Militarizing Men Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia [Hardcover]

A state's ability to maintain mandatory conscription and wage war rests on the idea that a real man is one who has served in the military. Yet masculinity has no inherent ties to militarism. The link between men and the military, argues Maya Eichler, must be produced and reproduced in order to fill the ranks, engage in combat, and mobilize the population behind war.In the context of Russia's post-communist transition and the Chechen wars, men's militarization has been challengedandreinforced. Eichler uncovers the challenges by exploring widespread draft evasion and desertion, anti-draft and anti-war activism led by soldiers' mothers, and the general lack of popular support for the Chechen wars. However, the book also identifies channels through which militarized gender identities have been reproduced. Eichler's empirical and theoretical study of masculinities in international relations applies for the first time the concept of militarized masculinity, developed by feminist IR scholars, to the case of Russia. Anyone seeking to chart the militarizationand the occasional de-militarizationof masculinities should read this book. Maya Eichler is a such an engagingly keen investigator of Russian male veterans' deeply complex relationships to soldiering, femininity, wars and the state.Militarizing Menis proof that a feminist gender analysis of international politics is indispensable. This important and engaging piece of scholarship neatly fills a gap in our understanding of masculinity and regime legitimation strategies. Eichler's thoroughly researched, multi-methodological study reveals the contested nature of militarized masculinity and its political ramifications. It constitutes a most welcome addition to Russian studies, gender studies, and international relations. [E]ichler (Univ. of Toronto, Canada) discusses the horrendous conditions for soldiers in post-Soviet Russia, changing attitudes toward the first and second Chechen wars, the role of grolc