Morris Janowitz

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Morris Janowitz, (22 October 1919 - 7 November 1988) was an American sociologist and political scientist who made major contributions to sociological theory and to the study of prejudice, urban issues, and patriotism.

His publications include Last Half Century and On Social Organization and Social Control.

According to prof. J. A. A. van Doorn in a recent article [1] , Morris Janowitz went to war himself in 1944-45. Janowitz, a German speaker, was assigned to interviewing captured German soldiers and this experience helped shape his views on the military. His views were also shaped by his experience in London, while awaiting deployment, when Janowitz was in a building hit by a V-2. After the Second World War he gathered a group of sociologists around the journal Armed Forces and Society [2]. This group, and other scientists such as Samuel Huntington of The Clash of Civilizations fame and the Briton Michael Howard, gave new content to traditional military sciences with their special subject "War and History."

Janowitz's The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (1960) remains one of the foundational works in the area of civil-military relations. In this work, he explores various aspects of the evolution of professional life in the American armed forces during the first half of the 20th century. Many of his observations still are relevant for today's civil-military relations. But his conclusion that the military in contemporary international relations must evolve towards a concept of "constabulary forces" never fully took root in the American military.