The Relationship Between Civilian and Military Leaders in Norway – Gap or Convergence?

Introduction

Playing a specialist and authoritative role in the state’s execution of violence, a nation’s military is generally understood to be a powerful institution. This is why civilian authorities commonly devote a great deal of attention to the possibility of the military using their power to intervene in society – and how such interventions might be avoided.

After World War II, Huntington (1957) and Janowitz (1960) discussed the normative and political organization of the relationship between the armed forces and civil authorities. For Huntington, civilian control of the military is best achieved through a functional separation of the military and the civilian sectors and a professionalization of the officer corps, thus mitigating the potential hazards of over-integrating civilian society and the military. Huntington also argued that civil society should accept the conservative values scholars had observed in the officer corps. Quite in contrast to Huntington, however, Janowitz (1960) recommended that leaders on both sides should encourage greater connection between the two parts of society.

In the decades following this discussion, an extensive body of research literature on what has been described as the civil-military gap has emerged. Rahbek-Clemmensen and his colleagues (2012) have identified four main gap dimensions discussed in this literature. The first is a cultural gap. Do civilians and soldiers adhere to similar values and follow similar lifestyles? The second is a demographic gap: does the composition of the military mirror the civilian population in terms of ethnicity, class, gender, and so on? Third is a policy preference gap. Do military and civilian leaders seek similar objectives and courses of national action? The fourth is an institutional gap relating to the question of whether relationships between military and civilian bodies generally are harmonious or conflictual.

Cohn (1999) has shown that scholars have addressed four main questions in the empirical research on the different gap dimensions: (1) What is the nature of the gap, if it exists? (2) What has caused it? (3) Why does it matter? How does it affect civilian control or military effectiveness? (4) How can the problems, if there are problems, be corrected?

The empirical research on the civilian-military gap or convergence has produced a wide set of interesting findings. Janowitz (1960) himself, for instance, studied attitudes regarding various cultural and political issues of members of the military elites in the United States. He found that a rapprochement between military culture and civil society had, in fact, taken place there.

More recent research in the United States shows, for example, that military officers are more likely to have grown up in rural areas and Southern states, and are more likely to vote for the Republican Party than the civilian population as whole (Feaver & Kohn, 2001; Urben, 2014; Liebert & Golby, 2017). Moreover, Snyder (2025) has documented that military officers who donate to political causes lean more to the Republican Party and are more conservative than non-military partisan donors. In addition, there seem to be distinct differences in values: scholars have shown that professional soldiers, across ranks, often criticize civil society for moral disintegration and lack of willingness to put in effort (Ricks, 1997; Feaver & Kohn, 2001). To some researchers, these findings indicate that defense forces and civil society in the United States are insufficiently integrated (Brooks, 2019).

In a comprehensive study of the British elite, Reeves and Friedman found that the ideological center of gravity among elites in the military, as in the aristocracy, “tilt strongly to the Establishment Right” (Reeves & Friedman, 2024, p. 166). They also found indications of a decline of the military elite in the makeup of the British elite (Reeves & Friedman, 2024, p. 118).

In the United Kingdom Strachan (2003) has shown that a civilian-military gap has manifested itself in various other ways, as well. He points out, for example, that defense does not figure as an electoral issue in Britain, where expenditure on health or education is routinely prioritized over defense spending. On the other hand, servicemen see civilians as honoring individualism over cohesion, as psychologically soft, and physically feeble. Moreover, they resent public policies which expect the armed forces to incorporate personnel policies which do not fit fighting formations, fearing the undermining of military effectiveness.

In Scandinavia, too, several researchers have studied the attitudes of military officers. Hosar (2014) has documented a strong right-wing orientation among professional officers before World War II. In 1973, Sigmund Grønmo reported clear differences in political attitudes between lower and higher officers; the lower officer ranks expressed positive attitudes towards both the center-left Arbeiderpartiet (the Labour Party) and low status groups in society, and voiced negative opinions about private business; higher officers, meanwhile, were more positive to political parties on the right side and negatively inclined towards the Labour Party. In Sweden in the 1960s, 88% of higher Swedish officers voted for the Conservative Party – Hȍgerpartiet (Abrahamson, 1971).

