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A Performative Account of the Use of Oaths to Enhance Integrity Within the Military

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NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2019

Part of the book series: NL ARMS ((NLARMS))

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Abstract

Taking oaths has been part of military protocol dating back to the Bronze Age. For example, the pledging of allegiance to the flag, or the reciting of the soldier’s creed, mark the connection and commitment of military personnel to the corps and its codes. Also, in the literature on business ethics, oaths have been recognized as a means of raising the level of integrity within organizations. The underlying idea is that the performing of such rituals makes a real difference to the individuals or organization keeping to their commitments. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the performative functioning of oaths as a means to entrench integrity within organizations and in its individual members could offer new insights into the steering of organizations towards integrity both theoretically and practically. To this purpose, this chapter takes a closer look at how oaths function in the education and training of military officers: on the one hand, officers taking oaths as part of their own training and induction, and as part of their future role as an officer administering oaths on the other hand. Conceptually the assessment draws on the speech-act theories of Austin 1975 and Searle 1989.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Civil Servant Statute of the Ministry of Defence (BARD) Article 70a, General Military Civil Servant Statute (AMAR), Article 126a.

  2. 2.

    Anderson and Escher 2010; Wankel and Stachowicz-Stanusch 2011; Weaver et al. 2016.

  3. 3.

    https://www.defensie.nl/onderwerpen/integriteit/defensie-en-integriteit, Accessed 7 January 2019.

  4. 4.

    Rieke and Guastello 1995; Zarim et al. 2016.

  5. 5.

    Audi and Murphy 2006.

  6. 6.

    Windsor in Monga and Orlitzky 2017.

  7. 7.

    Audi and Murphy 2006.

  8. 8.

    Ibid.; Windsor in Monga and Orlitzky 2017.

  9. 9.

    Dutch Ministry of Defence (2012) Aanwijzing SG A/984: Uitvoering van het integriteitsbeleid Defensie, p. 6.

  10. 10.

    van der Steenhoven and Aalbersberg 2016.

  11. 11.

    Kayes et al. 2007; Verhezen 2010.

  12. 12.

    Gonzalez-Padron et al. 2012.

  13. 13.

    Manz et al. 2008.

  14. 14.

    https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/our-strategy/business-integrity/.

  15. 15.

    https://monsanto.com/company/commitments/our-pledge/.

  16. 16.

    Anderson and Escher 2010; Wankel and Stachowicz-Stanusch 2011; Weaver et al. 2016.

  17. 17.

    Oettinger 1976.

  18. 18.

    Siewert 1977.

  19. 19.

    Renatus 1996.

  20. 20.

    Landolt 1861.

  21. 21.

    Loonen and Rutgers 2017.

  22. 22.

    Bentham 1827.

  23. 23.

    Austin 1975.

  24. 24.

    Searle 1989.

  25. 25.

    Hall 1999.

  26. 26.

    Austin 1975.

  27. 27.

    Blok 2013; Blok 2017.

  28. 28.

    Dutch Ministry of Defence (2012) Aanwijzing SG A/984: Uitvoering van het integriteitsbeleid Defensie.

  29. 29.

    Civil Servant Statute of the Ministry of Defence (BARD) Article 70a, General Military Civil Servant Statute (AMAR), Article 126a.

  30. 30.

    Austin 1975.

  31. 31.

    Blok 2013.

  32. 32.

    Blok 2017.

  33. 33.

    Evans 1963.

  34. 34.

    Blok 2013.

  35. 35.

    Giebels et al. 2018, p. 15.

  36. 36.

    COID [Central Organization Integrity Defence] 2014.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to express our special gratitude to the commander NLDA General-Major Geerts and his staff for making available the official documents of the preparation and conducting of the NLDA oath-taking ceremony which was used as an example throughout this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, PO Box 90002, 4800 PA, Breda, The Netherlands

    Job Timmermans

  2. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Robert Bertrand

Authors
  1. Job Timmermans
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Correspondence to Job Timmermans .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Wim Klinkert

  2. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Myriame Bollen

  3. Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Marenne Jansen

  4. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Henk de Jong

  5. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Eric-Hans Kramer

  6. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Lisette Vos

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Timmermans, J., Bertrand, R. (2019). A Performative Account of the Use of Oaths to Enhance Integrity Within the Military. In: Klinkert, W., Bollen, M., Jansen, M., de Jong, H., Kramer, EH., Vos, L. (eds) NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2019. NL ARMS. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-315-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-315-3_4

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