The Reactivation and Reimagination of Military Conscription in Sweden

Abstract

The post-Cold War tendency of abandoning conscripted for volunteer forces appears to be reversing, and many countries have recently expanded or reintroduced mandatory military service. This article offers insights into the contemporary “return” of draft models by exploring how the reactivation of (this time gender-neutral) military conscription was justified and made possible in Sweden. The study, based on a discourse analysis of political and policy documents and interviews with defense officials, shows how Sweden’s new conscription was envisioned as “modernized” in its reimplementation phase; a system distinguished from the familiar republican citizen-soldier model. Instead, the article shows how conscription was reimagined when linked to characteristics of (neo)liberal government and citizenship: voluntarism, individualism, and gender equality. The study’s unique contribution to knowledge is thus an improved understanding of how conscription is ascribed meaning, legitimacy, and appeal and consequently how its return and retainment is enabled, across national contexts.

The end of the Cold War has often been described as the definite end of “the mass army” and a catalyst further intensifying the deactivation of military conscription in many countries (Haltiner, 1998). All-male universal conscription, sustaining the citizen armies of the 1800 and 1900s, was in the 1990s and onwards increasingly described as “out of date” (Haltiner, 1998, 8) or “out of style” (Joenniemi, 2006, 2). Not only were conscripted citizen-soldiers broadly deemed incompatible with the so-called new wars, missions, and military technologies distinctive of the post-Cold War era, but also with broader social, political, and economic trends. To politicians and populations informed by (neo)liberal ideals of individual freedom, opportunity, and equality as well as a slim and efficient public sector exposed to competition; the republican ideal of forcing all men to serve the nation in arms as a condition for citizenship not only appeared inefficient and unequal, but profoundly “unmodern.”

Despite this narrative of liberal progress—and its explicit or implicit celebration of the professional, all-volunteer force—military conscription never disappeared. In contrast, several states—including Sweden, Norway, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine, and France— will or have in recent years either (re)activated or expanded some form of national service system. The list grows considerably longer if states that have or are debating the (re)activation of draft models are added. This trend has led commentators to declare the “comeback” (The Economist, 2021) or “return” (Braw, 2017) of conscription. Why and how is this alleged and arguably unexpected “return” conducted? Emerging research and reports indicate that the reactivation of conscription by countries in the Baltic Sea region primarily is driven by security concerns and forms part of a broader return also of territorial military defense polices and interstate rivalry (Bieri, 2015; Rongé & Abrate, 2019). Others have shown how conscription is being justified as a return to lost—or yet-to-be-found—republican ideals, with France motivating its reintroduction of a national service scheme as a way to reunite a polarized nation (Gheciu, 2020) and the Gulf countries with familiar arguments about creating national unity and belonging (Barany, 2018). This article contributes new insights to these emerging discussions by exploring a case that partly differs from these early indications of why and, specifically, how conscription is being reactivated: the case of Sweden.

The Swedish government made the decision to activate military conscription for both men and women in 2017, only 7 years after all-male conscription first was deactivated. This was deemed necessary because voluntary enlistments had failed to fill military ranks and because Russia’s military rearmament and aggressions in Sweden’s vicinity had made recruitment shortages an immediate security concern (Government of Sweden, 2017). While security arguments thus appeared to drive the reactivation of conscription, Swedish political and defense officials also justified the sudden policy shift by repeatedly stressing that they were implementing a “modernized” draft system (e.g., Government of Sweden, 2016). Taking this declaration as its point of departure, the aim of this article is to deepen our understanding of how mandatory military service could be reactivated in Sweden, so soon after it was deemed both ineffective and antiquated—that is, to lay bare “the condition of possibility” for its reactivation (Foucault, 1991, 69). The paper achieves this aim by examining how conscription was envisioned and reimagined as “modern” by political and defense officials—in its process of implementation in Sweden between 2014 and 2018. It conducts a discourse analysis of key political and policy documents, including government reports, bills, and decisions; parliamentary reports and debates; and regulation letters to the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) and the Swedish Defense Conscription and Assessment Agency (SDCAA). The primary material is complemented by interviews with, and media statements by, key actors representing the government and defense authorities ¹ as well as with examples of print material from defense agencies (such as marketing materials). Specifically, the discourse analysis traces how “conscription” and “the conscript” were ascribed meaning via “dividing practices” (Foucault, 1982, 777–78) that distinguish what is from what is not conscription/the conscript, as they are linked to spatial and temporal signifiers of a contemporary, “modern Sweden.”

The study finds that the reactivation of conscription in Sweden was ascribed meaning through three main dividing practices, which distinguish what conscription and the conscript is here and today, from what it was before and is elsewhere. These temporal and spatial divisions associate and re-align “conscription” and “the conscript” with liberal, neoliberal, and liberal feminist, understandings of the state, the public sector, and the ideal or valued citizen, while disassociating conscription/the conscript from the meaning “it” or “he” broadly is ascribed within the republican citizen-soldier tradition. The paper shows how conscription was envisioned as compatible with the values of individual freedom, opportunity, and equality as well as with Sweden’s domestic and international image as a progressive, feminist state (Jezierska & Towns, 2018; Martinsson et al., 2016). The argument of the paper is that this reimagination of conscription as not only necessary, but also modern and legitimate, enabled its reactivation in Sweden, with minimal public and political opposition or debate, a mere decade after its final demise was declared.

