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Transcript of 1993 Militarization Ris
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1/27
Review
of
International
Studies
(1993),
19,
321-347
Printed
in
Great
Britain
Dependent
state
formation
and
Third
World
militarization*
ALEXANDER
WENDT AND MICHAEL
BARNETT
The relationship between militarization and
state
formation
in the West has been
the
subject
of
considerable
scholarship,1
and there
is
thus
some
temptation
to
simply
transfer
concepts
and
arguments
from that domain
to
the
study
of Third
World
militarization.
Yet
state
formation
dynamics
in
the
two contexts
were
and
are
quite
different,
with
important
implications
for the
nature
of national
security
threats.
In
the West threats
tended
to
be
external,
rooted
in
anarchical
competition
between
relatively equal
states
possessing
domestic
legitimacy,
which
meant
that
militarization could
be understood
primarily
in
terms
of
the
political
realist
focus
on
security
dilemmas and
action-reaction
dynamics.
In
contrast,
Third World
state
formation has
occurred
in
a
largely
dependent
context
in
which relative external
security contrasts with domestic insecurity.2 In this case the external environment,
rather
than
being
a source
of
threat,
becomes
a source
of
opportunities
for elites
lacking
domestic
legitimacy
to
gain
support
against
internal
security
threats.
In
short,
national
security problems
look
very
different
in
the
First and Third Worlds
because of different
trajectories
and
contexts
of
state
formation.
Very
different
mechanisms
may
therefore
account for
militarization,
suggesting
the need for
concepts
and
theories different
than those that dominate
security
studies
in the
West.3
The authors wish to thank Simon Dalby, David Dessler, William Foltz, Naeem Inayatullah, Brian
Job,
Ethan
Kapstein,
Aaron
Karp,
Stephen
Krasner,
Richard
Little,
Craig Murphy,
Andrew
Ross,
Bruce
Russett,
Jan
Thomson,
and several
anonymous
referees
for their
helpful
comments,
and
Janice
Bially
and
Nancy
Neiman
for research assistance.
1
See,
for
example,
Otto
Hintze,
'Military Organization
and the
Organization
of the
State',
in Felix
Gilbert
(ed.),
The Historical
Essays
of
Otto
Hintze
(Oxford, 1975),
pp.
178-215;
Charles
Tilly (ed.),
The
Formation
of
National
States
in Western
Europe
(Princeton, 1975);
and Charles
Tilly,
Coercion,
Capital,
and
European
States
(Oxford,
1990).
2
On
the
prevalence
of domestic
security
threats
in
the Third
World,
see
Barry
Buzan,
'People,
States,
and Fear: The National
Security
Problem
in the Third
World',
in
Edward Azar and
Chung-In
Moon
(eds.),
National
Security
in
the Third World
(Aldershot,
1988),
pp.
14-43,
and
Mohammed
Ayoob,
'The
Security
Problematic of the Third
World',
World
Politics,
43
(1991),
pp.
257-83.
3
On the need for new concepts in Third World security studies, see Jack Levy and Michael Barnett,
'Alliance
Formation,
Domestic Political
Economy,
and
Third World
Security',
Jerusalem
Journal
of
International
Relations,
14
(1992),
pp.
19^40,
and
Kal
Holsti,
'International
Theory
and War
in
the
Third
World',
in
Brian Job
(ed.),
The
Insecurity
Dilemma: National
Security of
Third World States
(Boulder, 1992),
pp.
37-60.
A
useful discussion
of the difficulties of
building
theory
when
different
causal
processes
lead
to
similar
outcomes
is
Benjamin
Most and
Harvey
Starr,
'International
Relations
Theory, Foreign
Policy
Substitutability,
and Nice
Laws' ,
World
Politics,
36
(1984),
pp.
383-406.
321
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322
Alexander Wendt and
Michael
Barnett
This is
important
to
keep
in
mind
as
one
explores
Third World
militarization,
which
otherwise exhibits
many
of the
same
qualities
as
militarization in
the
West.