More recently, Kristiansen and Sødergren (2013) have examined images of the ideal officer presented by instructors to candidates for military education or employment. The ideal officer is a practically oriented leadership type with physical strength and combat experience. The (somewhat caricatured) contrast is a physically weak academic who emphasizes peace values. These attitudes indicate that military culture maintains a skepticism to academia and theoretical learning.

According to Haaland and her colleagues (2021), the continuing skepticism towards politicians and the Ministry of Defense in the military organization of Norway has long historical precedent. Many officers believe the defense of Norway to be above politics.

There is a need for more comprehensive data and more analyses of the attitudinal differences between the armed forces and civil society in Norway. In this paper, I will, like Janowitz (1960) and Dowd (2001), direct my attention towards the top officers in the Norwegian Armed Forces. These officers possess considerable power to identify security challenges facing the nation and to influence national defense policies. I compare them with other leader groups, or elites, particularly politicians.

I will devote particular attention to a dimension scantly studied in previous research: a gap in trust. Here, the inquiry is into the extent of mutual trust between military leaders and other elite groups. I will then focus upon the third gap identified by Rahbek-Clemmensen and colleagues (2012) – political preferences. Do the military elite and other elites in Norwegian society share opinions on significant issues, or do they diverge? I will concentrate on party-political preferences and elite individuals’ attitudes to issues which have been central in Norwegian history – the center-periphery issue, and the role of religion. I will shed light on these questions using pertinent data from the Norwegian Leadership Surveys of 2000 and 2015 (Gulbrandsen, 2019).

The analyses presented below demonstrate the existence of a significant gap in Norway between military leaders and members of other elite groups regarding political preferences. In the parliamentary election of 2013, as many as 82% of the generals and admirals voted for Høyre. Only 37% of the total elite in Norway did the same. In contrast, there is extensive intersectoral trust between top military officers and other national leader groups. Military services enjoy relatively high trust, while generals and admirals accord relatively high trust to other elite institutions in Norway.

The next section discusses theory and research design. The section following that describes data and methods; after this is a section presenting the results of the statistical analyses. The subsequent section gives a discussion of the empirical results. The article ends with a conclusion.

Theory and Research Design

Cohen and Cohen (2022) have criticized the binary approach in the literature on the civil-military “gap”. In their opinion, this approach entails a tendency to divide civil society and the military into two distinct and homogeneous communities. They maintain, rather, that there exist clusters of both civilians and military personnel across the divide, and variations on both sides. In this paper, I follow up on this idea, demonstrating, for instance, that the depth of trust accorded to the military varies between different elites. The extent of confidence given by military leaders to politicians, for instance, is marked by a similar variation.

Cohen and Cohen (2022) are skeptical of the concept of the “gap”, preferring to talk about “encounters” between the military and civil society. Similarly, I see an unfortunate tendency in the literature of collecting very different research topics and issues under the label “gap”. This approach is not necessarily equally useful for every topic. Thus, in this paper, I will more often talk about relations and attitudinal differences between military leaders and other leader groups or elites.

I describe the various leader groups as “elites”.

Elites are commonly defined in two different ways: first, as groups or individuals holding command positions in central institutions or organizations in society (Mills, 1956; Giddens, 1972; Higley & Burton, 2006); second, as persons or groups who control a disproportionate quantity of valuable resources –money or educational capital, for instance (Kahn, 2012; Nordli Hansen, 2023). In this article, the focus will be upon elites as holders of important command or decision-making positions in Norway. Elites possess the authority to define the purpose, direction and tasks of their respective organizations (Engelstad, et al., 2022). The results of their decisions may also significantly impinge upon the operation of other institutions and organizations.

