From 'Obligatory Militarism' to 'Contractual Militarism': Competing Models of Citizenship

Since the 1973 War, the secular Ashkenazi middle-class groups, which traditionally had constituted the military's "backbone", have displayed a lack of enthusiasm to continue to bear the military burden, a phenomenon that was publicly portrayed as a "motivation crisis." We conceptualize this process as a shift from a "subjected militarism" that perceived military service as an unconditioned, mandatory national duty to a "contractual militarism," according to which military service is stipulated by the fulfillment of the individual's ambitions and interests, although it remained a formal obligation. Two sites of socializations-school memorial ceremonies and preparation for the military service-serve as mediating mechanisms between the structural, social change and the social agency. Both have been utilized by the dominant groups to re-shape the canon, military ethos in a manner that redefines their relations vis-à-vis the military in contractual terms.