Veteran welfare past and present: a sociological analysis of the Civil War Petitions, 1642-1718.

IF 2.2 Q2 SOCIOLOGY
Frontiers in Sociology Pub Date : 2025-03-13 eCollection Date: 2025-01-01 DOI:10.3389/fsoc.2025.1495269
Andrew Hopper, Ismini Pells, Martin Bricknell
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Abstract

This article examines the idea of a social contract between the armed forces and the state through a cross period comparison between the United Kingdom in recent years and England and Wales during the mid-seventeenth century. In doing so, it provides an analysis, grounded in sociological theory, of an early military pension scheme evidenced by thousands of surviving petitions for military welfare made by the maimed soldiers, war widows and orphans of the British Civil Wars (1639-1652). Through the findings of the Civil War Petitions project (https://www.civilwarpetitions.ac.uk), this article provides an overview of how seventeenth-century soldiers and war widows operated from the perspective of successive government regimes, administrators, and recipients. The project demonstrates that the extent of military welfare for maimed soldiers, war widows and orphans was greater than previously supposed. In three thematic sections, this article discusses the conditions, process, and purpose of granting military pensions and monetary support. This national provision of military welfare was an important early milestone in securing popular participation in the formation of the modern fiscal-military state. Throughout, these analyses are compared with the experience of the United Kingdom's Armed Forces today, in order to assess similarities and differences with the seventeenth century, linking the experience of veteran welfare in the past through to the present. In the seventeenth century, those poor maimed soldiers and war widows who were denied pensions often found themselves dependent on parish poor relief and the charity of their neighbors. In contrast, today many veterans benefit from well-organized UK military charities, which help to compensate for the shortcomings of state welfare. The activities of these organizations continue to support a form of social contract between the armed forces and the civilian population, where the state is not always the primary link or sole provider of support. New theories of the social contract should take this plurality into account.

退伍军人福利的过去和现在:对内战请愿书的社会学分析,1642-1718。
本文通过对近年来的英国与17世纪中叶的英格兰和威尔士的跨时期比较,考察了武装部队与国家之间社会契约的概念。在此过程中,它提供了一个基于社会学理论的早期军事养老金计划的分析,证据是英国内战(1639-1652)期间伤残士兵、战争寡妇和孤儿为军事福利提出的数千份幸存的请愿书。通过内战请愿项目(https://www.civilwarpetitions.ac.uk)的调查结果,本文从历代政府政权、管理者和接受者的角度概述了17世纪士兵和战争寡妇的运作方式。该项目表明,伤残士兵、战争寡妇和孤儿的军事福利程度比以前设想的要大。本文分三个专题部分讨论给予军人养恤金和货币支助的条件、程序和目的。这种国家提供的军事福利是确保大众参与现代财政军事国家形成的重要早期里程碑。在整个过程中,这些分析与今天英国武装部队的经验进行了比较,以评估与17世纪的异同,将过去到现在的退伍军人福利经验联系起来。在17世纪,那些可怜的伤残士兵和战争寡妇得不到养老金,只能依靠教区的救济和邻居的慈善。相比之下,如今许多退伍军人受益于组织良好的英国军事慈善机构,这有助于弥补国家福利的不足。这些组织的活动继续支持武装部队和平民之间的某种形式的社会契约,在这种契约中,国家并不总是主要的联系或唯一的支助提供者。新的社会契约理论应该考虑到这种多元性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Frontiers in Sociology
Frontiers in Sociology Social Sciences-Social Sciences (all)
CiteScore
3.40
自引率
4.00%
发文量
198
审稿时长
14 weeks
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