of Privatization Policies: Inducements, Learning, and “Policy Bandwagoning.” In The Political Economy of Public Sector Reform and Privatization, edited by Suleiman, Ezra and Waterbury, John. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John, Lake, David A., and Mastanduno, Michael. 1988. The State and American Foreign Economic Policy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kahler, Miles. 1998. Rationality in International Relations. International Organization 52 (4): 919–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, David. 1990. Politics and War: European Conflict from Philip II to Hitler. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter, ed. 1996. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Keegan, John. 1993. A History of Warfare. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Kennett, Lee B. 1967. The French Armies in the Seven Years War: A Study in Military Organization and Administration. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Knight, Jack. 1992. Institutions and Social Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynn, John A.. 1984. The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791–94. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Krepinevich, Andrew F. 1994. Cavalry to Computer: The Pattern of Military Revolutions The National Interest 37 (fall): 30–42.Google Scholar
March, James G., and Olsen, Johan P.. 1998. The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders. International Organization 52 (4): 943–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazarr, Michael. 1993. The Military Technological Revolution: A Structural Framework. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies.Google Scholar
McNeill, William H. 1982. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meinecke, Friedrich. 1972. Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook. New York: Herder and Herder.Google Scholar
Muir, Rory. 1996. Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807–1815. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Nisbett, Richard E., and Ross, Lee. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. 1981. Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Gorman, Frank. 1982. The Emergence of the British Two-Party System, 1760–1832. New York: Holmes and Meier.Google Scholar
Omond, J. S. 1933. Parliament and the Army, 1642–1904. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. R. 1986. Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bulow: From Dynastic to National War. In The Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Paret, Peter, 91–119. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paret, Peter. 1986. Napoleon and the Revolution in War. In The Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Paret, Peter, 123–42. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paret, Peter. 1992. Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perrett, Bryan. 1992. The Battle Book: Crucial Conflicts in History from 1469 B.C. to the Present. London: Arms and Armour Press.Google Scholar
Posen, Barry R. 1993. Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power. International Security 18 (2): 80–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, Walter W., and DiMaggio, Paul J., eds. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Richard, and Tannenwald, Nina. 1996. Norms and Deterrence: The Nuclear and Chemical Weapons Taboos. In The Culture of National Security, edited by Katzenstein, Peter J., 114–52. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Resende-Santos, João. 1996. Anarchy and the Emulation of Military Systems: Military Organization and Technology in South America, 1870–1930. Security Studies 5 (3): 193–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1994. Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War. International Organization 48 (2): 185–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogowski, Ronald. 1987. Trade and the Variety of Domestic Institutions. International Organization 41 (2): 203–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Stephen Peter. 1991. Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, Gunther. 1980. The Art of War in the Age of Napoleon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, Gunther. 1994. The Age of Napoleon. In The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World, edited by Howard, Michael, Andreopoulos, George J., and Shulman, Mark R., 86–97. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1993a. Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution. In Multilateralism Matters, edited by Ruggie, John Gerard, 3–47. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1993b. Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations. International Organization 47 (1): 139–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1998. What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge. International Organization 52 (4): 855–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shanahan, William O. 1945. Prussian Military Reforms, 1786–1813. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. 1978. Micromotives and Macrobehavior. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Shy, John. 1986. Jomini. In Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Paret, Peter, 143–85. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shearer, David. 1998. Private Armies and Military Intervention. Adelphi Paper 316. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorel, Albert. 1971 Europe and the French Revolution: The Political Traditions of the Old Regime. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Sugden, Jeffrey. 1986. The Economics of Rights, Cooperation, and Welfare. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Thomson, Janice E. 1994. Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Janice E. 1995. State Sovereignty in International Relations: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Empirical Research. International Studies Quarterly 39(2): 213–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toffler, Alvin, and Toffler, Heidi. 1993. War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co.Google Scholar
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1981. The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice. Science 211 (44):453–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1988. Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions. In Decision Making: Descriptive, Normative, and Prescriptive Interactions, edited by Bell, David E., Raiffa, Howard, and Tversky, Amos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van Creveld, Martin. 1977. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van Creveld, Martin. 1989. Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1992. Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization 46 (2): 391–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar