Social construction of authority case studies under conditions of military discipline
Creators: name: Connally, Orabelle
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: Five cases of resistance to authority in the United States Navy in 1971 and 1972 were studied intensively. These included anti-war campaigns to keep the USS Constellation and the USS Kitty Hawk from sailing to Vietnam, a movement defense of a sailor charged with sabotage on the USS Ranger, a racial fight of over 200 crew members on the USS Kitty Hawk off Vietnam and two strikes by 130 Black sailors aboard the USS Constellation. White Jacket, Herman Melville’s documentary report of life aboard a navy Man O'War in 1843 and 1844 was also studied. The social construction of authority, that is, the way that authority was produced, strengthened or weakened by participants, was taken as a problematic. Published letters, reports, pamphlets and articles by members and supporters of the groups involved were the primary sources of information. Officers were found to use either a militarist or a managerial ideology when they commented on authority. Each ideology included assumptions about the practical actions necessary for the exercise of authority and justifications of the right of the few in leadership to demand compliance of the many. The militarist ideology assumed an opposition of interests between officers, and men and that authority was manifested by and depended on an inferior's exact obedience to a superior's commands in a face-to-face situation such as the social and technological setting of Melville's sailing Man O'War. The managerial ideology identified authority as the manipulation of institutional paths to career opportunity so that all levels of personnel were channeled into compliant behavior. Anti-war resisters and Black movement sailors were very critical of authority but at the same time held parallel ideas with one of the two models of how authority was; constructed. Anti-war sailors assumed authority depended on a face-to-face command situation as in the militarist ideology and Black movement sailors based their analysis of racism on institutional channeling which was consistent with the managerial view. The actions of the Black movement sailors were the most effective challenge to authority because their solidarity obviated extensive planning: or organization and because their analysis of racism tended to delegitimize managerial authority. The atomization of personnel by the requirements for organizing the technologically complex work of the ship and the militarist maintenance of oppositions between officers, senior NCOs and enlisted men made cooperation in resistance unlikely. At the same time the authoritarian style of lower level leadership also produced an anti-NCO solidarity among enlisted people. The anti-war sailors had hoped to capitalize on this solidarity but their understanding of the base of authority was incorrect and the Navy was able to absorb their actions without direct impact; however, their libertarian attack on authority along with the Black actions precipitated a conflict between 'managerial' and 'militarist' officers throughout the Navy.