The importance of getting the job done is taking over our personal lives and causing a potential work–family conflict. There are some institutions that have traditionally placed high demands on their members and have been termed ‘greedy institutions’. This article analyses the relationship between two greedy institutions – the family and the military – considering the demands they both place on their members. The article strives to establish which one of them is greedier and consequently responsible for a potential work–family conflict. The in-depth analysis is based on the findings of 10 years’ research among service members of the Slovenian Armed Forces and a sample of their families. The results indicate that: (1) both the family and the military might be greedy institutions, although especially during deployment the greediness of the military outweighs that of the family; (2) the contemporary military organization does not only require service members’ loyalty, but the whole family’s support; (3) Slovenian military families remain highly supportive, regardless of military demands; (4) there are no significant differences in balancing work/family between genders (p = .119), with women reporting less work–family conflict than men (p = .041) and women feeling more support for their deployment from their family and friends than men.

This article is based on the results of longitudinal research on the motivations and expectations of members of the Slovenian Armed Forces participating in peace operations from 2003 to 2009. The analysis is based on three main approaches. The first is to distinguish between two groups of soldiers: those deployed to missions abroad on a voluntary basis, and those deployed to missions by order. The second approach is to distinguish between those deployed for the first time, and those who have already participated in peace support operations (PSOs) before. The third approach aims at distinguishing between three types of soldiers’ motivation for PSOs according to Battistelli's typology. The importance of the different groups of motivation would to a certain degree also vary depending on the national culture, organizational culture and the individual soldier, as well as the time at which the survey was conducted: prior to deployment, during deployment or after returning home.

In this paper, we test a widely accepted assumption in literature, namely, that due to its universal(istic) and humanistic character aiming to transcend ethnic boundaries, art is an effective tool for overcoming inter-ethnic divisions, and further, that people consider art effective to this specific purpose. To test this assumption, we ran a socio-psychological experiment at different universities in Bosnia–Herzegovina. Students were asked to assess the aesthetic value of the selected art installation, but were given different names, surnames and city of the artist, since names and places tend to indicate ethnicity in Bosnia–Herzegovina. We hypothesized that the students would attach greater value to the work of an artist perceived to belong to their ethnic group than that of one thought to belong to another group. The results revealed that the artist’s perceived ethnicity did not play a role in evaluating the value of the work presented. The findings demonstrate that the ‘the other’ in Bosnia–Herzegovina is not always perceived through an ethno-political lens as the literature often suggests. Furthermore, it found that art per se is not necessarily perceived as an effective tool for bridging inter-ethnic divides.

In April 2020, a survey was conducted among Slovenian military families, being one of the first surveys to be carried out in the country after the outbreak of the pandemic. The military was labeled a crucial institution in the efforts to combat the SARS-CoV-2 virus and was appointed to various activities, leading to a considerable increase in its workload. The burden of care and unpaid work at that time also intensified, becoming shifted onto the military family, particularly civilian female spouses. The survey’s purpose was to measure how military families evaluated their success in balancing between working from home, household work, childcare, and home schooling during the pandemic lockdown. The risk factors were observed on the micro (i.e., lack of extended family support, institutional childcare, and school lockdown) and macro (i.e., military support, national support measures) social levels. The analysis reveals that when it comes to military families the greatest price has been paid by female civilian spouses. The number of children and their age influence parents’ self-evaluation of their success with work–life balance. The results show that big families and families with primary school children have been struggling the most during the lockdown. Surprisingly, dual-serving families felt the most successful.

International research shows that youth is one of the groups that are the most vulnerable and most susceptible to radicalization. Some of the research findings show school workers’ lack of academic knowledge and practical experience with radicalized youth. As a result, they correlate general criminality with radicalization. The purpose of this study was to identify school workers’ readiness for detecting radicalization and taking preventive measures before the youth step on the path of radicalization. The authors applied a qualitative approach and conducted interviews and focus groups with 23 experts from the Slovenian educational system (i.e. top-down from the ministerial level and bottom-up from the primary and secondary school level). The results revealed that school workers can recognize vulnerable youth and are equipped with the appropriate knowledge and experience in terms of how to respond to different types of violence, but not radicalization. Even the elements that could be recognized as first steps in the radicalization process are reduced to deviant behaviour or simply peer violence. Bearing in mind this critical finding, school workers nevertheless are able to recognize certain types of deviant behaviour and know how to address them. By recognizing the problem and taking appropriate action, school workers can actually (unintentionally) prevent the continuation of the radicalization process.

The project »The Retention of Personnel in the Slovenian Armed Forces« (2024– 2025) initially aims to develop a model of risk and protective factors for personnel retention. This article presents a theoretical model of the key retention factors. A two-stage content analysis is used, starting with a comprehensive review of 223 sources, including 191 international and 32 Slovenian sources, using a coding system to group the factors. The second stage categorizes these factors into macro, micro, and individual levels, and in the third stage, a model of the socio-ecological factors influencing retention is developed.