A_10 Social Cohesion in Times of War: The Effects of Military Conflicts on Politicization and Polarization

Research Area A analyzes the relationship between politics and social cohesion, with a particular emphasis on the conflictual dimension of political negotiations. Violent conflicts constitute a particularly relevant field in this regard, as they directly affect people’s sense of security and lived experience. Within this context, the work package (WP) examines how state participation in military conflicts affects social cohesion in democracies. In line with the overarching research questions of the research area, the WP specifically investigates the conditions under which participation in military conflicts becomes an object of political contestation (politicization) and how this, in turn, affects cohesion (polarization).

Conflicts can strengthen or weaken cohesion. While Georg Simmel already observed the link between external pressure and internal cohesion of social groups, some conflicts also lead to disintegration. In the field of foreign and security policy, the question of the conditions under which external conflicts strengthen or undermine internal cohesion arises with particular—and at times existential—urgency. The relevant body of research is broad and inconclusive. Empirical country studies have focused, among other things, on public support for government policy in situations of war and crisis (the so-called rally ’round the flageffect). These studies are usually based on the assumption that external conflicts can strengthen a state’s internal cohesion. However, social cohesion is conceptualized, operationalized, and measured in highly diverse ways, often conflating vertical cohesion (the relationship between state and society) and horizontal cohesion (the relationship among social groups). Empirical findings point in different directions and identify numerous factors that shape the effects of conflicts on social cohesion.

The type of conflict plays a crucial role, including distinctions between interstate wars, civil wars, and terrorism; wars of choice versus wars of necessity; the intensity of military violence; and the degree of involvement in the conflict. Interstate, conventional wars may foster social cohesion, whereas civil wars and asymmetric conflicts against nonstate actors tend to undermine it. As John Mueller (1970) already noted, high levels of public support for government policy in acute crisis and war situations are usually short-lived. Media coverage and the manner in which governments communicate their actions and manage information flows are of decisive importance. Equally significant are “polarization entrepreneurs” who exploit contentious issues such as violent conflicts to mobilize sentiment.

To date, there has been only limited research on the factors shaping citizens’ attitudes toward participation in military conflicts in Germany and on how these attitudes affect social cohesion. Systematic data and insights into the causal mechanisms explaining divergent societal responses to military conflicts remain scarce. The WP conceptualizes “politicization” and “polarization” as two distinct dimensions of social cohesion: the “vertical” relationship between society and government, on the one hand, and the “horizontal” relationship among social groups, on the other. In the first relationship, the focus lies on the conditions under which military conflicts lead to politicization—understood here as a loss of trust in state institutions—while in the second, the focus is on polarization in the sense of affective opposition between social groups, and thus on threats to “democratic cohesion.”

The WP takes as its starting point four military conflicts in which the Federal Republic of Germany has been involved to varying degrees and intensities: Kosovo (1998–1999), Afghanistan (2001–2021), Mali (2016–2024), and Ukraine/Russia (2022–). The aim is to explain the strongly diverging societal attitudes and their effects on cohesion over the course of these conflicts. While, for example, the predominantly critical public stance toward the Afghanistan deployment had little impact on domestic political debate, opposition to support for Ukraine—carried by a minority—has led to an intensifying domestic political conflict with pronounced effects on both politicization and polarization.

The resulting dual research question is therefore: Why have the Federal Republic’s different forms of participation in military conflicts generated such divergent societal responses, and why have these responses had such different consequences for social cohesion?