Within elite research, relations between different elites are discussed as a question of elite integration. Many scholars have argued that the establishment of a viable democracy depends in some important measure on the cohesiveness and unity exhibited by the leading elite groups in society. For instance, Bürklin and Rebenstorf and their colleagues (1997) have supported the idea that elite integration fosters political stability and effectiveness. Higley and Burton (2006), meanwhile, saw the presence of consensually united elites as a basic condition for the emergence of liberal democracy.

As mentioned above, Rahbek-Clemmensen et al. (2012) emphasize divergent political preferences as an important gap dimension. However, any divergencies as to political preferences do not necessarily imply that political and military authorities have difficulties collaborating. Norwegian society is characterized by a long tradition of compromise and consensus between groups representing different interests (Gulbrandsen, 2019). I suggest that, in this context, mutual trust offers a better indicator of the quality of the relationship between military and other elite groups. Mutual trust is, moreover, an important basis for elite integration (Gulbrandsen, 2007).

As discussed above, several countries display a civil-military gap in cultural values and policy preferences. Under such conditions, mutual trust may pave the way for the military elite and politicians to achieve a common understanding of international security challenges and national threat situations. In the next round, such understanding may be a prerequisite for obtaining agreement over the principal elements of national defense policies. Moreover, the trust accorded to the military by national elite groups may be a necessary condition for bolstering the public legitimacy of the armed forces.

Trust has been defined in different ways, with various dimensions of the phenomenon discussed (see, for instance, Baier, 1986; Offe, 1999; Grimen, 2009). In this article I follow Levi and Stoker (2000, p. 476), who argue trust to be a relational phenomenon. For them, trust involves an individual making herself/himself vulnerable to another individual, group, or institution possessed of the capacity to betray them or to do them harm. Trust, they argue, is rarely unconditional. It is given to specific individuals or institutions over specific domains.

The literature on individuals’ trust in institutions commonly makes a distinction between private (business, mass media) and public or political institutions such as parliament and public administration (Newton & Norris, 2000). Moreover, a distinction is made between citizens’ trust in incumbents of political offices as opposed to their judgment about the political system and the institutions as such (Citrin & Stoker, 2018). Confidence in officeholders has been shown to be strongly influenced both by citizens’ partisan political attitudes and their evaluations of the performance of the incumbent government (Levi & Stoker, 2000). Citizens’ trust in the institutions, whether private or public, is more based upon whether the institutions are seen as fair and transparent – but it is also related to the citizenry’s perception of the competence and morality of their leaders. I expect that the same mechanism to be valid for elite individuals.

Most studies of institutional trust have concerned individual citizens. In this paper, I focus upon the degree of trust members of different elite groups show each other’s institutions. I will examine how much trust military leaders accord other institutions, particularly political institutions and politicians as a group; reciprocally, I study the degree of trust military services receive from the elite representatives of other significant institutions in Norwegian society.

I will also examine variations in trust in politicians among the individual members of the military elite. Here, I will particularly examine the influence of three factors.

The first of these is the class background of the top officers. Bourdieu (1979) has discussed how individuals of similar class background, particular those from upper classes, share experiences, understanding and social codes; it is reasonable to expect that such mutual understanding also may foster mutual trust. As will be demonstrated below, several members of both the military elite and politicians grew up in privileged families. Accordingly, I suggest that top officers whose fathers belonged to the upper class express more trust in politicians than military leaders with a middle or working class origin.

The second factor relates to the skeptical attitude traditionally displayed by individuals who sympathize with the right-wing parties Høyre or Fremskrittspartiet (the Progress Party) – a party which has often portrayed politicians as an elite which does not cater to the interests of ordinary people. It is reasonable to expect that military leaders who voted for those two political parties in 2013 might express less trust in politicians than leaders who voted for one of the other parties.

Third, 72% of the top officers who participated in the Leadership Study of 2015 had worked abroad for at least a year. During international assignments, they frequently function as military advisors to both national and international politicians. I expect this advisory role to instill a respect and understanding for the tasks and challenges faced by politicians; this may pave the way for them to be trusted.