Specifically,
as
in
the
West,
most
Third World
states
have
adopted
a
capital- rather
than labour-intensive
military posture?that
is,
conventional
or
'technocratic'
armies
in
which
military capability
is
based
primarily
on
physical
and human
'capital' (advanced
weapons
systems
and
highly
skilled
soldiers)
rather than
on
unconventional,
'people's
armies'
in
which
capability
is based
more on
'labour'
(as
in
the
mass
mobilization
of
militias).4
Our
objective
in
this
paper
is
to
offer
a
partial explanation
for the relative
predominance
of
capital-
over
labour-intensive
militarization
in
the Third World.
Why
this
path
of
military development
rather
than the other?
While scholars have directed
considerable attention
to
the
quantitative
side of
Third World militarization, they have tended to neglect the issue of its qualitative
form.
This
may
reflect
a
belief
that
capital-intensive
armies
are
inherently superior
from
a
military standpoint
to
labour-intensive
ones,
and that it
is therefore
natural
for
Third World
states to
develop
the former rather
than latter. On this
view,
the
high capital-intensity
of Third World
militaries
is
not
particularly
noteworthy;
there
is
only
one
viable
form of
militarization
in
the modern
world,
and
so no
interesting
counterfactual
scenario
to
address.
However,
it is
not
obvious
that
labour-intensive
militarization
is
inherently
inferior
to
its
counterpart.
In
the 1980s
military analysts
in
the West
seriously
debated the merits of
'alternative
defence',
some
forms of
which would have relied
on
the
mass
mobilization of
militias.
In
the
Third
World,
a
few
states
have
implemented
such
policies
to
varying degrees?Vietnam,
China,
Nicaragua,
Cuba,
Iran,
and
so
on?with
which
they
deterred
or
defeated
states
with
more
'modern' armies.
Finally,
whatever
technological
virtues
capital-intensive
militarization does
have
must
be
weighed
against
its
developmental
costs to
capital-poor
economies,
and its
political
costs
when it
leads
to
external
dependency.
These considerations
suggest
that
the
rationality
of different forms of
militarization
as
policy
means
are
relative
to
national
security
ends.
The ends of national
security policy
are
bound
up
with the
process
of
state
formation. 'State formation' refers
to
both the
building
of
institutions for
territorial
control, and
to
the process by which
one
constellation of societal interests achieves
state
power
and international
recognition
rather than another.
Adapting
arguments
made
by
scholars
in other
domains,
we
examine the
impact
of
three
systemic
dominance
structures
on
Third
World
state
formation. The first
two
affect
security
ends,
the third
preferred
means.
In
brief,
we
argue
that:
(1)
dependency
on
the
world
economy
tends
to create
weak
regimes
to
which
the
masses are a
security
threat rather than
an
asset;
(2)
dependency
on
security
assistance
in
geopolitical
structures
of informal
empire
tends
to create
elites whose
definitions of
security
are
those of external
patrons
rather than the
masses;
(3)
dependency
on
the
global
military
culture
shapes
Third World elites' ideas about what
constitutes
a
'modern'
army. All three structures generate distinct, though typically articulated, demand
side motivations for
capital-intensive militarization?quite
different
mechanisms
than those that
may
account
for such militarization in
the
West.
Our overall
argument
might
be
represented schematically
as
follows:
4
The distinction is due
to
Herbert
Wulf,
'Dependent
Militarism
in
the
Periphery
and
Possible
Alternative
Concepts',
in
Stephanie
Neuman
and Robert
Harkavy (eds.),
Arms
Transfers
in
the
Modern
World
(New
York,
1979),
pp.
246-63.
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Dependent
state
formation
and
Third World
militarization 323
(1)
systemic
dominance
structures
'->
(2)
Third
World
state
formation
^(3)
definitions
of national
security
'-^(4)
capital-intensive
militarization.
Figure
1.
Schematic
representation
of the
processes
leading
to
Third
World
militarization
Like
dependency
theorists
of Third
World
economic
development,
then,
we
argue
that the hierarchical
structure
of the world
system
conditions the form of
Third
World military development via its impact on state formation. As such, our
argument
might
be
seen
as
one
of
'second-image
reversed',
or as one
in
which
state
identities and interests
are
constituted
by
the
structures
of the
international
system.5
This
is
not
to
say
that
strictly
domestic factors
or
action-reaction
processes
in
the
states
system
play
no
role in
Third World
militarization;
on
the
contrary,
they
undoubtedly
play
a
crucial role. We
cannot
develop
a
complete theory
here,
however,
and
choose
to
focus
on
systemic
mechanisms because of their
salience
in
the Third World
context
and
because
they
have been
relatively
neglected,
even
in
studies
focusing
on
the
'world
military
order'.6
It
should be
emphasized
that
this
approach
to
Third
World
militarization
is
a
counterfactual
one that asks
'why
this
reality
and not
another?',
rather than the
traditional
behavioural
one
that
asks 'what
accounts
for
the variance in the
Third
World
experience?'.
Our
empirical analysis
does reveal
some
variance in
the
latter,
particularly
along regional
lines,
but here
we are
more
impressed
by,
and
interested
in
explaining,
the
qualitative
similarities
in
Third World
militarization. This
suggests
a
counterfactual research
design,
in which
one
tries
to
identify
and
describe
the
causal
mechanisms
in
the absence of which the
phenomenon
would
not
have occurred.7
Although
counterfactual and
actual
case
methods have
important
commonalities,
in the
latter
one
tests
causal claims
by
expanding
the
number of
observable
instances,
whereas
in the former
one
develops arguments
about 'what
would have
happened'
in the absence of
hypothesized
mechanisms. Our
goals,
however,
are
considerably
more
modest:
(1)
to
call
attention
to
differences between
capital-
and
labour-intensive
militarization and
offer
some
suggestive
data
on
the
dominance of the
former;
(2)
to
situate
this
observation in
terms
of
state
formation
dynamics
in the
Third
World;
and
(3)
to
develop
some
hypotheses
about three
systemic
mechanisms that
may
help
account
for
those
dynamics.
Although
at
various
points
we
suggest
that
in
the absence of these
mechanisms
contemporary
5
See,
respectively,
Peter
Gourevitch,
'The Second
Image
Reversed:
The
International
Sources
of
Domestic
Polities',
International
Organization,
32
(1978),
pp.
881-912,
and Alexander
Wendt,
'Anarchy isWhat States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Polities', International
Organization,
46
(1992),
pp.
391^25.
6
Studies with which
we
otherwise
share much
in
common;
see,
for
example,
Mary
Kaldor
and
Asbjorn
Eide
(eds.),
The
World
Military
Order
(London,
1979),
and
Asbjorn
Eide and Marek
Thee
(eds.),
Problems
of
Contemporary
Militarism
(London,
1980).
7
For
good
discussions of
counterfactual
analysis,
see
James
Fearon,
'Counterfactuals
and
Hypothesis
Testing
in Political
Science',
World
Politics,
43
(1991),
pp.
169-95,
and
Stephen
Jay
Gould,
Wonderful Life:
The
Burgess
Shale and
the Nature
of History
(New
York,
1989),
especially
chapter
5.
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8/19/2019 1993 Militarization Ris
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324 Alexander Wendt and Michael Barnett
Third World militarization would look
quite
different,
we
do
not
test,
even
by
the
criteria
appropriate
to
counterfactual
arguments,
the
explanatory strength
of
our
claims. We
merely explore
a
neglected problem
and
suggest
some
directions for
future research.
The
paper
is
organized
as
follows. In
the
next two
sections
we
differentiate
capital
and labour-intensive
militarization and adduce
some
empirical
evidence that the
Third World has tended
heavily
toward
the
former. In the
core
of
the
paper
we
focus
on
how
economic,
political,
and cultural
dominance
structures
in
the
inter
national
system
condition Third World
state
formation
in
ways
consequential
for
militarization.
In conclusion
we
consider
some
implications
of
our
argument
for
thinking
about the
impact
of
Third World militarization
on
the
world
system.
Types
of
militarization
'Militarization' refers
to
the
accumulation of
capacity
for
organized
violence,
to
a
'military
build-up'.8
This should
not
be
confused
with
militarism,
which
refers
to
a
disposition
to
use
organized
violence,
either
internally
or
externally.
Militarily
powerful
states
can
be democratic and
pacific,
while
militarily
weak
ones
can
be
repressive
and bellicose. Militarization and militarism
may
in
some cases
by
causally
related,
but the
link is
not
definitional. The
output
of
a
militarization
process
is
'military capacity',
based
on
an
organizational
apparatus
charged
with
the maintenance
of
security through
the threat
or use
of
organized
violence
(we
defer
for the
moment
the
question
of
security
'for
whom').
