Markets and Manpower

Abstract

Economic studies of military manpower systems emphasize the advantages of voluntarism under all but the most total threats, but this explains neither the persistence of institutionalized conscription in many states nor the timing of shifts from such conscription systems to volunteer militaries. Traditional explanations focus on external threat levels, but this has also proven unsatisfying. We theorize that threat variables establish the state’s baseline need for manpower, but structural economic variables determine whether the necessary manpower can be more efficiently obtained by conscription or voluntarism. Using a new data set of 99 countries over 40 years, we find that states with British origins are less likely and those experiencing greater external threat are more likely to employ conscripts. Most importantly, states with more highly regulated labor markets are more likely to employ conscripts, which suggests that, controlling for a number of relevant factors, labor markets matter in military manpower decisions.

Unpacking “Stacking”: Researching Political Identity and Regime Security in Armed Forces

“…Also, the importance of ethnicity might depend on other policies or features of the state and society that exacerbate or mitigate its importance in the armed forces. The literature on conscription, for example, shows how there are complex interactions among factors such as ethnicity, history, political economy, and military recruitment (Asal et al, 2017; Cohn & Toronto, 2017; Toronto, 2011) and that the effects of ethnic conscription are mediated by factors such as coercion, ideology, and economic incentives (Peled, 1994).…”

Military Recruitment and Czech Labour Market

“…Generally, evolving security threats determine the essential need for human resources in a country. However, structural economic variables determine whether the necessary labour can be recruited more eff ectively through conscription or voluntary military service (Cohn and Toronto, 2017). A similar approach is represented by Bäckström (2019) with an analysis of the relationship between civilian labour market and the supply of labour for the military under conditions of all-volunteer forces in Sweden.…”