The build-up of coercive capacities

Abstract

Do governments’ military build-ups foster the outbreak of intrastate violence? This article investigates the impact of governments’ arms imports on the onset of intrastate conflicts. There is scant empirical research on the role of the external acquisition of coercive technologies, and even fewer studies explore the respective causal mechanisms of their consequences. We argue that the existing literature has not adequately considered the potential simultaneity between conflict initiation and arms purchases. In contrast, our study explicitly takes into account that weapon inflows may not only causally induce conflicts but may themselves be caused by conflict anticipation. Following a review of applicable theoretical models to derive our empirical expectations, we offer two innovative approaches to surmount this serious endogeneity problem. First, we employ a simultaneous equations model that allows us to estimate the concurrent effects of both arms imports on conflict onsets and conflict onsets on imports. Second, we are the first to use an instrumental variable approach that uses the import of weapon types not suitable for intrastate conflict as instruments for weapon imports that are relevant for fighting in civil wars. Relying on arms transfer data provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for the period 1949-2013, we provide estimates for the effect of imports on civil war onset. Our empirical results clearly show that while arms imports are not a genuine cause of intrastate conflicts, they significantly increase the probability of an onset in countries where conditions are notoriously conducive to conflict. In such situations, arms are not an effective deterrent but rather spark conflict escalation.

Deontological and consequentialist preferences towards arms exports: A comparative conjoint experiment in France and Germany

“…Normative aspects of a weapons trade, in particular, legal principles (e.g., the UN Arms Trade Treaty, the EU Council Decision (CFSP) 2019/1560, the German War Weapons Control Act), can additionally constrain exports, for example, to conflict zones or authoritarian regimes. How such legal principles come into being is not explained by these models themselves, and, usually, the relevance of normative aspects is conceived as only indirectly affecting the government calculus (via geo‐strategic interest, e.g., as arms trade can fuel internal conflict (see Pamp et al., 2018), which might lead to poverty, terrorism or migration flows) (Levine et al., 1994). At the government level, this triad of aspects entails complex trade‐offs, where economically beneficial deals may be detrimental to a country's strategic objectives (e.g., when trading with unreliable partners) just as normative concerns may stand in the way of economically/strategically beneficial deals (e.g., when trading with human rights violating regimes).…”

Converting the United States and United Kingdom defence sector to civil production: The views of defence workers

“…Academic investigation has supported this view, though with greater nuance. For example, Pamp et al (2018), after examining SIPRI records of global arms imports, and noting the increased likelihood of conflict following increases in importing weapons, concluded "… while arms imports are not a genuine cause of intrastate conflicts, they significantly increase the probability of an onset in countries where conditions are notoriously conducive to conflict" (Pamp et al, 2018: 430). There has not been adequate research in this area and some would argue that more weapons are needed to act as a deterrent to aggressive attacks, as in the so-called "peace through strength" position of the US Republican Party (McCrisken & Downman, 2019).…”