As
such,
militarization
includes
not
only
weapons
accumulation
but
the
training
of
personnel,
construction
of
fortifications,
and
logistical
and
productive
infrastructure.
All militaries make
use
of both
capital
and
labour. While
not
infinitely
sub
stitutable,
these factors
can
be combined
in different
proportions.9
The
'intensity'
of
factor
proportions
refers
to
their
respective
contributions
to
the
capacity
for
organized
violence. Factor-intensities
lie
on
a
continuum,
but since
its
endpoints
are
doctrinally
and
organizationally quite distinct,
we
elaborate this idea in
terms
of
two
ideal
types.10
Capital-intensive
militarization
generates
the
typical
'modern'
or
'conventional'
army.
Such
militaries derive
most
of their
capability
from the
physical
and
human
capital
embodied
in
advanced
weapons
systems
like
armoured
fighting
vehicles and
combat aircraft and
their skilled
operators.
Because of the
significant
expenditure
and
organization
necessary
to create
and
sustain such
a
force,
even
when filled
out
through conscription
this
sort
of
military
tends
to
be
an
instrument of the
state
and
its
security,
rather than
of
(or
indifferent
to)
the
people. Despite
some
variation
in
8 See Andrew
Ross,
'Dimensions of
Militarization
in the Third
World',
Armed Forces and
Society,
13
(1987),
p.
564.
9
On
the
problems
of
measuring
this
substitutability,
see
Ron
Smith,
Anthony
Humm
and
Jacques
Fontanel,
'Capital-Labor
Substitution
in
Defense
Provision',
in
Sadat
Deger
and
Robert West
(eds.), Defense, Security,
and
Development (New
York,
1987),
pp.
69-80.
10
The
following
discussion
draws
on
Adam
Roberts,
Nations
in
Arms: The
Theory
and
Practice
of
Territorial
Defense
(New
York,
1976),
Wulf,
'Dependent
Militarism in the
Periphery',
and
Barry
Buzan,
'Security Strategies
for
Dissociation',
in
John
Ruggie
(ed.),
Antimonies
of Interdependence
(New
York,
1983),
pp.
369-420.
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Dependent
state
formation
and Third World militarization 325
the actual
level of
capital-intensity,
most
armies
in
the modern world
are
organized
along
these basic lines.
In
the
West this makes
sense
from the
standpoint
of factor
endowments,
which
are
relatively
abundant
in
capital.
Nevertheless,
because of the
high
start-up
costs
involved
in
developing
modern
weapons
and
the difficulties of
achieving
economies
of
scale,
even
the
largest
industrialized
states
have
tended
increasingly
toward collaborative
and
functionally
specialized
militarization of this
type.11
If
'auto-centric'
capital-intensive
militarization
is difficult for industrialized
states
to
achieve,
it is almost
impossible
for the
capital-poor
states
of the Third
World,
which has led
many
to
militarize
on a
dependent
basis,
importing
arms,
arms
production technology,
and
training
from external
suppliers.
This
military
depen
dency
has
been
widely
studied,12
but
in
doing
so
the
literature tends
to
take
as
given that Third World states desire capital-intensive armies in the first place. This
may
reflect
a
decision
simply
to
bracket the
origins
of this desire
('preference
formation'
if
you
will),
but the fact
that
so
few
scholars
address
the issue
suggests
that
most
have
not
seriously
considered
the
possibility
of
an
alternative.
In
the
strictly quantitative
terms
of factor
proportions,
labour-intensive militariz
ation
comes
in
two
varieties
(a
fact which
complicates
our
story).
The first is the
'cadre-conscript'
army,13
characteristic of late
nineteenth-century
Europe
and
some
contemporary
Third World
states
like
Iraq
or
Nigeria,
which consists of
masses
of
poorly
trained
conscripts organized
around
a
capital-intensive
core
of
professionals
and
advanced
weapons.
Trained
to
fight
like
a
conventional
army
and
organized by
and for the
state,
it has
many
of the
powers
and liabilities of more
capital-intensive
armies,
and
we
treat
it
as a
mixed
case
below.
