On An Intensified Form of Collegiality
Comradeship is a specific form of collegiality. In every kind of organization certain norms of collegiality emerge – at McDonalds as much as at SAP, in national rail companies and in university hospitals. The reason is that norms of mutual aid among colleagues make it easier for the members of an organization to do their jobs well and minimize the risk that employees will be made redundant.
In some organizations, such as the army, police, or the fire brigade, collegiality takes the form of comradeship: in these cases each person is involved not only in his role as a member of the organization but as a whole person. After all, work in these professions involves a constant and serious threat to life and limb.
Of course, soldiers, police officers, and firefighters are only rarely exposed to such extreme life-threatening situations. Their normal work consists overwhelmingly of routine tasks, exercises, and endless waiting. And yet the possibility of ending up in a life-threatening situation determines their horizon of expectations. The heavy equipment, the bland food, the heat and cold, the mud, and the lack of sleep all evoke thoughts of this threat. For the members of these organizations, comradeship is therefore a necessary means of increasing the likelihood of survival.
Public debates paint an almost sentimental picture of the emergence of norms of comradeship. People seem to believe that comradeship is brought about merely by the German military law stipulating that the ‘cohesion of the Bundeswehr essentially rests on comradeship’ and the fact that all soldiers are obliged to ‘respect the honour and rights of comrades and to stand by them in times of need and danger’. Here, comradeship is articulated as a formal behavioural expectation that a soldier will stand up for his or her comrades in extreme ‘times of need and danger’.
But the norms of comradeship do not grow out of the formal stipulations of military law. Rather, norms of comradeship form behind the backs, so to speak, of the official formal organization – in the extreme situations which a soldier may encounter and in which the whole person is threatened. Norms of comradeship thus emerge independently of what the military law says or superiors demand. And, if needs be, these norms are affirmed through means of which the military leadership probably prefer to remain ignorant.
There is a peaceful way of establishing norms of comradeship. As a rule, soldiers very quickly learn to act loyally towards their comrades, not to embarrass them in public situations, to help them with tasks, to cover up mistakes, and to take over at short notice if required. In the best possible case this leads to relationships of trust, mutual support, and the knowledge that one can rely on one’s comrades in extreme situations.
But in cases where someone does not accept the informal behavioural expectations, the other comrades will use negative sanctions. In the military, such sanctions may initially take the form of derogatory remarks or direct insults, before escalating to the social isolation of the comrade in question, or even physical punishment. The primary purpose of these sanctions is not to exclude the comrade; on the contrary, they aim to affirm the informal norms. Soldiers or police officers who silently endure such humiliations, which are often officially prohibited, will then be ‘rewarded’ with continuing membership in the circle of comrades.
These sorts of processes through which informal norms are affirmed are present in all kinds of organizations. In the case of the police or army, however, they take a more violent form. That is not a big surprise. It is to be expected that organizations whose main task is to use force – and if necessary to use experts in violence, the military police – to ensure adherence to certain behavioural expectations also use more physical methods to secure the affirmation of informal norms than do IT companies, supermarkets, or town hall administrations. This is a good enough reason to be opposed to the establishment of standing armies. But even if you think armies are a good idea, you should be aware of the often brutal methods for making sure that expectations of collegiality are met.
Armies are nothing like the image they wish to present to the public.. Beyond the formal order, armies always have problems of cooperation that cannot be resolved along the lines of the formal order. Formal provisions alone cannot ensure that individuals are motivated to perform, nor can they ensure that the problems that occur in everyday cooperation between the members of the organization are resolved in a frictionless manner. This is exactly the point at which the expectations that are crystallized in comradeship norms play their role.
Every soldier knows that an army can only function because there are frequent deviations from the rules. Because only illegal stores of spare parts provide independence from sluggish army procurement procedures, every commander of a logistics unit has to know how to hide unofficially acquired material from auditors. Every lieutenant knows that it can be sensible, on occasion, to ignore the prohibited wearing of a keffiyeh in cold conditions because this is an informal ‘award’ for someone who served in Afghanistan. Every commander of a battalion is well advised to turn a blind eye when the means of affirming behavioural norms among his troops do not conform to the legal requirements. The sociologist Niklas Luhman talks of ‘useful illegality’ in this context.
Of course, the superiors know that these useful illegalities are not intended for public consumption. A skilful military leader therefore has to be able to paint a picture of his unit such that it appears to be doing everything by the book – at least until the defence minister’s visit is over. It is also not a surprise that defence ministers are therefore often the ones who are the most shocked when a scandal comes to light.
What is required is the wisdom to know the limits of deviation from the rules. Maintaining illegal stores of spare parts and weapons only works well as long as it is possible to ensure that the materials will not eventually end on the black market. ‘Failing to see’ that Palestinian scarves are being illegally worn is only an option as long as they will not get caught in a tank track and cause serious accidents. Tolerating the types of sanctions that are used to affirm the behavioural expectations among comrades, sanctions that many civilians would find unacceptable, is only feasible as long as certain limits are not transgressed. Strong leadership does not mean the mechanical implementation of formal expectations ordained from above but the judicious use of knowledge about the boundary between an informality that is useful for the army and one that is damaging to it.