While previous research have revealed determinants of military conscription and shed light on the security, economic, and political conditions under which it is likely to be retained or abandoned (e.g., Asal et al., 2017; Cohn & Toronto, 2017)—knowledge that indeed helps us understand why conscription is deemed desirable and necessary by many contemporary governments and regimes—this article contributes novel insights into how this recent return is justified by politicians and defense officials, to the public. This aspect is, particularly in democratic states, crucial for our understanding how the recent return of conscription is made possible. An analysis of the Swedish case is uniquely equipped to contribute this knowledge because it illuminates a reimagined conscription discourse that contrasts with both established conventions and emerging analyses of other country cases, which point to a reinvigoration of republican ideals. The case therefore broadens our understanding of how conscription is ascribed meaning, legitimacy, and appeal and consequently how its return and retainment is enabled, across national contexts. This improved understanding can be instrumental for analyses of past and emerging conscription debates also in other countries where draft solutions might be desirable for security reasons, but where a “return to republicanism” discourse fails to gain traction among politicians and populations.

The article continues as follows: The first section gives a brief account of how conscription has been studied in scholarly literatures. Thereafter, shifts in Sweden’s military recruiting policy are discussed. Finally, the discourse analysis is presented in three sections, each describing one dividing practice that ascribes meaning to and indeed reimagines conscription and the conscript: (a) voluntarism/obligation, (b) individualism/collectivism, and (c) gender-equal/all-male. The article ends by reflecting on how knowledge about the Swedish conscription discourse can be useful in understanding how conscription might be, or already is, reimagined also in other country sites.

Conscription in Scholarly Debates

Military conscription, here understood broadly as a statutory mechanism forcing citizens to defend the nation in arms, have been studied and theorized in a variety of ways. Large-n studies have identified a combination of economic, political, and security variables as explaining the use of conscription. They find that democracies and states that spring out of, and have experienced, British colonial rule is less likely to employ conscription, while states involved in interstate rivalry or war (Asal et al., 2017), with highly regulated labor markets, are more likely to do so (Cohn & Toronto, 2017). Others have attempted to determine the relationship between conscription and other variables such as the use of force and frequency of war-deployments (e.g., Pickering, 2011). Although these studies necessarily rely on a stable, zero-sum understanding of conscription (as opposed to voluntarism), scholars have also theorized varieties of conscription and demonstrated how forced and voluntary enlistments have been combined throughout history (Haltiner, 1998; Toronto & Cohn, 2020).

This body of scholarship can help us understand general trends regarding the composition of conscript forces as well as why many, mostly European, states moved from conscript to all-volunteer forces in the post-Cold War era—but also why conscription currently appears to be returning in some places. For instance, recent decisions by countries in the Baltic Sea region to reactivate conscription in response to Russia’s military rearmament and aggressions are not surprising in light of this research. Yet these studies are only partially helpful in understanding how conscription gain and loose legitimacy in our societies as they transform, and thus how its contemporary return is justified and ultimately enabled. This has been the main concern by a different strand of in-depth, often case-study-based, research that has studied the changing role and meaning ascribed to conscription across time and space.

From this body of work we have learned that although conscription has a much longer history, universal conscription for men played an important role in consolidating the nation-state project and enable the “mass army” in Europe in the 1800 and 1900s. Building on the republican understanding of men as citizens of the nation-state rather than subjects of a sovereign, young men were attributed a duty to defend the nation and in exchange for rights and freedom connected to citizenship (Avant, 2000; Frevert, 2004). When trained to defend the nation in the service of the state, the citizen-soldier was at the same time both accepted into, and became a symbol of, the homogeneous national collective (Joenniemi, 2006). Conscripts were not only taught armed combat and warring, but also skills, characteristics and manners associated with being a normal and valued citizen (Ahlbäck, 2014; Leander, 2004). It is in this light that we should understand the notion of military service as a rite-of-passage as well as the oft-repeated promise the military makes men (see e.g., Sturfelt, 2014). These citizen-soldier narratives justified conscription as something more than a mere military manpower system. ²

Yet previous research have also taught us that the republican conscript model came to be challenged during, and even more so after, the Cold War, when many countries in Europe and North America reformed their drafts systems and/or shifted to all-volunteer forces, as well as outsourced military functions. This shift is often understood as part of a border transformation of armed forces from modern to “late-modern” or “post-modern” (Booth et al., 2001; Moskos et al., 2000), Fordist to “post-Fordist” (King, 2006), or citizen to “market armies” (Levy, 2010). Much scholarship describes how the end of the Cold War and the bipolar world order redirected armed forces from territorial defense toward new threats, including terrorism, armed insurgencies, and crisis management. These so-called new wars and missions, as well as emerging advanced weapons technology, appeared to no longer require “mass armies” but professional soldiers who—because of their alleged skills, availability, and flexibility—could deploy on and master complicated missions abroad, on short notice (Haltiner, 1998; van der Meulen & Manigart, 1997).

