Abstract
This article introduces the Culturally Meaningful Networks (CMN) approach. Following a pragmatist perspective of social mechanisms more broadly, it develops and demonstrates an approach to understanding networks that incorporates both structure and meaning and that leverages time to understand how these aspects influence each other. I apply this approach to investigate a longstanding puzzle about why some of those who leave military service for civilian life fare well, and others badly. In a mixed-methods analysis, I follow a sample of individuals moving through the transition from military to civilian life in the contemporary United Kingdom. I find that the higher the proportion of alters (i.e., “contacts”) with a military background in the networks of leavers before discharge, the worse they fare after discharge. The CMN approach helps me locate a specific structural embedding that explains the presence or absence of durable cultural frames that set the context for the actual experience of the transition and cause problems during it. Attention to the temporal unfolding of network structure and social meaning is essential to bringing out this finding. By re-embedding networks within people’s experiences over time, the CMN approach helps grasp the distinctions by which leavers understand their interactions. I conclude by arguing that the CMN approach has implications for network sociology and cultural sociology that go beyond this substantive case.
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Notes
Between April 2011 and March 2012 alone about 190,000 people in the United States and about 21,000 in the United Kingdom left the military, making this issue more important now than at any time since the Vietnam War.
This is the case not least because of the institutional closure of the military (see Frank 1993); newer work consists of graduate theses written almost exclusively by ex-military scholars (e.g., Graves 2005), a few small-scale studies (e.g., Jolly 1996), and descriptive surveys (e.g., Iversen et al. 2005). Owing to this, most pertinent studies may be too old to shed light on the current situation.
Since this work mainly drew on clinical populations, its findings are methodologically questionable (Platte 1976).
Beyond this, scholars have studied the various conditions under which military personnel leave such as having engaged in pre-retirement planning or leaving voluntarily but also mainly found inconclusive and even contradictory effects (e.g., Stanford 1968, 1971; Brunson 1996; Graves 2005; Fuller and Redfering 1976; McNeil 1964; Wolpert 1991).
Such “problem situations” are paradigmatic for a pragmatist theory of action; without going into details, as actors encounter new situations in which they cannot rely on familiar habits that appear as self-evident to them or situations that otherwise preclude known habits, they are forced to seek, create, and experiment with new habits in order to cope with the problems at hand (Dewey 1922; Dewey and McDermott 1973; also Joas 1996; Emirbayer and Mische 1998; Whitford 2002).
In fact, it is precisely because structure and culture are conceived of as disjunctive but related aspects of networks that we need a third dimension (time) to disentangle how they mutually shape social life.
More than a multi-methods approach, a mixed-methods approach involves the integration of data or interpretations of qualitative and quantitative techniques at one point, often in an iterative process; this allows combining exploratory and confirmatory strategies and thus to “verify and generate theory at the same time” (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2003, p. 15; also Spillman 2014; for overviews on ways to combine quantitative and qualitative techniques, see Lieberman 2005; Plano et al. 2010; Small 2011).
In particular, we should avoid committing what Margaret Archer called the “fallacy of central conflation” (1988) by dissolving the distinction between structure and culture, especially if we aim for understanding their presumably co-constitutive nature (e.g., White 1992; also Mohr 1998; White and Godart 2007).
I performed analysis excluding outliers/high leverage cases and varying collapsing of categories.
Leaver #28 is a “possible outlier” (Tukey 1977) in terms of his change in life satisfaction. The following analysis was repeated excluding this case. Results (available upon request) did not change substantially.
Additional controls not reported (and the rationale for their inclusion) are: leavers’ age (on the one hand, older leavers might experience more difficulties facing a less favorable civilian job market or find it harder to make necessary life changes at the transition; on the other hand, they might have gained more experience in dealing with difficulties and challenges more generally), personal income (leavers with a higher personal income might have been able to build financial cushions, possibly easing the transition into civilian employment or they might find it especially difficult to find a civilian job that is equally well paid or honors their military qualifications), educational attainment (less educated leavers might find it harder to secure civilian employment or have more realistic expectations about the exit), family size and number of children (greater family responsibilities or available social support), military branch (service life differs markedly across the three branches, which could transfer into different experiences of the transition; this includes the historic lack of certified skills in the Army), officer status (officers might experience stronger feelings of loss related to responsibilities, authority, and social status at the transition), years served (reflecting immersion into military life; this includes certifications transferable into civilian life), number of recent detachments (experiences related to being sent on missions abroad, including active combat experiences, could aggravate the leaving experience), and urban/rural residency (proxy for social/economic environment). Given the small sample size, controls were entered one at a time and, if appropriate, collapsed into a maximum of 3 categories. For a more detailed analysis of these factors, see Edelmann (2013).
