The Influence of Military Service on Social Consciousness and Protest Behavior

Abstract

Cross-national analysis of aggregate data has found a relationship between the military participation ratio and national economic growth rates and distributional inequality. This article examines one aspect of this macro-micro linkage by investigating the relationship between acculturation in the military and the attitudes and behavior of the most strategic sector of the Peruvian labor force. Military service retards the development of social consciousness among the working class, reduces their protest participation, and eases their integration into the hierarchy and discipline of the industrial work place. These findings suggest that military socialization may indeed affect growth rate by reducing worker-management and worker-state conflict. On the other hand, it would seem equally likely that the conservative effect of military acculturation contributes to increased inequality of income.