However, just as the rise of conscription was enabled by both security and social, political, and economic shifts, so was its reform and abolishment. Most notably, in the Cold War and, increasingly, post-Cold War period, conscription and the republican citizen soldier ideal was challenged by a neoliberal, market-based public policy discourse, which positioned the military as one among many public institutions that ought to compete for labor and resources. In several countries, military service was no longer to be a formal citizenship condition for all men; but the subject of bargain between the state and its autonomous, calculating and entrepreneurial citizens (Cowen, 2006; Levy, 2010; Norheim-Martinsen, 2016; Strand, 2022). At the same time, conscription was challenged by liberal, rights-based arguments critiquing the exclusion and discrimination of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people by armed forces and the unequal enforcement of purportedly universal and mandatory service schemes among men. Scholarship on different country cases have shown how an unproportionate burden of military service fall on marginalized populations who, due to intersecting hierarchies of class, race, and ethnicity are less likely to gain service exemptions (Choi & Kim, 2017; Eichler, 2011; Leander, 2004). This, as Leander (2004) has argued, came to challenge the “myth” of conscription as a means toward social integration and national unity.

In light of these critiques and transformations, the republican ideal of male citizen soldiers obliged to serve the nation in arms, appeared to many observers as an equally ineffective, unfair, and antiquated solution to the recruitment of military personnel. In contrast, the volunteer army not only appeared more flexible, cost efficient, and professional, it also bore the benefit of detaching military service from male citizenship and thus making soldiering accessible to all citizens, or, crucially, to those autonomous individuals motivated and willing to fight. As a result, many practitioners and scholars declared or predicted the definite end of conscription (e.g., Frevert, 2004; van der Meulen & Manigart, 1997).

Yet, while many states in Europe did abandon conscription when security, political, and economic transformations appeared to make the republican citizens-soldier ideal unconvincing, this shift was, as many have suggested, neither universal nor inevitable (Haltiner, 1998; Joenniemi, 2006; Leander, 2004; Toronto & Cohn, 2020). Scholars studying South Korea (Choi & Kim, 2017) and Russia (Eichler, 2011) have shown how the political elite rather doubled-down on national service policies and rhetoric, emphasizing military service as a necessary and sacred citizenship duty for all men, in the face of similar critique that led many European countries to abandon conscription. In contrast, students of Israeli conscription have shown how liberal notions about equality and economic competitiveness have been incorporated in the draft system in ways which have brought it closer in line with public expectations (Ben-Ari et al., 2021; Levy, 2010; Levy et al., 2010). Moreover, a recent study of Cyprus shows that (neo)liberal reforms of the country’s draft regulations have been combined with a renewed emphasis on the republican notion of male duty, as for example, expressed when politicians refer to mandatory service as “pride” and “manly” as opposed to “shame[ful]” and “cowardice” draft-dodging (Efthymiou, 2021, 623).

Consequently, whether it is likely that or desirable for a country to implement, reform or abandon conscription depend on security, economic, and political variables that largely can be measured. But whether a shift is made possible also depends, at least in democracy societies, on whether the “myths” that ascribe meaning to conscription remains “enchanting” or can be “re-enchanted,” or if they instead are perceived as hollow and resisted by politicians and populations (Leander, 2004). What follows from this insight is that—if we want to understand how the recent return of conscription in Europe and the Gulf region was made possible—we need to study the wider meanings ascribed to the system in public and political discourse; how it is constructed and reconstructed. Such examinations remain scarce. A recent study of Emanuel Macron’s presidency has however shown that the French president campaigned for the reintroduction of a limited form of national service as part of a larger effort to “remember France’s glory,” understanding conscription as a way to “recapture certain virtues of the French republican past” and “stimulate the enactment of good citizenship” (Gheciu, 2020, 26). Similarly, the recent introduction of male conscription in several Gulf countries appears to have been justified primarily as a nation building strategy, with representatives of the United Arab Emirate describing conscription as a “sacred national duty” and proponents in Kuwaiti describing it as a way to “reinforce young men’s sense of patriotism and sacrifice in the service of the country” (Barany, 2018, 132). Yet, as this study will show, this “return to republicanism” discourse is not universally applicable. Before analyzing how the return of conscription was made possible in Sweden and thus offer an alternative justification, the next section will provide additional context on the Swedish case.