Additional controls were entered again as described in footnote 13.
Although I have kept descriptions to the voices of leavers, it should be noted that often partners were most sensitive of differences in these cultural repertoires between military and civilian people. The majority of them commented on their partners’ sense of humor and more direct, conversational styles as one aspect they struggle with in dealing with civilians and, after leaving, would have to change. They referred to their own language, the need to become “more accepting” and “tolerant” of civilians. For example, Angela, partner of leaver #19, argued: “He’ll have to change. He’ll have to become more accepting of others. At the moment, he’s used to persons doing what he tells them or he to do what he’s told. In civilian life, my girls [her civilian colleagues] simply say, ‘No.’ And there is a lot more he has to change. He won’t like that but will have to get used to it. He must behave less pithy, sort of aggressive, more tolerant of people. He’s gonna find that, on Civvy Street, people are not as honest and nice as they should be. They’re more likely to say they’ll do something, but then don’t or it doesn’t happen, whereas in the military, it would. He must become less trusting, not completely trusting. He’ll find it hard.”
Or, Deborah, Edward’s wife, describes some of the linguistic differences: “They have their own language, their own system. Sometimes, when we have a conversation, it’s like they talk in their own language […] and they don’t realize that the rest of the world doesn’t know what they’re talking about, that some of their everyday stuff is not everyday stuff for the rest of the world but only applies to the Navy. It’s not habits, it’s the work jargon, and this nickname thing that drives me nuts; everyone is a ‘Pony’ or ‘Blacky’ and it follows a whole system... It’s a totally different world, a totally different way of life.”
The interpretation that this feeling of homophily is directed towards military people in general rather than specific people corresponds to the finding that no leaver described missing any particular military others after discharge as well as to the quantitative finding that neither the change in military proportion nor the loss or gain of individual military relationships (not shown) significantly relates to their measured change in life satisfaction.
Again, leavers’ descriptions were confirmed by those of their partners. For example, Helen, John’s partner, described dealing with similar differences between military and civilian people (including how they talk and react to each other, their sense of humor and camaraderie) as crucial to a successful transition for him. Moreover, already before the transition, she emphasized that John is already used to switching between dealing with the two due to their common network of both military and civilian friends. What is more, partners often argued that, after living with a military person and engaging with their colleagues and friends for years, they themselves got used to behaving differently with them. Similar to John’s and James’s descriptions, they described themselves (and their family) adjusting to what they perceived as peculiarities of dealing with military people. For example, Helen described: “I adapt my behavior. They are different [military people]. It’s a different way of talking, a different sense of humor, it’s almost as if they understood you and you understand them. They have something in common. If you have been in the Forces for any length of time, you just know.”
Similar but less pronounced differences and difficulties were described regarding interactive encounters with civilian neighbors, acquaintances, and friends. Being voluntary, such encounters can be exited before conflicts arise or can be avoided altogether and, thus, do not necessarily demand the extent of social coordination that work situations do. Correspondingly, leavers’ experiences related to their spare time reveal a similar, but less strong relation with their change in life satisfaction and prior military proportion (see Table 9 in Appendix 3).
We have long emphasized the radical adjustment of understandings, expectations, attitudes, behavioral scripts, and habitual reactions that come with joining the military (e.g., Stouffer et al. 1949). But detailed study of the experience of leaving has been remarkably less common even though we know that “conditioning” has been such an integral part of military life that it is naïve to assume it would just fall away naturally as people leave (Jolly 1996, p. 155).
Although the goal of this article is more general, the specific findings here do have policy implications for the military-civilian transition. Caution is necessary to prevent a simplistic reading of the results. By capturing relationships, network indices account for one of the main means by which an adjustment of expectations and understandings of interpersonal behavior takes place. But there might be other means, and thus more suitable leverage points for policy interventions such as temporary mid-career or part-time pre-retirement placements in civilian organizations, civilian/military co-operations, or cultural awareness programs. Crucially, such interventions should go beyond the mere dissemination of knowledge and aim at building practical proficiency.
