While studying citizen-soldiers, their dual identity as a soldier and a civilian have been highlighted. A citizen-soldier’s role is linked to citizenship and its obligation. The dual identity or critical voices of conscription or reserve forces have neither been recognized in research nor been debated publicly in Finland. The aim of this article is to analyse the reasons why some conscripts raise critical voices concerning their relationship with conscription and their role as reservists. The study is based on the interviews of 38 non-military service men and 33 men who resigned from the reserve in 2017. The data was analysed using content analysis. According to the results, the main problems with regard to conscription and armed defence, among the conscripts, relate to inequality of the conscription system, obligation to serve and lack of discretion. For individual conscripts as citizen-soldiers, the problem of killing has special weight when they reflect upon their own role in the possible act of war. Conscripts and their expertise could be used more extensively in a wider range of security-related issues than in armed defence alone.

The Security Café is a deliberation and data collection method developed for security authorities and researchers to access the opinion of the general public on issues of importance to their safety and security. It is based on the ideals of deliberative democracy, and the method derives from Citizens' Juries and World Cafés. A Security Café typically lasts for three to five hours and involves receiving information, facilitated small group discussions, and the use of idea rating sheets, or pre-and postdeliberation attitudinal surveys. This study examines three projects conducted in Finland and concludes that the method has both intrinsic and extrinsic value: it empowers ordinary citizens and gives them an opportunity to engage in the construction of safer and more secure societies. At the same time, it offers authorities the opportunity to inform the public, and most importantly to harvest the opinion of the public. For researchers, the method offers a feasible way to gather extensive reliable qualitative data quickly and effectively.

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The fourth sector has traditionally been described as encompassing families, households, neighbours, and friends, however, competing definitions have recently begun to emerge. Three different strands can be observed in the fourth-sector literature. The first strand centres on the notion of one-to-one aid. The second strand centres on self-organizing civic activism. The third strand focuses on hybrid organizations. In this paper we will analyse the main commonalities and differences in the understanding of the fourth sector. Our conclusion is that despite differences, there is enough ‘family resemblance’ between the three different streams of fourth-sector discussion to warrant a synthetic reflection of the governance issues related to this novel phenomenon. As a result of that analysis, we distinguish five specific governance issues that are related to 1) the ability of the public sector to work upon shared values, 2) the empowering nature of self-organizing, 3) the need for new operational rules under the ‘sharing economy’, 4) the transitory but structuration-oriented nature of fourth-sector processes and 5) the notion that fourth-sector involvement does not necessarily improve the quality of participation.

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Understanding and working under complexity has become ‘the new normal’ in public administration. Hence complexity must also be integrated into teaching and training of public administrators, not only in higher education but also in in-service training and educating wider society. This can be done by combining the ongoing research agenda into courses and teaching methods. This article describes the integration of complexity thinking and teaching in one university, both by giving examples on the courses and methods applied, student feedback received and by anticipating future developments. Finally, practical advice for teachers of complexity is given.

The article examines how military leaders serving as peacekeepers navigate complexity and adapt to it. The theoretical underpinnings of the study are linked to adaptive peacebuilding and Complexity Leadership Theory, and specifically to how enabling leadership through adaptive space helps to work with the local conflict dynamics and change to sustain peace. The findings are based on 29 interviews with military leaders with command experience in peacekeeping operations. The findings introduce five dimensions that unpack complexity into structural, functional, security-related, professional, and steering-related complexity and provide empirical evidence on balancing actions relating to complexity in a peacekeeping context. The article develops an analytical framework for peacekeeping. It also contributes to Complexity Leadership Theory by unpacking the complexity into dimensions, unpacking the actors into groups and communities with commitments, and addressing power relations and the dark side of their emergence. Evidence for Practice• Unpacking complexity into dimensions advances leaders' understanding of their environment and enables them to avoid taking simplistic actions to address complex issues. • The dimensions of complexity and its inherent tensions and actions advance the development of leadership processes and practices. • Leaders' balancing actions are always enabled, restricted, and co-evolved in political, historical, economic, and temporal contexts.

The theoretical framework of complexity is beginning to attract wider attention in research on the armed forces, and consequently the views of those who face complexity on the ground should be explored in more detail. Failure to do so risks complexity remaining only a top-level theory lacking adequate connection to practice. This article seeks to address this issue through analyzing the views of Finnish military officers. Data for the research were gathered using a deliberation and data collection method called a security café. A total of 74 people, most of them holding the rank of captain in the army or air force or lieutenant senior grade in the navy, attended the security café. The data used in this research were elicited from 47 idea rating sheets, evaluated during the security café, and include both quantitative and qualitative data. The article analyzes those data to address the following questions in relation to the theoretical framework of the article: What kind of perceptions of the complexity of the security environment do officers hold? What kind of practices do officers consider fit the presumed complexity of the security environment? ARTICLE HISTORY