Guns and Butter: Child Mortality and the Mediators of Militarization

Abstract

Which types of militarization affect child mortality? Which type appears to lower it; which appears to push it higher? This article focuses on social militarization (i.e., troops as a proportion of workforce-aged population) and praetorian militarization (i.e., the military’s control or strong influence over the government), investigating their impact on child mortality using pooled time series analysis covering 142 countries from 1996 through 2008. We find that social and praetorian militarization have opposite effects even after controlling for potentially confounding influences. Access to basic public health infrastructures and education mediates between each type of militarization and child mortality.

“The Soldier, the State, and the People—Costs and Benefits of Military Regimes”: Evaluating the Essay “Guns and Butter: Child Mortality and the Mediators of Militarization”

“…The implicit proposition that economic development on a continuing basis brings reduced participation overall in militaries is presented clearly and persuasively. This conclusion is congruent with much wider literature on both economic development and the sociopolitical roles of militaries and ideally should encourage further research and publications, including but certainly not limited to researchers who focus on the collection and analysis of quantitative data (Carlton-Ford et al, 2019, especially pp. 177, and 178).…”

Guns versus Climate: How Militarization Amplifies the Effect of Economic Growth on Carbon Emissions

“…Military participation rate is measured as armed forces personnel as a percent of total labor force. Military expenditures per soldier quantifies the capital intensiveness of nations' militaries, and military participation rate measures the relative size of nations' militaries (see Carlton-Ford et al 2019;Jorgenson and Clark 2009;Kentor et al 2012;Kentor and Kick 2008;Kick et al 1998;Lengefeld and Smith 2013;Smith and Lengefeld 2020). For the overall dataset, they are weakly correlated at -.11 in their original metrics and .01 in logarithmic form.…”

“…Likewise, militaries with relatively larger forces require expansive built infrastructures and huge amounts of material goods, such as food and clothing. Consistent with other sociological inquiries, we use military participation rate, which quantifies a nation’s military personnel as percent of total labor force, to capture the relative size of militaries (e.g., Carlton-Ford 2010; Carlton-Ford et al 2019; Kick et al 1998; Kleykamp 2007). We suggest that both expenditures per soldier and participation rate measure far-reaching characteristics of militarization that enlarge the effect of economic growth on nations’ carbon emissions.…”

Essay: Common Fates, Common Goals—A Response to Cyr

“…In his response to our article (Carlton-Ford, Durante, Evans, & Graham, 2019), Professor Cyr (2019): (1) argues that studies of militarization cannot rely solely on quantitative analyses; (2) suggests that we provided only correlations, with an insufficient discussion of the problems of establishing causality; and (3) maintains that the work of Samuel Huntington would be particularly instructive in conceptualizing praetorian militarization. We address each of these issues in turn.…”