Cohen and Cohen (2022) criticize Rahbek-Clemmensen and his colleagues (2012) for discussing gap dimensions as if they all are simultaneous phenomena. Cohn (1999), Strachan (2003), and Cohen and Cohen (2022) have all discussed how gaps and issues in the civil-military relationship vary over time. These scholars have also studied the factors influencing the prevalence and discussion of particular gaps at a certain time: the existence (or absence) of general conscription, for instance, is seen as a significant determinant of the quality of civil-military relations. In line with their approach, in this paper I will examine changes in the elites’ attitudes between 2000 and 2015 (and 1998–2013). Admittedly, this is a short period – but significant changes in Norwegian defense polices took place during these years.

Data and Method

Carried out between 1998 and 2003 and presented in Gulbrandsen et al. (2002), the Leadership Study 2000 was a significant part of the Power and Democracy project commissioned by the government (Østerud, Engelstad & Selle 2003). In 2015, another Leadership Study was conducted, presented in Gulbrandsen (2019). Both were survey studies organized in a collaboration between the Institute for Social Research and Statistics Norway. In the surveys, Norwegian elite individuals were asked about their social background and careers, how they relate to each other, their attitudes towards key policy issues, and so on.

In the two studies, the population of top leaders or elite individuals in Norwegian society was identified through a two-step process. First, significant sectors in the Norwegian society were identified. Ten sectors were selected: the church; the academia (universities and research institutes,); culture; mass media; voluntary organizations; judiciary (the courts and police); the public sector; private business; the political system (politicians); and the armed forces. This list is similar to the one used in the World Values Surveys’ questions about public support for public and private institutions (Newton & Norris, 2000).

The most important formal top leadership positions were identified within each sector. Next, the individuals holding these positions were selected for interview. The elite individuals were interviewed in person and by telephone. The Leadership Study 2000 had a net sample of 1710 people, and a unique response rate of 87. The net sample in the Leadership Study 2015 consisted of 1352 top leaders from the same sectors as in the first study and a response rate of 71.5%.

The elite in the armed forces consist of military officers in the highest ranks in the Norwegian military: general, lieutenant general, major general, and brigadier general in the army; admiral, vice admiral, rear admiral and flag commander in the navy. In 2000 the population of top officers comprised 78 persons; 68 chose to participate in the survey – an impressive response rate of 87%. In 2015 the military elite consisted of 87 persons. 71 chose to participate in the survey, another impressive response rate of 82%.

The number of top officers studied is low. Since the whole population of top officers is covered and the response rates are exceptionally high, there are, however, few issues with drawing conclusions from the analyses (see Grønmo, 2024, chapter 8). On the other hand, the sole inclusion of top officers presents a limitation. This elite group is not necessarily representative of the whole population of officers and their opinions. The younger generation of officers may have experiences different to those of the generals and admirals, giving them attitudes other to the issues discussed in this paper.

In 2015, 96% of the officers were men. Their average age was 54. 20% grew up in upper class families, 31% in families where the father had a working-class occupation. The remaining top officers came from upper and lower middle-class families.

Institutional trust among the elites was studied by inviting them to state their trust in 12 different elite institutions or groups on a scale from 0 to 10, where the value 0 represents no trust and 10, full trust. The 12 institutions included the judiciary; universities and research institutions; parliament; the government/cabinet; the police; civil service; military services; politicians; business; church; and the mass media. As can be seen, the composition of this list of institutions is somewhat different from the ten elite sectors described above.

Based upon the responses in the 2015 Leadership Study, I have constructed three figures. The first shows the average of all elites’ trust in each of the 12 institutions. The second, trust granted by the members of military elites to the other 11 institutions (excluding the armed forces) in 2015. The third shows the trust invested in military services from each of the other nine elite groups. In the two Leadership Studies, top leaders in cultural institutions were included in the elite sample, while cultural organizations were excluded from the list of institutions receiving trust.

In both 2000 and 2015, the elite individuals were asked which political party they voted for in the preceding parliamentary elections of 1998 and 2013.

