Military in politics and budgetary allocations

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of military involvement in politics on budgetary allocations for defence. We employ a variety of econometric models, including pooled OLS and panel data with fixed effects and control for other known determinants of military spending. To deal with endogeneity issues, we also use an IV methodology and find that a higher degree of military involvement in policy-making increases the probability that the military obtain a larger share of output.

Expropriation risk and competition within the military

“…To address this concern, in column (2) we control for military expenditure and in column (3) an index that measures the influence of military in politics with the hope that these capture changes in the bargaining power of the military relative to the producers. This is consistent with Bove and Nisticò (2014b) who argue that the presence of military in politics is closely related to the civilian-military relationship.…”

Coups d’état and defense spending: a counterfactual analysis

“…Albalate et al (2012) show that presidential democracies spend more than parliamentary systems on defense, whereas its interaction with a majoritarian electoral rule reduces the defense burden. Bove and Nisticò (2014) focus on the institutional context within which the armed forces pursue their corporate interests and find that the level of military involvement in politics, measured on a six-point scale, affects the chances of manipulating the defense burden. Finally, Leon (2014) analyzes the relation between coups and military spending, and he finds that successful coups increase military spending more than failed attempts do, while low military spending increases the chances of coups.…”

The demand for military spending in Latin American countries

“…Given that armed forces are often used to maintain internal law and order, internal security determinants such as civil war, insurgencies, civil strife often affect the levels of such spending. To this, one may also add the political inclinations of the incumbent government and hence its defence and broader policy traits (inter alia: Kauder and Potrafke 2016; Albalate et al 2012;Bove and Nisticò 2014;Yildirim and Sezgin 2005). Clearly, the inevitable budgetary constraint that influences the level of public expenditures, also affects the annual defence budget and the resources allocated to the military (Christie 2017).…”