Why Nations Arm: A Reconsideration

Erich Weede
Additional contact information
Erich Weede: Research Institute for Sociology, University of Cologne

Journal of Peace Research, 1995, vol. 32, issue 2, 229-232

Abstract: In a widely, but undeservedly overlooked book, Payne (1989) raised two important issues. First, he argued that many cross-national analyses of military burdens and arms races are misleading, because they rely on expenditure-based measures that are not comparable beyond OECD nations. This contention appears valid. Second, he argued that cultural variables exert a stronger influence on military effort and burdens than external challenges. Here, a reanalysis and reinterpretation of Payne's data rejects this conclusion and asserts instead that the impact of external challenges on the military force ratio is at least as strong as the impact of cultural variables.

Date: 1995
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/32/2/229.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:32:y:1995:i:2:p:229-232

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().