Conscription in Sweden

In Sweden, all-male conscription was gradually introduced in the 1800s and fully implemented in 1901 (Ericson Wolke, 1999). While military and conservative forces envisioned conscription as a way to gain access to competence drawn from the whole population and thus build a stronger national defense, the labor party and movement saw conscription as a way to democratize and establish control over an institution then dominated by social elites. The latter also saw conscription as a way to create and integrate a Swedish national community and identity, and at the same time educate working-class men, echoing republican ideals (Leander, 2006). Historians have shown how the Swedish conscript was taught and associated with a variety of changing skills and manners during the 1900s, including sobriety, sexual abstention, cleanliness, self-sacrifice, docility, discipline, and patriotism, and that these broadly corresponded with norms around what, at the time, constituted a normal and valued male citizen (Eriksson, 2011; Rudberg, 2014; Sturfelt, 2014; Sundevall, 2017).

From this vaguely defined and therefore broadly shared understanding of the importance of conscription for the Swedish nation-state project (Leander, 2006), conscription emerged as a means toward the end of national security, but also an end in itself. The Swedish parole var och en efter förmåga [each and all according to ability] established and promoted every citizen’s obligation to do their part in the defense of Sweden. Despite this notion of universality, only men were drafted for service. Furthermore, the proportion of drafted men shifted over the century. The conscript army could mobilize the largest number of soldiers in the Cold War period, when Sweden’s position as a “neutral” state, located between the Eastern and Western block, was understood as necessitating a strong and, as it were, “total defense” (Kronberg, 2014, 41-42). In this period, conscription became increasingly associated with the Swedish welfare state project, and the citizen soldier became understood as a masculine defender of a peaceful and progressive nation-state (Kronsell & Svedberg, 2001; Sturfelt, 2014). While women also had a statutory “defence duty” and could be called upon to serve in other public or private sectors in the event of war, they were not obliged to conduct military service, but could nonetheless enlist within a voluntary defense organization or, from the 1980s, conduct military training voluntarily alongside conscripted men (Persson & Sundevall, 2019).

After the Cold War, Sweden’s shift away from territorial defense initiated a period of conscription reforms, gradually demobilizing the draft system. In 1995, a new “defense duty legislation” dismantled the principle of universality when stipulating that the demands of the armed forces were to determine the number of men drafted for service every year (Leander, 2004, 2006). This shift forced the state and the military to consider who to select for service when the defense organization needed fewer men than available in each conscript cohort, and the legislation ended up stipulating that the skills and fitness, but also will and motivation, of each individual would become selection criteria (Strand, 2022, 230-231). These reforms “marketized” the interaction between the armed forces and the public, and the SAF was expected to increase efforts to “sell” the military “offer” and “brand” so as to become an “attractive employer” to young potential recruits, increasingly understood as “customers” (ibid.). These reforms eventually led to the introduction of an all-volunteer force in 2010. The Government bill stipulating the deactivation of conscription (at the same time making the draft legislation gender neutral) was illustratively titled “Modern recruitment for a utilizable defense,” clearly establishing that voluntarism for all (rather than universalism for men) now constituted the most “modern” solution to the recruitment of military personnel. The armed forces here became one among several public institutions in Sweden where neoliberal ideals about individual freedom and market competition appeared to flourish (see e.g., Blomqvist, 2004).

Yet, only seven years later, Swedish authorities resumed the process of drafting 18-year-old men and (this time also) women for basic military training. Between 2013 and 2014, the Swedish National Audit Office repeatedly stressed that the SAF was failing to recruit enough part-time soldiers and retain full-time soldiers. The warnings came at a time when the parliament negotiated a new defense bill. In these negotiations, taking place alongside media reporting about Russia’s military rearmament and aggressions in Ukraine, an agreement was reached about the need to redirect the armed forces from its then focus on expeditionary operations abroad toward territorial defense, and the SAF’s recruitment and retention problems were broadly described as threatening this policy move (Government of Sweden, 2015). Although the parliamentary defense group included both the Social Democrats and the Green Party in government and the conservative and liberal political parties that had been responsible for the deactivation of conscription less than a decade earlier, it agreed to launch a public inquiry into how conscription for basic military training could be reactivated (Government of Sweden, 2015). Consequently, when a new defense bill was debated in parliament in June 2015, the main debate did not concern if conscription was to be reactivated, but when.

Based on the public inquiry recommendations, the government decided to reactivate conscription in March 2017. The decision stressed the necessity of using the defense duty legislation to draft conscripts for military training because “the security situation in Sweden’s vicinity has worsened and because the SAF’s staffing needs cannot […] be safeguarded by voluntary recruitment alone” (Government of Sweden, 2017). Security considerations thus appeared to drive the decision to reactivate conscription, which was described as a matter of territorial sovereignty and survival. Yet, security arguments alone would arguably not have been successful in making the much-criticized 20th-century version of all-male conscription appear legitimate, palatable, and “modern” to the broader public ³ and to parliament (particularly not to the parties associated by the public with its recent deactivation). Instead, as we shall see next, military conscription was profoundly reimagined in its process of reactivation.