The
second,
more
interesting,
case
is the 'unconventional'
or
people's
army,
the
military
capability
of which
is
generated primarily by
the
mass
mobilization of
lightly
armed
militias.
Organized
on a more
decentralized
basis,
the
'nation
in
arms' makes
up
for its lack of advanced
weapons
by organizing
for
territorial
defence and
guerrilla
warfare,
and
cultivating ideology
to
create
a
highly
motivated
force.14 Guerrilla armies
typically
start out
in
this
fashion;
a
few
have maintained
this
structure
after
achieving
state
power.
The
two
types
of labour-intensive militarization differ
in
the extent to
which
labour is the real
core
of their
capability,
but both
rely
on mass
mobilization,
which
presupposes
something
that
a
capital-intensive military
need
not,
namely
that the
state
have
a
relatively high degree
of
political legitimacy.
This
may
be
created and
protected
coercively by
an
institution like
Iraq's Republican
Guard
or
11
On this
trend,
see
Pauline
Creasey
and S.
May,
The
European
Armaments Market and
Procurement
Cooperation (New
York,
1988),
Theodore
Moran,
'The Globalization of America's
Defense
Industries',
International
Security,
15
(1990),
pp.
57-99,
and Ethan
Kapstein
(ed.),
Global Arms
Production
(Lanham, 1992).
12
See,
for
example, Stephanie
Neuman,
'International Stratification and Third
World
Military
Industries',
International
Organization,
38
(1984),
pp.
167-97,
Andrew
Ross,
'Arms
Acquisition
and
National Security: The Irony of Military
Strength',
in Edward Azar and
Chung-In
Moon (eds.),
National
Security
in
the Third World
(Aldershot,
1988),
pp.
152-87,
and Michael Barnett and
Alexander
Wendt,
'Systemic
Sources of
Dependent
Militarization',
in
Brian Job
(ed.),
The
Insecurity
Dilemma: National
Security
of
Third World States
(Boulder, 1992),
pp.
97-120.
13
The
term
is Roberts'
in
Nation
in Arms.
14
See,
for
example:
Roberts,
Nations
in
Arms;
Buzan,
'Security
Strategies
for
Dissociation',
especially
pp.
410-11;
Gene
Sharp,
Making Europe
Unconquerable
(London,
1985);
and
George
Stein,
'Total
Defense:
A
Comparative
Overview of the
Security
Policies of Switzerland and
Austria',
Defense
Analysis,
6
(1990),
pp.
17-33.
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326
Alexander
Wendt and
Michael
Barnett
by
ideological
indoctrination
as
in
China
or
North
Korea,15
but
any
state
that
arms
significant
numbers
of
people
requires
a
certain
degree
of
political
consent
(however
manufactured), since without it
the armed
masses
might revolt.16
And
this,
in
turn,
implies
that the
masses
have
been
cut
in
rather than
out
of the social
contract.
The
presence
or
absence
of
mass
support
is
a
crucial element
in
our
subsequent
causal
story,
since
it
helps
determine the
content
of national
security
'threats' and 'assets'.
The distinction
between
technocratic
and militia
armies
provides
a
theoretical
rationale
for
a
counterfactual
analysis
of
Third World militarization: there is
in
principle
an
alternative
to
the
conventional model. We
turn
now
to
opera
tionalizing
the distinction
in
order
to
provide
an
empirical
basis for such
an
analysis,
to
show
that Third
World
militarization tends
in fact
to
be
quite
capital-intensive,
certainly
more
so
than
one
would
expect
on
the basis of factor
endowments alone.
The
factor
basis of
Third
World
militarization
The
factor-'intensity'
of
militarization
refers
to
the relative contribution
of
capital
and
labour
to
overall
military capability.
Two
measurement
strategies
suggest
themselves,
both rooted
in
the
literature
on arms races.
The first is
to
examine the
proportion
of defence
expenditure
on
weapons
procurement
(capital),
training
and
salaries
(mostly
labour),
and
operations
and maintenance
(most capital).