In 2000 the elite individuals’ attitudes towards the center-periphery issue were measured on an index based on two questions. The index was compiled from the elite persons’ assessment of the statement “Further development of roads, bridges and tunnels in rural Norway should be curbed” and from their answers to the question “How important is it to maintain the level of financial transfers to rural areas in coming years? Is it very important, somewhat important, not important or not important at all?” The index is an average index with four values. The top leaders designated the value of 4 are those most concerned with the interests of the provinces.

In 2015 the elites’ opinions about the trade-off between center and periphery were charted differently. They were asked to place themselves on an attitude scale with values from 0 to 10. The value 0 indicates that central authorities pay too little attention to the needs and interests of “rural-Norway”; the value 10 indicates that the authorities pay too much attention to rural areas. Given the clear dissimilarity between the questions used as indicators, it is difficult to compare the attitudes of the elites at the two points in time. Nonetheless, I believe that the two analyses give a reasonable picture of changes in attitudes between 2000 and 2015.

In both studies, respondents were asked to state their opinions about the following statement: “We should strive for a society where Christian values play a greater role than today.”

Results

Institutional Trust

Figure 1 shows the level of trust accorded the twelve institutions by members of all ten Norwegian elites (including the military elite) in 2015. The figure shows that in this year military services were relatively highly trusted by all the elites (including top officers). On the scale measuring trust, military services scored 7.1, on a par with the score of the civil service (7.1) and close to the scores of the cabinet (7.3), the police (7.3), and voluntary organizations (6.9). The judiciary topped the scale with a score of 8.6. The church and the mass media were least trusted by Norwegian elites (4.8).

Figure 1

Elite trust in the selected institutions was higher in 2015 (6.6) than in 2000 (6.1), as was the trust of citizens in the same institutions (Gulbrandsen, 2019). Further, the military services enjoyed an increase in trust from all the elites, from a score of 6.2 in 2000 to 7.1 in 2015, as we saw above.

Figure 2 shows the average trust placed by military leaders in each of the 11 other institutions. The pattern has many similarities with the picture of elites’ overall trust in institutions as described in Figure 1. Along with the other elite groups, the top officers ranked the judiciary highest and mass media and the church lowest on the trust scale. The members of the military elite also trust parliament and cabinet highly – again in line with the rest of the elite population. While the military leaders trust politicians as a group less than political institutions, their score is close to the average score of all elites. In general, the average trust military leaders accorded all the other elite institutions increased between 2000 and 2015, from 6.4 to 6.9, an average higher than the overall trust of all elite groups.

Figure 2

Figure 3 shows the degree of trust given to the military services by each of the nine other elite groups. The figure reveals that there are relatively small differences in the confidence military services receive from other elite groups. The armed forces are most highly trusted by politicians (7.9), interestingly; this is fractionally more than top leaders in universities and research institutes, and judges and police chiefs (both 7.7). Lowest scores on the trust scales are given by top leaders in cultural institutions (6.4) and the mass media (6.5).

Figure 3

The preceding findings indicate that top officers assess and rank the trustworthiness of the various elite institutions in the same way as other elite groups. Moreover, military services receive high trust from the other elite groups – but compared to several of the other elite groups, the military leaders themselves express lower trust than they receive. This applies to politicians, to the business sector, church and mass media. In that sense there is a certain gap between military leaders and other leader groups.

There are variations among the top officers in how they assess the trust of politicians. While about 42% of the top officers scored 7 or higher on the trust scale, 35% scored 5 or lower. In other words, there is no consensus within the military elite on their trust in politicians. Trying to explain such variation, I have carried out a separate regression analysis relating various characteristics of the top officers to their confidence in politicians in general. As mentioned in the theory section, I have focused upon the significance of three factors: the officers’ class background; their party political preferences; and their international assignments.

There were minimal differences between the military leaders in gender, age, and education. These variables were therefore not included in the regression analysis.