Reimagining Conscription: Voluntarism, Individualism, and Gender Equality

This section discusses three dividing practices that contributed to envision and reimagine conscription as a possible, justifiable, and even “modern” solution to the SAF’s recruitment problems, while at the same time reimagining the conscript as a responsible, valuable, productive, and ultimately “modern” citizen. These dividing practices together constitute the, at the time, dominant discourse of conscription in the Swedish political debate. Beyond the primary material collected for this study, in the periphery of the defense debate, counter discourses on conscription were and are certainly constructed; discourses that ascribe a different meaning to conscription and the conscript. Although the analysis below will nod to these struggles over meaning, it will mainly focus on laying bare the dominant discourse that enabled the reactivation of conscription.

Voluntarism/Obligation

The first dividing practice that ascribed meaning to conscription/the conscript in its reimplementation phase was that between voluntarism and obligation. When reintroduced in 2017, conscription was not, first and foremost, rationalized as a national or citizenship duty (cf. Kronsell & Svedberg, 2001). In contrast to presenting military training as something that every person (or man) was obliged to endure, conscription was articulated as still essentially voluntary—a recruitment system compatible with and attentive to the will, interest, and motivation of the individual.

The empirical material contains many examples of language linking conscription to voluntarism/choice/freedom/consent, while de-linking it from obligation/force/duty/coercion/compulsion. For instance, the government envisions conscription as a system:

that continues to be primarily based on voluntarism, but where an increased use of the defence duty legislation complements the voluntary system when the demands of the war machinery cannot be safeguarded by voluntary recruitment alone (Government of Sweden, 2016, 255).

The government thus envisioned voluntarism as the primary logic also in a new draft system. The idea of forcing young individuals to conduct basic military training against their will, and in extension to punish those who refuse with fines or imprisonment, appears justifiable only as a “last resort option,” and only when necessary for the defense of Sweden.

The paradoxical notion of a “voluntary duty” [“frivillig förpliktelse”], as it was named by a SAF personnel magazine (Försvarets Forum, 2017), is expanded upon in the public inquiry report. Under the headline “a modernized draft,” the report states that “the modernized conscription system”:

to the greatest extent possible seeks to enlist motivated individuals who demonstrate an interest in conducting basic military training and, by extension, choose to take up employment or continue to serve within the SAF. The system is thus comprised by both voluntarism and obligation (Government of Sweden, 2016, 80, emphasis added).

Although this report clearly establishes both voluntarism and obligation as logics of conscription, the latter reappears as justifiable only when the former fails. Conscription is here articulated as a necessary but arguably unfortunate means to achieve national security, or an insurance policy against the potential failure of voluntarism, and no longer an end in itself ⁴ (see also Government of Sweden, 2016, 52).

Similarly, when the then defense minister, Social Democrat Peter Hultquist, was interviewed about the decision to reactivate conscription, several news media outlets quoted him as saying that “conscription shall complement the voluntary defense,” adding that “interest, motivation and will are essential parts of recruitment” (Holm, 2017). Terms like “motivation,” “interests,” “choices,” “voluntarism” and “will” remerge in the material and serve to associate (the reactivation of) military conscription—that is, the state’s statutory right to force young people to carry arms and potentially killing and dying for the nation—as a careful and even reluctant form of government, compatible with the neoliberal ideal of a small, efficient nonintrusive public sector, widespread in Sweden since the 1990s.

But how was this “voluntary duty” envisioned to operate in practice? The public inquiry recommended two “tracks” through which soldiers were to be enlisted in basic training, which largely have been implemented since 2018. First, the year they turn 18, all Swedish citizens are obliged to complete an online survey where they answer questions about and evaluate their health and physical status, their education, interests, and personality as well as relationship with and interest in the military. The SDCAA thereafter, with support in the defense duty legislation, call on the people they believe are most likely to be suitable for military service to muster and be tested against the requirements of a particular military role. In evaluating who is suitable for service, the inquiry report suggested that the individual’s motivation and will to serve should constitute one selection criteria, a principle that also was adopted by the SDCAA. In order to access young peoples’ will and motivation to serve already before they are called to muster, the online survey asks 18-year olds to grade statements such as “I believe that military training would be a useful experience for me.” ⁵

Through the second track, citizens (they might be older than 18 or they might have been eligible but still not called to muster through the first track) are given the chance to volunteer to be mustered for a particular military role that they, if found suitable and if they accept, are obliged to train for and serve in. This is by the investigation referred to as “volunteering to do one’s duty” (Government of Sweden, 2016, 69, 74). These tracks were envisioned to guarantee that military ranks would be filled with skilled individuals and that a minimum number of young people would have to serve against their will (and thus be fined or imprisoned if they refused without cause). This vision rests on two interrelated assumptions, the first one being that the SAF only requires a small percentage of young citizens. This was indeed the case in 2018, the first year of conscription, when the military only requested 4 000 conscripts for basic training, out of an age group comprising approximately 90,000 people ⁶ (Försvarsmakten, 2019, 9–10). Yet it also warrants that this percentage can be filled with young people who volunteer and/or indicate their willingness to serve via the survey. This is not taken for granted. Instead, the SAF was in 2018 tasked by the government to continue to “increase the interest among the target group to conduct basic military training under the defence duty legislation” (Government of Sweden, 2019, 13 emphasis added). The SAF is still viewed and constructed as a neoliberal public authority—a “brand” expected to market itself to young individuals in order to compete with other employers for competence.

