Conceptualizing the Spectrum of the Bereavement Discourse

• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Yagil Levy
• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17701894
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Armed Forces & Society
2018, Vol. 44(1) 3-24
Conceptualizing the
ª The Author(s) 2017
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Spectrum of the
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17701894
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Bereavement Discourse
Yagil Levy1
Abstract
This article presents the spectrum of the bereavement discourse, namely, how
various social groups interpret the loss of their children’s lives or the potential risk
to their lives posed by their military service and translate it into public discourse, as a
spectrum of attitudes. It is argued that this spectrum ranges from subversive to
submissive approaches. Furthermore, within the confines of the declining casualty
tolerance, two variables cumulatively determine the actors’ choice of discourse: the
level of enforcement of recruitment, ranging from conscription to voluntary
recruitment, and the social position of the group to which the agents belong. Given
that conscription brings powerful, high-status groups into the ranks who may be
unwilling to make sacrifices for war, subversive responses are more likely to occur in
conscript militaries than in volunteer forces and vice versa. This article maps this
spectrum and hypothesizes about its determinants.
Keywords
bereavement discourse, casualty sensitivity, collective action
This article presents the spectrum of the bereavement discourse, namely, how var-
ious social groups interpret the loss of their children’s lives or the potential risk to
their lives posed by their military service and translate this interpretation into public
1 Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel,
Ra’anana, Israel
Corresponding Author:
Yagil Levy, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University of Israel,
P.O. Box 808, Ra’anana 43107, Israel.
Email: yagil.levy@gmail.com

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Armed Forces & Society 44(1)
discourse, as a spectrum of attitudes. Therefore, the bereavement discourse is con-
cerned with public voice rather than private mourning and with voices that can be
collectively clustered as reflecting a group pattern rather than with individual voices.
Thus, in such cases, the issue of resilience is less relevant. However, the attitudes of
various groups to wartime losses are varied, creating a spectrum of attitudes. It is
argued that this spectrum ranges from subversive to submissive approaches. Further-
more, within the confines of the declining casualty tolerance, two variables cumula-
tively determine the actors’ choice of discourse: the level of enforcement of
recruitment, ranging from conscription to voluntary recruitment, and the social
position of the group to which the agents belong. Given that conscription brings
powerful, high-status groups into the ranks who may be unwilling to make sacrifices
for war, subversive responses are more likely to occur in conscript militaries than in
volunteer forces and vice versa.
This article maps this spectrum by using examples from several societies and
hypothesizes about its determinants. In the next section, I will identify the gaps in the
literature on this issue. In the following sections, I will map the spectrum of the
bereavement discourse and present hypotheses about its determinants.
The Missing Link
The casualty sensitivity syndrome, which refers to the declining tolerance for military
sacrifice in industrialized democracies, became apparent mainly following the Viet-
nam War. Such sensitivity arises from several variables (whose relative impact is
debated by scholars): (1) the extent to which the war is portrayed as successful in
attaining its original goals (Gelpi, Feaver, & Reifler, 2009; Larson, 1996, pp. 10–12);
(2) the definition of the war’s goals relative to the level of perceived external threat,
where the greater the perceived threat and the role of war in eliminating it, the greater
the legitimacy for sacrificing human life (see Jentleson & Britton, 1998); (3) the
public’s views regarding the rightness of the war (Gelpi et al., 2009); and (4) increase
in the log of cumulative casualties (Mueller, 1973).
The conventional argument maintains that this sensitivity may affect policy
changes such as military redeployment and casualty aversion and is mediated by
two variables: (1) shifts in public opinion (see, e.g., Boettcher & Cobb, 2009;
Gelpi et al., 2009; Kriner & Shen, 2010) and (2) the initiation of collective
action (see, e.g., Levy, 2012, pp. 117–126; Vasquez, 2005). Wars that are
perceived as failures create a political opportunity that changes coalitions and
alters the political environment in a manner that savvy activist entrepreneurs
may read as an invitation to mobilize (Meyer & Minkoff, 2004). Both variables
are mutually reinforcing. As Giugni (2004) argued about the American experi-
ence, at least in the area of military policies, only the combination of shifting
public opinion and the joint effect of protest activities together with the pro-
testers’ collaboration with institutional allies in the public space can increase the
government’s level of responsiveness.

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Levy
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Nonetheless, the role of bereavement discourse is missing from this discussion.
Why is this role important? Political discourse is a precondition for initiating
collective action and shaping public opinion, for two reasons. First, the discourse
matters for the production of meaning through which social actors fashion a shared
understanding of the world (see Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). To make this new
meaning understandable to others, collective actors endeavor to create frames that
provide a compelling picture of the political problem—an unjustified or costly war
in this case—and offer a solution. Collective action frames are thus “action-
oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and
campaigns of a social movement organization” (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 614).
Frames function as a tool for legitimizing the groups’ voice and favoring this voice
over others when meanings are contested (Della Porta, 1999; Steinberg, 1998).
Second, by creating a collective identity, political discourse helps create a shared
social location, which is one of the critical determinants for successful collective
action (Gamson, 1991, pp. 40–41). In sum, political discourse mediates general
attitudes into politics.
As I will demonstrate later, antiwar movements may be organized around the
theme of bereavement, with its potential and actual impact. In this situation, the
subversive discourse of bereavement-motivated actors should be regarded as part of
antiwar activity. As such, the bereavement discourse is worthy of study. Such a study
should consider how social actors produce meaning, in this case, the meaning of war
sacrifice. Given that, as students of casualty sensitivity argue, concern about the loss
of life is affected by variables such as the success of the war, the level of external
threat, and the rightness of military action, the interpretation of these variables is
significant. Social agents use these interpretations to produce meaning, translate it
into public voice, and develop a shared social location, in this case, of those
bereaved by war or exposed to its risks. The production of meaning and creation
of a shared social location help develop a bereavement discourse through which
attitudes are translated into public opinion and collective action and may affect
policies (In turn, public opinion and collective action may affect the discourse, but
this discussion is outside the scope of my current study). Nevertheless, social groups
vary in their general attitude toward sacrifice for war and the resulting reactions.
Such variations require explanations.
While the theme of antiwar discourse is well developed in the discussions cited
above, the theme of the bereavement discourse is not. Butler (2009) introduced the
hierarchy of grief, the distinction between those whose lives are considered valuable
and mourned (Western lives), and those who are considered ungrievable for the loss
of their lives, such as enemy civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, because they have
never lived (p. 38). However, this hierarchy has not been extended to the distinction
between different levels of grievability for Western victims and its political impli-
cations. Zehfuss (2009) tackled this issue in part by analyzing how fallen soldiers in
Britain are grievable. Nevertheless, she did not offer any distinction between varia-
tions in grievability within the obituaries produced for killed soldiers and their

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Armed Forces & Society 44(1)
public
opinion shis
casualty
bereavement
policy
sensivity
discourse
changes
iniaon of
collecve
acon
Figure 1. The missing link.
potential impact not only on justifying violence but also on limiting the risking
of their lives. My analysis (Levy, 2012) of the case of Israel offered initial tools
to map the bereavement discourse and its origins; however, I did not provide
theoretical tools to analyze the determinants of the bereavement discourse from
a comparative perspective.
In sum, this article partly provides the missing link by theorizing about the
bereavement discourse to provide initial tools for explaining shifts in public opinion
and the initiation of collective action that may affect policies. To accomplish this
goal, we must take two steps. First, given the potential variations in the groups’
attitudes, we should map the spectrum of the bereavement discourse. Based on this
mapping, we can then hypothesize about the determinants of this spectrum....