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Democracy and the Defense Burden: Do Democracies Spend Less on the Military?
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Democracy and the Defense Burden:
Do democracies spend less on the military?
Benjamin E. Goldsmith
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
National University of Singapore
Singapore 117570
## email not listed ##
Using a newly-assembled data set, this paper studies the relationship between regime type and defense effort, primarily defined as the defense burden. Consistent with liberal theories, regime type has a statistically significant effect: democracies spend proportionately less on defense than other states. In addition, having democratic neighbors also tends to reduce a state’s defense burden. These findings have theoretical implications for the democratic peace proposition in particular and for the effect of domestic politics on foreign policy in general. A related finding is that during times of war, democracies spend as much or more of GDP on the military as do non-democracies. This is also consistent with findings of the democratic peace literature in that democracies tend to fight wars that are popularly supported, and to win the wars they fight. All other things being equal, the arsenal of democracy may out-gun its opponents. The findings add support to the institutional explanation of the democratic peace because it appears to be popular sentiment, expressed through elections and other democratic institutions, that constrains elites during peacetime and allows them to spend more during wartime. This is consistent with Bueno de Mesquita, et al.’s (1999) institutional “public goods” interpretation of the democratic peace. It also appears that mixed regimes and authoritarian regimes are less able than liberal states to adapt their budgets to meet urgent needs (such as war).
Prepared for presentation at the 99
th
Annual Metting of the American Political Science
Association, 28-31 August, 2003, Philadelphia.
AcknowledgementsZeev Maoz generously provided me with his PRIE data. Partial support was provided by the National University of Singapore through University Academic Research Grant R-108-000-009-112. Responsibility for errors of fact or judgment of course rests solely with the author.
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| | Authors: Goldsmith, Benjamin. |
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Democracy and the Defense Burden:
Do democracies spend less on the military?
Benjamin E. Goldsmith
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
National University of Singapore
Singapore 117570
## email not listed ##
Using a newly-assembled data set, this paper studies the relationship between regime type and
defense effort, primarily defined as the defense burden. Consistent with liberal theories, regime
type has a statistically significant effect: democracies spend proportionately less on defense than
other states. In addition, having democratic neighbors also tends to reduce a state’s defense
burden. These findings have theoretical implications for the democratic peace proposition in
particular and for the effect of domestic politics on foreign policy in general. A related finding is
that during times of war, democracies spend as much or more of GDP on the military as do non-
democracies. This is also consistent with findings of the democratic peace literature in that
democracies tend to fight wars that are popularly supported, and to win the wars they fight. All
other things being equal, the arsenal of democracy may out-gun its opponents. The findings add
support to the institutional explanation of the democratic peace because it appears to be popular
sentiment, expressed through elections and other democratic institutions, that constrains elites
during peacetime and allows them to spend more during wartime. This is consistent with Bueno
de Mesquita, et al.’s (1999) institutional “public goods” interpretation of the democratic peace. It
also appears that mixed regimes and authoritarian regimes are less able than liberal states to adapt
their budgets to meet urgent needs (such as war).
Prepared for presentation at the 99
th
Annual Metting of the American Political Science
Association, 28-31 August, 2003, Philadelphia.
Acknowledgements
Zeev Maoz generously provided me with his PRIE data. Partial support was provided by the
National University of Singapore through University Academic Research Grant R-108-000-009-
112. Responsibility for errors of fact or judgment of course rests solely with the author.
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