Based on the marketing task given to the SAF, we can learn something about how the state and the armed forces understand potential conscripts. Motivation and the will to serve the state in arms is understood as an attitude to be actively nurtured and instrumentalized by the state—not something inherent to all citizens. Moreover, the potential conscript is constructed as a subject who does not respond to duties but to alternatives; the possibility to choose. When I asked a manager from the SDCAA, who had begun our interview reflecting about how conscription was considered “unmodern” among Swedish politicians less than a decade ago, what the person thought it meant to implement a “modernized conscription” (I here referred to the public inquiry report cited above), their response was:

I associate the word “modern” with will and motivation. To do one’s duty seems unfashionable. [. . .] It is not the early 1900s, it is the 2020s, and. . . today. . . people make a lot of decisions. And that’s how we want it to continue.

The person thereafter contrasted the draft system that the interviewee was mustered into with today’s version, stating that, as a conscript:

you were never even consulted. It was more like: “Sit down. Here you go. Bite the bullet. Out. Next!” Today we have a completely different way of approaching the potential conscript. We take our point of departure from the individual [. . .] how does the individual perceive the situation? (Interview, October, 2020)

In the examples outlined above, the conscript and conscription is ascribed meaning and appeal through a division between what “it” was before with what “it” is now. The conscript—who in the 1900s were the face of docility, duty, and discipline—is articulated as a subject with the desire and ability to make active, autonomous, calculated, and responsible choices. Because these qualities are associated with a valued or even ideal neoliberal citizen in early 21st-century Sweden (see e.g., Dahlstedt, 2008), the conscript can arguably emerge as a modern and thus desirable subject position. Furthermore, conscription—recently deemed “out-dated”—can re-appear as a modern recruiting system—a delimited (in contrast to totalizing or intrusive) system that seeks consent. In the official defense discourse, conscription was constructed as an insurance policy against the failures of voluntarism (i.e., the failure to render the SAF an attractive career path to young individual through marketing) rather than a societal good and therefore an end in itself (cf. Sturfelt, 2014). The SAF, the SDCAA and thus the state therefore emerges as a reluctant sovereign, cautious not to infringe on the will of the individual even as s/he is prepared for war and self-sacrifice.

Individualism/Collectivism

The second dividing practice that ascribes meaning to conscription/the conscript is that between individualism and collectivism. In its reimplementation phase, conscription was not articulated in accordance with republican ideals as a recruiting system also aimed at uniting, integrating or fostering the Swedish population into a homogeneous and productive national collective (cf. Frevert, 2004; Rudberg, 2014). Again, the material collected as part of this study ascribes no intrinsic or other (i.e., nonmilitary) value to conscription—and even less so to universal conscription (be it for men, i.e., the most common meaning of the term, or for all young people)—for societal as a whole. Yet, conscription is still ascribed meaning beyond military defense and efficiency. As noted above, in the Swedish defense discourse, the individual’s will to serve the nation in arms is articulated as a condition that must be actively nurtured. This has been achieved through discursive practices that construct conscription as a recruiting system not only attentive to, but also beneficial for, the individual. That is, beside the state and the military machinery, it is the drafted individual—rather than society/the collective—who was envisioned as the primary beneficiary of conscription.

The empirical material contains many examples of language linking conscription to individual opportunity while disassociating it from collective gains, objectives, and identities. The lead investigator of the public inquiry into conscription has repeatedly stressed that today’s conscription has no “fostering” ambitions, often illustrated with examples of cleaning rituals repeated by conscripts (e.g., Lehto, 2021). In our interview, the investigator underlined that a “modern” conscription system only serves to staff the SAF, not to teach young people to “make their beds” (Interview, February, 2021). Conscription is also and repeatedly described as “not […] an integration project” (Interview, February, 2021; see also Lehto, 2021). Such language gains meaning because it disassociates the “modernized” conscription system of today’s Sweden with Sweden’s conscription system in the 1900s as well as with service systems elsewhere, which have been and remain closely associated with the republican ideal about fostering productive citizens of and for the nation—be it clean, sober, docile, employable or patriotic. ⁷

