Cohesion and Misconduct
Cohesion and Misconduct
The French Army and the Mahé Affair
In complex peace operations, why and how does cohesion, a key factor that helps soldiers fight together and risk themselves for their comrades, lead them to unethical and unlawful behaviour? The chapter seeks to address two gaps in the military cohesion literature. First, it shows empirically how command affects military performance—both collective action and cohesion—during the course of an operation. Second, deviant cohesion commonly refers to situations in which subgroup solidarities overturn organizational goals. By contrast, the chapter explores a situation in which deviant cohesion supports organizational goals at the tactical and operational levels but generate a misconduct with important consequences at the strategic and political levels. These arguments are assessed by using fresh empirical evidence to examine the ‘Mahé affair’, in which French military personnel were found guilty of murder of an Ivorian man accused of robbery and abuses.
Keywords: French Army, obedience, deviant cohesion, abuse, Ivory Coast, Mahé
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