Disa
ggregated
expenditure
data
do exist
on a
few
Third World
states,
but
only
a
few,
and
in
general
these
are
unreliable,
since
many
states
under-report
or
hide
portions
of their
defence
spending
in other
parts
of the
budget.17
SIPRI
has devised
a
method
for
avoiding
these
problems
by
calculating
the
'value'
of
major
weapons
systems,18
but this
still does
not
address the
measurement
of 'labour'
costs.
These
problems
led
us
to
adopt
the second
measurement
strategy
of
focusing
on
capabilities
themselves.
Specifically,
using
1985 data
on
all
countries,
we
computed
the ratio of
major weapons19
to
total
active-duty
and
reserve20
manpower
in
the
military, in effect trying to capture the amount of physical capital 'carried' by
a
unit of labour
(see appendix
1).
This
measure
has the virtue of
dealing
with
a
phenomenon
more
easily
observed
than
expenditure
(and
thus
probably
has
greater
reliability),
but
has the
important
drawback
of
lacking
a
'common
currency'
for
15
On
the latter
case,
see
H.
Park and
K.
Park,
'Ideology
and
Security:
Self-Reliance
in
China
and
North
Korea',
in
Azar and
Moon
(eds.),
National
Security
in
the
Third
World,
pp.
102-35.
16
For discussion
of the
relationship
between
political
legitimacy
and
mass
mobilization,
see
Michael
Walzer,
'Political
Alienation
and
Military
Service',
in
Obligations: Essays
in
Civil
Disobedience
(Cambridge,
1970),
pp.
153-70,
Anthony
Giddens,
The
Nation-State
and Violence
(Berkeley,
1985),
pp.
233^1,
and Michael
Barnett,
Confronting
the Costs
of
War
(Princeton, 1992),
pp.
29-30.
17
On
the
reliability
problems
of
Third World
military
expenditure
data,
see
Nicole
Ball,
Security
and
Economy
in
the Third
World
(Princeton,
1988), chapter
3.
18
See Michael
Brzoska and
Thomas Ohlson
(eds.),
Arms Production
in
the Third World
(London,
1986).
19
We define
such
weapons
as
main
battle
tanks,
light
tanks,
armoured
reconnaissance and
mechanized
infantry
combat
vehicles
with
at
least
a
20mm
cannon,
combat
aircraft,
combat
helicopters,
and
major
surface
warships.
Our
primary
data
source on
these
weapons
and
on
manpower
is Institute
of
Strategic
Studies,
The
Military
Balance
(London,
1986 and
1987).
20
'Reserve'
manpower
needs
to
be counted because
it
may
be
an
essential
element
in
a
labour-intensive
military
strategy.
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7/27
Dependent
state
formation
and Third
World
militarization
327
25
20
15
fc
10
1
JL
JL
1
i n n n
n
n
r~i
r~i r~i n n nn
2 4
6 8 10
12 14
16 18
20
22 24
26
28
30
32
Weapons
to
Personnel Ratio
Figure
2.
Frequency
distribution
of
Weapons
to
Personnel
Ratio
(see
appendix
1,
for
disaggregated
data)
expressing
units of
capital (and
thus
may
have
less
validity).
While
aggregating
different
types
of
weapons
is
problematic,
however,
imposing
an
inevitably
arbi
trary
weighting
scheme seemed
even
less
desirable,
especially
when
some
less
capitalized
systems,
like
helicopters
and
light
armour,
may
in
fact
be
more
useful
than
jet
aircraft
or
submarines
for
dealing
with
the
primarily
internal
security
problems
facing
most
Third
World
states.
The
validity
issue is
real,
however,
and
as
such
our
empirical
analysis
of the
factor-basis
of
Third
World
militarization
should be
seen
as
merely
suggestive,
but
our
purpose
in
presenting
these
data is
more
to
establish the
initial
plausibility
of
a
'stylized
fact'
that
Third
World
militaries
look like
Western
ones
than
to
establish
a
firm
data
base for
the
analysis
of
variance in
Third
World
experience.
At least two
patterns
emerge
from
our
data.
First,
there
are
some
significant
regional
variations
(see
appendix 2).