The public inquiry report envisions a range of techniques for making military service attractive to, and a merit for, the individual. In doing so, it taps into and mobilizes arguments that have been present in the Swedish military recruitment debate since the early 2000s (Leander, 2004; Strand, 2022). For instance, the report stresses the importance of making the skills gained by conscripts during basic training transferable to the civilian labor market (e.g., in the form of certificates). It also cites a government bill from 2011 and stresses that “to have served and to have been selected for service in the armed forces should be considered a merit in and of itself” (Government of Sweden, 2016, 222). Since conscription was reactivated, the SAF and the SDCAA has sought to make being selected to serve a merit for the individual through a range of marketing initiatives. SDCAA ads, videos, and web pages have repeated the message of conscription as “obligation and opportunity.” One video posted on YouTube shows young people embracing each other while walking down the street as a backdrop to the message “a new opportunity for those turning 18-this year—the obligation to stand up for Sweden” (Swedish Defense Conscription and Assessment Agency [SDCAA], 2018). Moreover, a brochure distributed to 18-year olds contains the two headlines “your obligations” and “your opportunities.” Under the latter, we can read,

basic military training is both a practical and a theoretical education. When you conduct your training, you will grow as a person and gain memories for life. You will develop your collaborative and leadership skills and your ability to function during stressful conditions. You will boost your confidence, your fitness and your CV. After basic training you might continue to train to become an officer, take up employment with the SAF or bring your new experiences into civilian life and do something completely different (SDCAA, 2021).

That acceptance to basic military training will generate employability and a boosted CV is continuously emphasized also by the SAF, for example, in recruiting campaigns (Strand, 2022).

What emerges from these examples is thus a construction of mandatory military training as an obligation but also, first and foremost, an opportunity, for a selected few. Rather than rationalizing conscription as a means to foster a homogeneous national collective by teaching conscripts the same and for-the-state and society beneficial skills and characteristics—conscription is reimagined as a way to distinguish individuals from one another, with conscripts being articulated as particularly skilful, employable, and productive citizens. As a consequence, the conscript emerges as not only a choosing but a chosen subject, a citizen that takes responsibility for both society and “the Self” by being competitive in the labor market. These constructions effectively separate Sweden’s contemporary conscription and conscript from past and/or other “out-dated” versions. Moreover, because these qualities and characteristics can be associated with neoliberal government and citizenship ideals, conscription and the conscript can arguably re-emerge as “modern” and thus desirable in contemporary Sweden.

Gender-Equal/All-Male

The third dividing practice that ascribes meaning to conscription and the conscript is that between gender-equal and all-male (or male citizenship). In the empirical material, conscription is not rationalized as “turning boys into men” (cf. Sturfelt, 2014), but rather as an obligation and, as we have seen, an opportunity, for competitive men and women.

When conscription was reactivated in 2017, it was the first time in Swedish history that women were drafted for military service and enlisted in the same positions as men in the same age-group. Military service did however become a statutory obligation for women already in 2010. When conscription was deactivated for men, the defense duty legislation was at the same time altered so that military service also would apply to women, if the draft ever was to be reactivated. As Persson and Sundevall (2019) have suggested, the fact that these decisions were made simultaneously most likely made it easier for Swedish politicians to begin conscripting women; a move which had appeared politically controversial throughout the 1900s. That women could potentially be drafted for military service in a distant future appears to have attracted little attention and opposition when the decision was made in 2010. Yet, even as the future arrived, in 2017, there was little or no political or public opposition to the drafting of women. The decision was already made, and the previously unthinkable idea of forcing women to serve the nation in arms was, by most actors, described as self-evident. ⁸

For instance, the public inquiry report refers to the former Government’s position on drafting women and stresses that “it is an unrealistic and unmodern idea that sex [. . .] should be the factor determining who is best suited for each [military] position” (Government of Sweden, 2016, 182), also underlining the government’s position that “it of course has to be the suitability of each individual” that constitutes the determining factor (Government of Sweden, 2016). This position does not appear to be resisted from within the SAF. To the contrary, while noting that Sweden’s decision to draft women often receives attention by foreign military actors, one SAF employee states that, within the armed forces:

it is not an issue, when the decision is made, it is self-evident that we will do it in this way. It would be completely unreasonable to be a modern employer and do it any differently (Interview, October, 2019).

Accordingly, in the defense policy discourse, the drafting of women not only emerges as self-evident, it is also articulated as a condition that makes the contemporary Swedish system particularly justifiable, appealing or “modern.” After having stated that sex constitutes an “unmodern” selection criteria, the inquiry report suggests that pictures of conscripted women should be used strategically in information campaigns by the defense authorities in order for military conscription to gain public support. That women and men are treated equally is described as something “new” and declared a “principally very important step, which deserves particular attention in public communication” (Government of Sweden, 2016, 182). To emphasize the equal treatment of men and women by the new draft system is, according to the head of the inquiry, a way to signal to the public that the reactivation of conscription does not represent “back with the old” (Interview, February, 2021).

The empirical material contains many other examples of articulations where conscription is ascribed meaning and appeal by its association with “women.” Here in the words of a Social Democratic parliamentarian arguing in favor of reactivating conscription by describing conscription during the Cold War:

It was during the time when I did my defence duty. [. . .] it was the same system that both my father and my grandfather served under, so there were reasons to modify it [referring to prior reforms]. I hope that the decision we make tomorrow leads us forward and that it is a more modern defence force that will meet my daughter in the future (Parliament of Sweden, 2015).

In this statement, the reference to “my daughter” disassociates conscription from male citizenship and its all-male application in the 1900s and rearticulates conscription as gender equal and therefore modern.

