Browsing by Author "Fitzsimmons, Daniel"

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    Boy Scouts No Longer: A Sociological Institutionalist Analysis of the Canadian Forces
    (2008) Fitzsimmons, Daniel; Fitzsimmons, Scott; McDougall, Alex
    This paper seeks to explain the process of institutional transformation within the armed forces of a democracy. It offers an ideational explanation for this process, which is grounded in sociological institutionalism. Specifically, it argues that one of the most important and powerful factors that can drive institutional transformation within national armed forces are radical shifts in how senior political decision-makers perceive the appropriate 'institutional role' of their military forces. To illustrate this process, this paper examines the recent and radical transformation of the Canadian Forces, from an institution structured to specialize in peacekeeping operations to an institution structured to specialize in counter-insurgency war fighting.
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    Media Power and American Military Strategy: Examining the Impact of Negative Media Coverage on US Strategy in Somalia and the Iraq War
    (2006) Fitzsimmons, Daniel; Fitzsimmons, Scott; Singh, Anita
    Since the Vietnam War, the opinions expressed by the American news media have been considered by many politicians and members of academia to be a powerful agenda-setting device. The term 'CNN effect' has come to signify the power of the news media to 'move and shake' American foreign policy, determining when to enter into and when to pull out of military conflicts. Despite the level of scholarship on this concept, very few works have examined the influence of news organizations on military strategy. This study attempts to redress this failing by examining the influence of negative coverage of American military strategy in Somalia, from 1992 to 1993, and the early stages of the Iraq War, from 2003 to 2005. This paper argues that, despite the high level of negative media coverage of these conflicts from both television and newspaper sources, this coverage had no discernable impact on American military strategy in either conflict