The Military Scandal: Its Definition, Dynamics, and Significance

Abstract

Military scandals are disruptive episodes that can have long-lasting organizational consequences for military institutions. Recently, scholars who study military institutions have sought to understand this phenomenon and its significance. However, given their complexity and empirically opaque nature, military scandals are difficult to study, and a general account of this phenomenon has remained elusive. This article addresses this problem by drawing upon the growing field of scandal research to present a definition and account of the military scandal. We argue that military scandals are episodes of mediatized public moral conflict concerning transgressions involving the military institution, its members, and/or associated actors. We employ Ari Adut’s theory of public attention as a core explanation of scandal dynamics and effects and use this to argue that the military scandal phenomenon can be employed to simultaneously examine interactions and relationships between the military, the state, news media organizations, and civil society.

Commanding men, governing masculinities: Military institutional abuse and organizational reform in the Australian armed forces

“…Focusing on state‐civil‐military relations through different media (news, social media, policy, inquiry, and doctrine) provides the changing framing of these matters and their governance (Wadham, 2013b; Wadham & de Lint, 2020). We drew upon our theory of scandal as a cultural text that brings forth accounts and a news‐mediated dialogue that reproduces or transforms ruling relations (Andrews et al., 2020) because it was often through scandal—the mediation of a transgressive incident within military, state, and civil society that abuse was exposed. How military institutional abuse is represented here illuminates how the military institution responds to broader social changes.…”

“…The then Defence Minister criticized the timing of the disciplinary proceedings and forced the Commandant to stand down, instigating an Inspector General ADF investigation of the handling of the Skype incident. This incident became a landmark scandal among the many ADF scandals (Andrews et al, 2020;Wadham, 2016).…”

“…This incident became a landmark scandal among the many ADF scandals (Andrews et al., 2020; Wadham, 2016). When the Skype scandal broke, victims/survivors emerged to tell their stories to the media, former Defence ministers broke the silence on civil–military rivalries (Farr, 2011), and government ministers and civil society raised questions about the treatment of women and the cultures of martial masculinity.…”