Yet, conscription is not only ascribed meaning by dividing practices separating what conscription is today from what it was before, but also by dividing practices separating what conscription is here, from what it is elsewhere. The emphasis on gender equality in the Swedish policy discourse on conscription must be understood within a particular Western gender order where countries forwarding policies for gender equality are articulated as “progressive” forerunners and where countries pushing “traditional values,” by for example, excluding women from male-dominated professions such as the military, are articulated as “backwards” (Farris, 2017). Much has been said about how this ordering feeds into and strengthens geopolitical tensions and East-West antagonism in Europe and the Baltic Sea region (Agius & Edenborg, 2019; Strand & Kehl, 2019). In this battlefield of “values,” Sweden has long projected itself as a modern, inclusive, progressive, and even feminist state, often in relation to the notion of a traditional, patriarchal, homophobic, and ultimately backwards Russian Other (Agius & Edenborg, 2019; Strand & Kehl, 2019; see also Jezierska & Towns, 2018). In this context, Sweden’s decision to draft women gains meaning in relation to conscription in contemporary Russia, where the Putin regime long has justified conscription as a sacred duty for all men, echoing the familiar republican script of military service as a path to hegemonic and heroic masculinity (Eichler, 2011).

That the drafting of women figures so centrally in this policy discourse thus builds on and reproduces ideas about Sweden as liberal, progressive, Western state, also dominating in other parts of the Swedish public sector (Martinsson et al., 2016). Language constructing both men and women as conscripts contributes to reimagine conscription as gender equal, and therefore modern and legitimate, in contemporary Sweden. This has implications for how the conscript is ascribed meaning and appeal. In articulating conscription as gender equal, the conscript emerges as a choosing and chosen individual. In contrast to being gendered as a (soon-to-be-real) “man,” conscripts are here reimagined as de-gendered individuals, unhindered by gender-based discrimination, as they embark on securing the state by investing in “the Self.”

Concluding Reflections

This article has demonstrated how military conscription in Sweden was ascribed meaning in its reimplementation phase through three dividing practices linking conscription to voluntarism/freedom/consent/will, to individuality/individual opportunity and to gender-neutrality/equality, while (at least partially) disassociating conscription from attributes associated with its roots in the republican citizens-soldier tradition, that is, obligation, collectivism, and male citizenship. As we have seen, the ideal conscript reproduced through the emerging Swedish policy discourse on conscription is a choosing and a chosen individual in service of the self—or in service of the nation/state through the service of self—not a docile, dutiful, and disciplined man in service of the collective. Through this reimagination, conscription appears compatible with, on the one hand, a neoliberal, market-based government and citizenship ideal and, on the other, with liberal feminist ideals about gender-equal or inclusive public policy, which have dominated in the Swedish public sector in the 2010s, and which paradoxically also contributed to challenge and ultimately make conscription redundant or “out-of-style” in the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet, through the policy discourse analyzed above, those arguments appear defused and conscription can re-merge as “modern,” reasonable, and ultimately justifiable. This reimagination of conscription should be understood as a condition of possibility for its reactivation in contemporary Sweden.

Insights into how the reimagination of conscription in Sweden was envisioned are valuable for any scholar seeking to understand why conscription not only may present a desirable policy option for policy makers, but also how such policy option is justified and made palatable to the public. Previous studies have shown how republican ideals have served to justify and ascribe meaning to conscription, both in situations when draft systems have been retained despite being exposed to critique in light of societal transformations (Choi & Kim, 2017; Efthymiou, 2021; Eichler, 2011) and in recent years when conscription have been (re)introduced in a line of countries (Barany, 2018; Gheciu, 2020). This study has shown how political and public officials can successfully justify conscription to the public by reimagining its meaning and role in society, rather than by “re-enchanting” republican ideals (Leander, 2004), and it has therefore improved our understanding of how the contemporary return and expansion of conscription is made possible. The dividing practices presented here can thus be usefully deployed as analytical tools in studying other cases where a return, retainment or expansion of conscription is being debated. To illustrate, a Royal United Service Institute (RUSI) report recently proposed a “Scandinavian model” of conscription as a solution to the UK’s “recruitment crisis,” with the argument that a highly selective, competitive, and gender-neutral conscription would be palatable to the British youth and public (Braw, 2019). Moreover, the Swiss defense ministry is currently, against the backdrop of the Russian large-scale invasion of Ukraine, but also rampant public discussions about gender inequality in Swiss society, conducting an overview of the country’s all-male conscription. A gender-neutral, “needs-based” system, in line with the Norwegian and Swedish model, is one of the options considered (Wong Sak Hoi, 2022). Knowledge about how conscription can and is being reimagined—and analytical tools to distinguish such shifts—can thus be used to understand developments in countries without a deeply rooted republican citizen-soldier tradition, but also in countries where such tradition might be losing its appeal. More in-depth country case studies are clearly needed in order to better understand how conscription is ascribed meaning in ways which ultimately enable its emergence, transformation, survival, and return.