“Officers” refers to commissioned officers only; “other ranks” and “enlisted personnel” are used interchangeably.
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Acknowledgements
I am thankful to the participants in this study for their time and trust. I am indebted to the team at the King’s Centre for Military Health Research, London, including Simon Wessely and Stephani Hatch, for help finding suitable candidates for this study and their experience on research with military people. I am very grateful to both Stephen Vaisey and Kieran Healy for their advice and guidance in crafting this article. I also thank Boris Holzer, Alexander Kentikelenis, John Levi Martin, John W. Mohr, and John P. Scott for helpful comments on earlier versions, and Thomas Barbour, Brendan Burchell, Alexander Heppt, Shruti Kapila, Daniela Kraemer, Ciaran Morrisey and Ross Porter for their support. Finally, I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for Theory and Society and the editors for excellent guidance that greatly increased the coherence of the argument. This research was funded by King’s College Cambridge, the Cambridge European Trust, the Cambridge Political Economy Society, and the German National Academic Foundation. The study was approved, but not supported, by the UK Ministry of Defence.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Sample descriptives
In April 2009, the UK Armed Forces comprised 174,170 service personnel, with 39,640 in the Royal Air Force, 35,020 in the Royal Navy and 99,510 in the Army (DASA 2010). In the following year 2009/10, a total of 18,570 left at different ages (Fig. 5). In comparison to this overall service outflow, my sample exclusively consists of what could be called “late” service leavers (Fig. 6, Table 1). They are aged 30 to 61 with a mean age of 46.8 and a standard deviation of 7.4 years. A large majority of 93% (26) are aged 39 to 56. Furthermore, depending on the criteria for officers and enlisted personnel,Footnote 21 most leavers in my sample had completed their full service of twenty years, applied for two years’ continuance and remained on the so-called long-service list. Correspondingly, times served ranged from thirteen to forty years with 93% (26) of leavers having served for at least twenty-two years.
In terms of gender, service branches and officer status, the sample reflects the distribution of the overall service outflow reasonably well (see Table 5). Only 7% (2 leavers) are female, which corresponds to the proportion in the overall outflow. With 32% (9) from the Royal Air Force (RAF), 32% (9) from the Royal Navy (RN), and 36% (10) from the Army, my sample is equally distributed across all three service branches. In comparison to the overall outflow, this slightly over-represents the RAF by 16% (4.5), the RN by 12% (3.4), and under-represents the Army by −28% (−7.9); however, these differences likely reflect the age focus of my sample, dropping to 6% (1.6), 10% (2.7) and −15% (−4.3) if the comparison is limited to leavers aged 30-plus only and to 4% (1.1), 8% (2.3) and − 13% (−3.6) if limited to leavers aged 40-plus only. With 18% (5) officers and 82% (23) enlisted personnel, the sample slightly over-represents officers by 8% (2.2), which, given that officers tend to serve longer, is also likely to reflect the sample’s focus on “late” leavers. Data to evaluate this point was not available.
Distribution of overall service outflow 2009/10 by age and service branch; data compiled from resources at the Ministry of Defence, Defence Analytic Service and Advice (www.dasa.mod.uk); above age 55 only cumulated data available
Distribution of age (grouped by 2 years)
Appendix 2: Network elicitation instrument
To elicit respondents’ networks, I used a ten-item, adjusted version of McCallister’s and Fischer’s (1978) exchange approach. By means of so-called name-generator questions this approach triggers respondents to name people with whom they engage in certain interactional episodes. Respondents could name as many contacts as they wanted to.
Specifically, I asked nine questions referring to episodes that entailed three types of exchanges (emotional, instrumental, social companionship) as well as one general question to capture important relationships missed by this (see Table 6). I selected episodes that were equally meaningful before and after discharge. I chose factual wording for the question and specified a time-frame of three months. This was done to prevent capturing network turbulences immediately following the transition and to minimize biases from leavers’ unconscious reductions of dissonance or acts of romanticizing. Likely systematically related to different experiences of the transition, such biases could be detrimental to this research.
I gathered more detailed information on a sub-sample of participants’ networks both during the interviews and in the corresponding contact questionnaires. To focus on the most “important” contacts for this purpose and to increase the likelihood of obtaining at least three if available, I selected all contacts named among the first three on any of the nine exchange questions.