The results of the regression analysis are presented in Table 1. The table demonstrates that the three variables are significantly related to the level of trust bestowed on politicians. Moreover, the results are in line with the empirical expectations formulated above. First, those top officers who voted for the conservative Høyre and Fremskrittspartiet parties in the 2013 parliamentary election expressed lower trust in politicians than military leaders who voted for one of the other political parties. Second, top officers who had a father with an “upper class” occupation had more confidence in politicians than military leaders who had another class background. Third, generals or admirals who had worked abroad for at least a year were significantly more positive about politicians than those without directly comparable occupational experience.

Table 1

Military leaders’ trust in politicians. OLS regression.

INTERCEPT	6.097 (0.542)***
Class background (compared with working- class origin)
Upper class	1.584 (0.525)***
Upper middle class	0.245 (0.447)
Lower middle class	0.998 (0.649)
Voted in the 2013 Parliamentary election (compared to all other parties) The Conservative Party or the Progress Party	–1.991 (0.492)***
Worked abroad at least one year	1.255 (0.417)***
R2 (adj.)	0.26
N	63

[i] Note. *** indicates significance at the 1% level. Source: Norwegian Leadership Study 2015.

The preceding findings illustrate Cohen and Cohen’s (2022) key point that civil society and the military are not distinct, homogeneous communities but, rather, institutions characterized by clusters and variations.

Above, I referred to Haaland, Hobson and Bjerga (2021), who have claimed that there exists a widespread skepticism towards politicians in the officer corps. If this is true, this attitude should manifest through the expression of diminished trust in politicians in my material, compared to other elite groups. As Figure 2 demonstrates, however, this is not the case. In fact, in 2015 the members of the military elite accorded politicians, as a group, higher trust (5.9) than did many other elite groups. Moreover, Figure 2 shows that the military elite expressed high trust in the political institutions of parliament and cabinet. On the other hand, comparing Figures 2 and 3, it appears that Norwegian politicians accord the armed forces much more trust (7.9) than they receive from the top officers (5.9). There exists, that is, a gap in trust between these two elite groups.

Party Political Preferences

As mentioned above, Grønmo (1973) found that the higher-ranked officers after World War II mainly supported the conservative Høyre party. Studies in the United States have similarly demonstrated that officers mostly vote for the Republican party.

Figure 4 shows the self-reported votes of the military elite in the 2013 parliamentary election, compared with two other elite groups – top leaders in cultural institutions and business leaders. The two left parties are merged and presented together, as are the political parties in the center. The winner of the 2013 election was primarily Høyre. Support for Høyre among Norwegian elites overall increased from 33% in 1998 to 37% in 2013 (Gulbrandsen, 2019). Figure 4 reveals that 82%, a substantial majority of the members of the military elite, chose to vote for Høyre in 2013. In 1998, 65% of the top officers voted for the party – both a substantial increase between these two elections of 17 percentage points and a much stronger increase than that demonstrated in the other elite groups.

Figure 4

The figure demonstrates, also, that in 2013 a clear majority of the business elite preferred Høyre. In contrast, within the cultural elite the majority voted for the other main political party in Norway – the center-left Arbeiderpartiet. The Leadership Study 2015 showed that Arbeiderpartiet also received strong support from members of the civil service elite and the academic elite (Gulbrandsen, 2019).

Attitudes Towards the Center-Periphery Cleavage

Traditionally, the conflict between (urban) center and (rural) periphery has presented one of the more visible cleavages in Norwegian politics. This issue is about preserving the spatial population distribution through financial transfers and regulation of the prices of agricultural products.

Figure 5 shows that in 2000, members of the military elite were positive to continued economic transfers to, and development of, infrastructure in rural areas. They had this in common with several other elite groups.

Figure 5

Table 2 shows that in 2015 the new generations of top officers in the armed forces had changed their opinions about policies concerning rural areas. In the Leadership Study 2015, they emerged as the elite group which most firmly expressed the belief that the authorities pay too much attention to the interests of rural areas. Members of the business elite and the civil service elite came next, scoring almost equally with the military elite on the value scale. A separate analysis shows that those military officers who voted for Høyre in the parliamentary election in 2015 were even less supportive of rural interests (a score of 6.5).

