Collaborative Research on the Political Economy of Military Spending in the Developing World

对欠发达国家军事开支和武器积累的研究集中在军备竞赛上。发展中国家的军备竞赛尤其暴力和致命。这项调查将扩大我们对发展中国家军事开支模式的理解，还将研究发展中国家决策者利用军事预算帮助控制其经济和增加其内部政治支持的具体方式。国防政策制定的这些方面在西方工业化社会中已被证明是重要的，但很少在发展中社会的背景下进行研究。从本质上讲，研究人员将在八个重要武器生产国的发展中国家测试这些想法，以探索国内政治和经济问题之间的相互作用是否也适用于全球，这种相互作用有助于确定工业化国家的军事开支政策。更具体地说，西方民主国家已经对国防和福利的权衡有了很多了解，但是，如果有的话，这种权衡在发展中国家是如何运作的。将对印度、韩国、台湾、以色列、埃及、阿根廷和巴西以及南非军费开支的政治经济学进行系统、深入的案例研究。利用先前工作的见解，将对每个社会的相关数学动态进行小型计算机模拟。研究中每个国家的数据将被用来“检验”假设关系的统计有效性。这些数据将包括武器开支、武器生产、武器销售、武装部队规模、战争伤亡等定量信息。除了各国的国内政治情况外，还将使用国民生产总值、通货膨胀率、企业利润、政府赤字等经济数据。就像经济模型一样，这些模型将允许探索不同的政策情景。这项研究的成功完成应该会美化我们对发展中国家国防开支的理解——根据一项估计，在过去40年里，发展中国家大约有1600万人死于战争。

Studies of military spending and arms accumulation in less developed countries have concentrated on arms races. Arms races in the developing world have been especially violent and deadly. This investigation will amplify our understanding of military spending patterns in the developing world by also examining the specific ways in which decision-makers in the developing world use the military budget to help control their economies and to augment their internal political support. These aspects of defense policy making have been shown to be important in Western industrialized societies, but rarely studied in the context of a developing society. In essence, the researchers will be testing these ideas for eight developing nations that are significant arms producers to explore whether the interplay between domestic political and economic concerns, that helps to determine military spending policy in the industrialized world, also apply more generally around the globe. More specifically, a great deal is already known about defense-welfare tradeoffs in Western democracies, but, how, if at all, does this tradeoff operate in the developing world. Systematic, in depth case studies for the political economy of military spending in India, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Egypt, Argentina and Brazil, and South Africa will be conducted. A small computer simulation of the relevant mathematical dynamics in each society will be developed drawing on the insights from prior work. Data for each nation in the study will then be used to "test" the statistical validity of the hypothesized relationships. These data will consist of quantitative information about arms expenditures, arms productions, arms sales, the size of the armed forces, war casualties, et. cetera. Economic data such as GNP, inflation rates, corporate profits, governmental deficits will also be used in addition to information about the domestic political situation in each society. Much like models of the economy, these models will permit different policy scenarios to be explored. Successful completion of this research should embellish our understanding of defense spending in the developing world - - where according to one estimate, roughly 16 million lives have been lost to warfare during the past 40 years.