In the fall of 2004, the Pentagon proposed a number of policy changes regarding
trafficking in women for all military, Department of Defense civilians and contract civilian
personnel serving overseas. The military now must enforce more regard for the treatment of
women, especially as it pertains to policy on military prostitution. Given the increasing social
problem of trafficking in women worldwide, new developments in state policy on the
exploitation of women is well-merited. Yet, given a long history of accepting prostitution as part
of the military experience, a necessary and inevitable evil, why would the Department of
Defense now make this change in policy? Past military operations have benefited from the
gender-based exploitation of local women. Exploiting local women communicates to locals the
military’s strength and encourages host submissiveness. Military bases also depend on local
communities to sustain the vitality and morale of troops with outlets for rest and relaxation
(R&R), for which women are prostituted. Using organizational theory of international relations,
this paper explores how we might explain such change in policy. I include three theoretical
perspectives—bureaucratic politics, organizational culture and sociological-institutionalism.
Each perspective offers different expectations about what policy changes will look like, who is
likely to set in motion policy change, and when policy change is likely to occur. In this paper, I
will argue that sociological-institutionalism is most likely to offer a sufficient explanation for
understanding what drives changes in policy on military prostitution.
Addressing this question is important because it has multiple implications for women,
society and international relations. First, much of the literature on organizational theory of
international relations focuses on issues of security, such as the military’s combat effectiveness,
strategy and doctrine. Yet, there is an increasing role for the military in non-combat situations,
such as peace-keeping missions, in which the military takes on new roles that engage society in
unprecedented ways. Trafficking in women is an issue that alters the security environmental and
2
Convention