U.S. Defense Spending and the Soviet Estimate

Ostrom, Charles W.; Marra, Robin F.

doi:10.2307/1960540

Cited by 86 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(18 reference statements)

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“…The main challenger to the United States' domination after the Second World War was the Soviet Union, which incidentally was also in the semiperiphery for most of the Cold War, spent almost as much, if not more money on its military as the United States (Stokholm International Peace Research Institute, Ostrom and Marra, 1986;Higgs, 1988). China is nowhere near those levels but it is still outspending all other major countries in military expenditures.…”

Section: China's March Into the Semiperipherymentioning

confidence: 99%

China and global economic stratification in an interdependent world

Grell-Brisk

2017

Palgrave Commun

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This article examines the contemporary rise of China and its new role on the global stage within the context of semiperipheral mobility. Unlike earlier discourse on the rise of China that revolved around questions of hegemonic ascent, the focus here is on the impact of China's advancement within the structural confines of the modern capitalist worldeconomy. What happens when a country like China, which makes up close to 20% of the world's population, moves from peripheral state to semiperipheral state in a short period of time? Immanuel Wallerstein had argued that stratification of the world-economy took the shape of a three-layered structure with majority of the world's population at the bottom, a decidedly smaller middle stratum, and a small percentage at the top of the hierarchy. Through an examination of global economic stratification from 1990 through 2015, China's movement into the semiperiphery is shown to dramatically change the shape of this three-layered structure. This change that sometimes causes the distribution to appear quad-modal or multimodal is primarily because of the movement of more of the world's population into the middle stratum of world-economy. This massive movement toward the middle is unprecedented. Furthermore, this new shape of the stratified world economy, will create an increasing amount of pressure on the countries in the middle that may translate into open military aggression and/or at the same time, a rise in regional and multilateral organizations such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.

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Section: China's March Into the Semiperipherymentioning

confidence: 99%

China and global economic stratification in an interdependent world

Grell-Brisk

2017

Palgrave Commun

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Section: Citizen Responsivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ostrom and Marra (1986) and Hartley and Russett (1992) found that public support for defense spending was a substantial positive influence on change in defense spending, even after controlling for the influence of Soviet arms spending and other factors. In a study of congressional appropriations decisions, Bartels (1991) showed that citizen support for defense spending at the constituency level exerted a strong independent influence on legislative support for the Reagan defense buildup, again controlling for other constituency characteristics, such as defense spending or tax burdens in the district.…”

Section: Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although Wlezien (1995Wlezien ( , 1996 uses the thermostat metaphor, others have termed this effect the policy of 1 The precise coverage for each country is listed in the appendix 2 Here we focus on studies of public opinion and foreign and defense policy, but there is a broader and growing literature on representation more generally. For reviews of theory and evidence, see in particular Stimson (1995Stimson ( , 1999; Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson (1995); Page and Shapiro (1983 Wlezien (1995, forthcoming);and Soroka and Wlezien (2002).opposites (Nincic 1988), and yet other scholars have argued that citizens want governments to avoid either "collision or collusion" in foreign policy, that is, policies that go beyond a moderate blend of firmness and détente (Flynn and Rattinger 1985;Eichenberg 1989).3 Whatever the metaphor, the pattern of "opposites" in public reactions to defense and foreign policy suggests the comparative applicability of Stimson's (1999, 122-23) notion of a moderate zone of acceptability in citizen issue opinions. When government policy moves outside the zone of what the public prefers, public opinion will react by demanding a return to acceptable policies.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Representing Defense