Table 2

Support for rural areas, 2015.

ELITES IN SELECTED INSTITUTIONS	CENTRAL AUTHORITIES PAY TOO LITTLE (VALUE 0) VERSUS TOO MUCH ATTENTION (VALUE 10) TO THE NEEDS AND INTERESTS OF “RURAL NORWAY”.	N
Church leaders	4.1	113
Top leaders in universities and research institutes	4.8	150
Leaders in cultural organizations	4.8	114
Politicians	5.0	141
Leaders in mass media	5.2	85
Organizations	5.3	167
Judges and police chiefs	5.4	80
Senior civil servants	5.9	185
Business leaders	6.0	241
Military leaders	6.1	71

[i] Source: The Norwegian Leadership Study 2015.

Support for a Society Which Emphasizes Christian Values

Religion has historically constituted another cleavage in Norwegian politics. Traditionally this cleavage relates to a conflict between “high church” (i.e., the official Norwegian Church) and “low church” (independent religious movements and organizations). This issue is also formed of a tension between religious and secular values. Both schisms are still present in Norwegian society.

Figure 6 compares the endorsement of Christian values by the military elite and the entire elite population. In 2000, 60% of the top officers expressed support for a society which emphasizes Christian values compared to 44% among all the other elites – a substantial difference. 15 years later, however, things were conspicuously different: in 2015, only 24% of the military leaders voiced a similar support for Christian values, a considerable indication of secularization. Secularization was apparent, too, among other elites. Indeed, in 2015 there was no longer any civil military gap in the emphasis on Christian values.

Figure 6

This substantial change in values among the military leaders is difficult to explain. The top officers who participated in the 2015 Leadership Study belong to a different generation to that covered in the 2000 study. It might be assumed that the 2015 generation owed their attitudes to their experiences of a different military-political regime. But it is more likely that this change in attitudes result from more general social developments promoting a concurrent secularization visible in the wider Norwegian population.

Discussion

Conclusion

The relationship between the military and the civil authorities is a sensitive issue in most countries. Institutional loyalty to civil authorities is crucial given the military’s key role in the execution of violence. During the 1930s, civil authorities in Norway witnessed an officer corps with a strong element of right-wing radicalism. After World War II, the authorities deliberately attempted to control the composition and orientation of military officers, hoping to make the military corps more representative of the population and thus more effectively integrated into Norwegian society.

With this history in mind, in this paper I focus on the quality of the relations between military leaders and civil society measured through an examination of the trust which military leaders and other top leaders have accorded each other’s institutions. The results presented show that military services receive relatively high trust from other leader groups in Norwegian society. In turn, military leaders express considerable confidence in the political institutions – if far less in politicians as a group.

In contrast, the analyses above showed a striking gap in political preferences. In the parliamentary election of 2013, a massive majority of the generals and admirals voted for the Conservative Party, Høyre – a remarkable contrast to other elite groups. Although top officers have a long tradition on strong support for Høyre, the specific outcome this time was remarkable. Their preferences in this election may have been galvanized by the critical economic situation of the armed forces at that time.

On the other hand, there appeared to be no significant gap between military leaders and other elite groups in the extent of support for rural areas and the role of Christian values. Admittedly, in 2000, military leaders expressed stronger support for religious values than civilian leaders, if this difference was evened out in in 2015.

The preceding analyses confirm that the opinions of the military elite are molded by significant events and developments in the field in which they operate. Both attitudes towards rural interests and the political preferences changed markedly over a period of 15 to 16 years. Interestingly, these changes were associated with the emergence of a new generation of generals and admirals, whose experiences and defense-political ideas differed to those of the preceding generation.

Data Accessibility Statement

Slightly anonymized versions of the data from Leadership Study 2000 and Leadership Study 2015 are available from SIKT – Kunnskapssektorens tjenesteleverandør, Trondheim.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.