FOI researcher Peter Bäckström has reviewed several studies that have examined differences between people who have completed military service and other groups. These concern voter turnout, blood donation, crime and trust in other people, among other things, and it turns out that there is no evidence that military service itself has an impact.
"My view is that it is a fairly common, recurring mindset or argument that people try to justify conscription with other things. But I also think that the purpose, namely to train soldiers for the defence, is perfectly sufficient as motivation for why we have conscription in Sweden," Bäckström tells TV4.
