The Military Covenant, Contractual Relations, and Social Cohesion in Democracies: Estonia as an Exploratory Case Study

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X221100769
• Author: Kairi Kasearu,Eleri Lillemäe,Eyal Ben-Ari
• Date: 01 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X221100769

Armed Forces & Society

2023, Vol. 49(3) 729 –751

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X221100769

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Article

The Military Covenant,

Contractual Relations,

and Social Cohesion in

Democracies: Estonia

as an Exploratory

Case Study

Kairi Kasearu1, Eleri Lillemäe1,2, and Eyal Ben-Ari2,3

Abstract

The military covenant is a set of morally binding expectations marking the exchange

between military, society, and the state. Its base is the military’s duality: like

other large public institutions delivering services and its uniqueness in holding the

monopoly over the use of legitimate organized state violence. The covenant is a

form of relational (not transactional) contract based on trust between, and a long-

term orientation of, partners; it both orders and displays these relations thereby

offering both prescriptions for action and discursive means to legitimate them.

The covenant can be used as an analytical (not normative) concept for theoretical

development in three areas: social change and society-military ties, processual

aspects of agreements between individuals and groups and the armed forces, and

links between society-military ties and the social contract and social cohesion. We

use the case of Estonia to illustrate the theoretical potential of the military covenant.

Keywords

military covenant, social contract, relational contract, social cohesion, society-

military relations

1University of Tartu, Estonia

2Estonian Military Academy, Tartu, Estonia

3Kinneret Center for Society, Security and Peace, Mevasseret-Zion, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Eleri Lillemäe, Department of Applied Research, Estonian Military Academy, Riia 12, 51010 Tartu, Estonia.

Email: elerilillemae@gmail.com

1100769AFSXXX10.1177/0095327X221100769Armed Forces & SocietyKasearu et al.

research-article2022

730 Armed Forces & Society 49(3)

This article develops the idea of the military covenant as a theoretical (rather than

normative) concept (Avdagic et al., 2011).1 The military covenant refers to the (usu-

ally) implicit but morally binding expectations marking the relations and exchange

between military, society, and the state (Forster, 2006). At its simplest, the military

covenant entails the willingness of military personnel to make personal sacrifices

(including death) and forgo some rights enjoyed by civilians in return for recognition

of their important social role, fair treatment for them and their families, and com-

mensurate terms and conditions of service. More specifically, soldiers promise will-

ingness to sacrifice bodies and lives, show obedience to the military hierarchy,

subscribe to an a-political orientation, express loyalty to the country, internalize soci-

ety’s civilian values and democratic ground rules, and be transparent and account-

able and professionalize. In return, society through the state pledges to provide a

monopoly over coercive state power, acknowledgment of the military’s importance,

grant institutional autonomy for the military, provide training and proper equipment,

support for troops and families, and commemorate fallen soldiers. Hence, military

covenants cover much more than agreements about concrete workplace-related

issues because they touch upon things like the legitimacy of using armed force and

the ways in which sacrifices of soldiers are handled. As interpretive frames, cove-

nants are prisms through which military service, preparation for armed conflict, and

deployment of force are understood and acted upon by soldiers and civilians.

While a military covenant first appeared in the United Kingdom as a formal docu-

ment, a small number of scholars have begun to theorize the concepts at base of this

agreement. Based on their efforts, we develop the theoretical fruitfulness of this con-

cept. To do so, we have turned to the sociology of contracts not because the covenant

is a legal document—it usually an implicit set of understandings—but because this

body of knowledge offers insights about mutually binding agreements between part-

ners. Specifically, we utilize the concept of relational contract (Macneil, 1983) to

understand the characteristics of, and processes of change regarding, the military

covenant. Empirically, expressions of military covenants—reflecting their dynamic

nature and the negotiations underlying them—can be found in a plethora of sources

such as statements and declarations of civilian politicians and senior commanders,

parliamentary committees and special study groups, negotiation forums and feed-

back apparatuses (say public opinion surveys or research), organizations of troops or

their families, and appeals to the media and internal military “creeds” or missives

sent to soldiers. To exemplify our argument, we use Estonia as an exploratory case

study (Thomas, 2011).

The Theoretical Groundwork of Our Study

The academic study of military covenants is relatively recent, and its utility as an

analytical concept has been emerging during the past decade and a half. Interest in

the subject took off with discussions of Britain’s written (but not legally binding)

agreement and the reasons for its evolution (Forster, 2006; Ingham, 2014; Rubin,