To integrate the network elicitation into the interviews and to account for participants’ subjective evaluations of relationships’ “closeness,” I employed a version of Kahn's and Antonucci’s (1980) “circle task.” Confronted with a diagram of three concentric circles, I explained to participants that the circles mark decreasing degrees of closeness and asked respondents to draw their contacts’ names in at appropriate places. In particular, I explained that “the inner circle represents people you feel very close to; this means people with whom you have a relationship that you value highly. The middle circle represents people you feel to some degree close to, and the outmost circle represents people you feel least close to; this means people whose relationship you value least.” As I went through leavers’ list of contacts, I issued different pens to distinguish between the selected contacts and other contacts.
To account for the existence of relationships among the selected contacts, I then cycled through an alteri-alteri matrix, asking respondents whether the respective pair of contacts would “know each other more than just by sight.” Although this was only rarely necessary, I elaborated, “By this, I mean that people know each other personally as in having met and spoken with each other; merely knowing of the other is not enough.” If leavers still hesitated, I asked if they knew that the contacts had met or talked with each other on their own.
Appendix 3: Mediation analysis for the effect of leavers’ military proportion before discharge on their change in life satisfaction
Leavers’ post discharge interviews were designed to probe into leavers’ experiences in all the major aspects of their lives. To evaluate which experiences were most crucial to the military proportion effect, I distinguished between eight aspects: finding employment, work, spare time, organizational aspects of everyday life, partnership, family, finances, and housing. These aspects and corresponding categorization rules are described in Table 7. I have chosen these aspects based on leavers’ own descriptions. I consider experiences related to finding and maintaining housing, and experiences related to finances separately because they are commonly considered to be particularly relevant to a successful transition. I also consider experiences of organizational aspects of everyday life as a separate aspect because these experiences are particularly new for some leavers. Furthermore, I distinguish between experiences related to the partnership and experiences related to the family in order to enable a differentiation between both aspects. To some extent, this is also due to the fact that I conceptualized the partnership as an individual focal point of this study and conducted respective interviews with the partners as well.
Based on the transcripts of the follow-up interviews, I evaluated how leavers experienced these different aspects. For this purpose, I ascribed leavers’ experiences of each aspect to seven evaluative categories using the coding rules described in Table 8. In doing so, I considered the quality and not the quantity of leavers’ experiences. The eight aspects above were unfolded to varying degrees during the follow-up interviews. In some interviews, probing elicited only limited descriptions of particular aspects. This was either the result of leavers arguing that the aspects did not change or that the aspects were not experienced at all, for example, when leavers did not look for employment. On the other hand, leavers often gave extensive descriptions if they had experienced changes that they felt strongly about. In most cases, leavers’ experiences pertained to one aspect only. Only in a few cases did leavers’ descriptions mark experiences that concerned several aspects at once, as indicated in Table 7.
Overall, it proved relatively uncomplicated for me to decide on the aspects to which particular descriptions pertained. I suspect that this was because the chosen aspects were based on leavers’ own descriptions and because my questions often addressed questions that clearly belonged to one aspect. Deciding how to evaluate leavers’ experiences of these aspects was also less problematic than I had initially expected. In a few cases, I deliberated between assigning leavers’ experiences of a given aspect to the adjacent categories −3 and − 2, and categories +2 and + 3.
Spearman rank correlations indicate that leavers’ experiences at work are especially negatively related to their initial military proportion, followed by their spare time experiences. Excluding the possible outliers in the distribution of each aspect does not alter the results substantially. Preempting criticism that the evaluative categories used might not be sufficiently distinct, I collapsed categories as follows: (explicitly negative & extremely negative), (extremely positive & positive), and (neutral/nothing & smooth). The resulting cruder, 4-fold categorization does not show substantively different results that alter this interpretation.
Also, correlations with leavers’ change in life satisfaction show that work related experiences are by far the most crucial ones (see Table 9, Fig. 7). Again, excluding the possible outliers in the distribution of each aspect does not alter the results substantially, neither does using the cruder 4-fold aspect categorization.
Schematic path diagram of correlations among military proportion before the transition, change in SWLS, and the experiences of aspects of the transition. Legend: Spearman’s Rho for all leavers (N = 28), * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01; arrows indicate temporal order
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Edelmann, A. Culturally meaningful networks: on the transition from military to civilian life in the United Kingdom. Theor Soc 47, 327–380 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-018-9317-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-018-9317-7