Eichenberg¹,

Stoll²

2003

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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There is now substantial evidence that defense spending decisions in the United States are influenced by citizen preferences. However, there is little time-series evidence for countries other than the United States. Regression models of citizen responsiveness and opinion representation in the politics of defense spending in five democracies are estimated. Results show that public opinion in all five countries is systematically responsive to recent changes in defense spending, and the form of the responses across countries uniformly resembles the "thermostat" metaphor developed by Wlezien and the more general theory of opinion dynamics developed by Stimson. Findings show also that defense budgeting is representative: public support for defense spending is the most consistently significant influence on defense budgeting change in four countries; thus, a parsimonious theory of comparative policy representation is potentially within reach. The implications of the results for defense spending in the NATO alliance and the European Union are discussed.Keywords: Democratic control; defense spending; public opinion; citizen responsiveness; alliance dynamics A substantial body of scholarship has emerged on the question of democratic control of foreign and defense policy. This literature has produced a surprisingly cumulative set of findings that indicates that citizens are systematically responsive to government policy and that public opinion is an important determinant of subsequent policy change. The evidence indicates, in short, that democratic control of defense policy is a very real phenomenon.However, most of this evidence concerns citizen opinion and representation in the United States. As a result, we have few of the answers that are needed to construct a comparative theory of representation in the domain of defense policy. In particular, we need answers to the following questions: are citizens in all democracies responsive to policy change? Is the form of the response similar? Does public opinion influence pol-icy in all democracies-that is, are all democracies representative?These questions are not merely of theoretical interest. In the United States and Western Europe, defense spending is either already increasing or governments are under pressure to increase it. However, the level and sustainability of public support for increased defense spending remain open questions, especially if deficits loom or civilian spending would be restrained or reduced.Precisely how such pressures will play out is something we do not know on the basis of existing evidence. In this study, we seek to close this gap in our knowledge. We estimate regression models of citizen responsiveness and policy representation in five countries: the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden. The time period covered by our study varies by country, but it generally includes the period from the late 1960s through 1998. 1 Our specific focus is the role of citizen opinion in the politics of defense budgeting, the yearly de...

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“…Ward (1984) himself finds strong links between the expenditures and weapons stocks of the United States and the Soviet Union. Ostrom and Marra (1986) also provide a multiequation model that fits United States defense expenditures from 1967 to 1984, and they find that these expenditures are linked to Soviet behavior.…”

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confidence: 99%

Steaming in the Dark?

Stoll

1992

Journal of Conflict Resolution

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The empirical literature on arms races has often failed to find strong evidence of the existence of arms races among "obvious" dyads. In this article it is argued that if we assume that decision makers use simple rules and concentrate on the weapons stock of their rivals, we can produce highly accurate models. These premises arc tested by examining the size of the British navy from 1860 to 1913. The results offer support for this line of argument.From the late 1400s to the end of World War II, Great Britain was an important, often dominant, naval power. In this vast swath of history, it was often faced with challenges, repeatedly involving itself in what we now call arms races. The purpose of this article is to develop a quantitative depiction of the size of the British navy during one critical period of time: 1860 to 1913. Thus, this study belongs within the arms race literature, although it is an attempt to understand only one side in a set of shifting arms race dyads. And although my goal is to examine one country in one time period, the study will suggest an approach that can be applied to the examination of other arms competitions.I begin by noting how this article will differ from the "classic" quantitative arms race study. Then, the major naval, technical, and tactical challenges facing the British during the time period will be described. Finally, I proceed to examine an hypothesis about British naval behavior during that period in order to gain a better understanding of it. The Arms Race Literature: A Brief OverviewOne might argue that the scientific study of international relations began with the study of arms races. Lewis Richardson ([1919] 1960) used a pair of equations to study the dynamics of arms races, and applied the equations to the study of the military expenditures of the great powers before World War I in an attempt to learn why that war started. Richardson's work was generally unknown until an article by Anatol Rapoport (1957) introduced it to social scientists. It is an understatement to state that subsequently Richardson's work had an impact on international relations; a recent review of the arms race literature (Anderton 1989, 349) claims that there are over 100 published studies that use Richardson-process models to study arms races. Of course, there are other ways to study arms races; Huntington's ([1958] 1971) classic article uses no mathematics or statistical methodology. But it is fair to say that Lewis Richardson's work has served as the dominant paradigm for both theoretical and empirical work on arms races among those who adopt the scientific approach to the study of international relations. There appear to be at least three reasons for the popularity of this type of study:

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U.S. Defense Spending and the Soviet Estimate

Cited by 86 publications

References 18 publications

China and global economic stratification in an interdependent world

China and global economic stratification in an interdependent world

Representing Defense

Steaming in the Dark?

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