Weapons/personnel
ratios
are
highest
in
the
US-USSR
dyad,
and fall
progressively
in
the
Middle
East,
Southern
Africa,
other
NATO-Warsaw
Pact
countries,
Central and
East
Africa,
South
America,
neutral
Europe,
and
Asia. We
are
not
interested
in
explaining
these
variations
here,
but
a
number of
potential
causes
suggest
themselves:
the
existence of
action-reaction
regional
conflict
dynamics,
strategic
importance
to
Great
Power
suppliers,
factor
endowments, terrain,
and
so on.
The causal
force of
some
of
these
mechanisms,
however,
depends
on
a
preexisting
interest in
capital-intensive militarization;
were
such an interest not present a state might offset an adversary's conventional arms
build-up
with
more
'alternative'
defences,
just
as
it
might
be less
vulnerable
to
Great
Powers
purveying
their
high-tech
wares
in
regions
of
strategic
importance.
This
brings
us
to
a
second
pattern,
one we
are
interested in
explaining:
the
similarity
in
levels of
capital-intensity
across
the
population.
While
the
137
observations
range
from 0
to
32.00,
118
are
below
8.00,
and
fully
100
are
between
0.00 and
5.00
(see
figure
2),
including
many
Western
states.
Particularly
noteworthy
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8/19/2019 1993 Militarization Ris
8/27
328
Alexander
Wendt and Michael
Barnett
in
this
respect
is the absence of
association between level
of economic
development
and
military
capitalization.
One
might
expect
to
find such
a
relationship,
since
economic growth is correlated with a falling relative price of capital to labour,
making
capital-intensive
militarization
'cheaper'
from
a
societal
standpoint.
Yet,
in
descending
order
by
income
group,
the
ranking
of
weapons/personnel
ratios is
oil-exporting,
low-income, middle-income,
high-income,
and
upper-middle
income
countries.
A
regression
of
per
capita
GNP
(as
a
proxy
for relative
factor
prices)21
on our
dependent
variable
produced insignificant
results. In
short,
despite
a
high
price
of
capital,
most
Third World
states
have
sustained
levels of
military
capitalization comparable
to
all but the
most
heavily
militarized
advanced
indus
trialized
states.
Third
World
states
may
make
greater
use
of
second-hand
or
obsolete
weapons
systems
to
avoid
some
costs,
but
the
form
of
militarization in
which
they
are
engaged
seems
remarkably
similar to that of the West.
In
the
rest
of
this
paper
we
suggest
some
mechanisms
that
may
help
explain
this
qualitative
similarity.
In
other
words,
in
view of
the
tremendous
economic,
political,
and cultural
disparities
between North and
South,
why
does
their
militarization
seem
to
exhibit
a
single logic,
rather than
multiple
ones?
Why
a
world of
military
homogeneity
rather
than
heterogeneity?
The international system and dependent state formation
The standard
answer
to
this
question
is that the relevant
context
for
militarization
policy
is
a
world
military
order
in
which
a
'technological
determinism' favours
conventional armies. On this
view,
the
security
dilemmas
that
proliferate
in
anarchic
systems generate
dynamics
of
competitive
armament
in
which A's mili
tarization makes
B
insecure,
inducing
it
to
arm,
making
A
more
insecure,
and
so
on.
In
response
to
threats,
states
in
principle
have
a
choice of
adopting
a
similar
strategy
(a
'symmetrical' response),
or
one
designed
to
offset the
other's
advantage
(a 'counter' response).22 Various factors, however, encourage states to favour the
former: the effectiveness of
a
counter
may
be
uncertain,
counters
may
lead
to
counter-counter
measures,
symmetrical
responses
make
calculations
of 'balance'
easier,
and
so on.
As
a
result of this
dynamic,
militarization
paths
converge
toward
homogeneity;
as
Kenneth
Waltz
puts
it,
'[Contending
states
imitate the
military
innovations
contrived
by
the
country
of the
greatest
capability
and
ingenuity.
And
so
the
weapons
of
major
contenders,
and
even
their
strategies,
begin
to
look the
same
all
over
the
world.'23
We do
not
dismiss
the
power
of
this
competitive dynamic,
especially
in
highly
conflictual
regions
like
the Middle
East.
Yet,
two
considerations
suggest
it is
only
part
of the
story.
First,
as Robert O'Connell
emphasizes,
there are alternatives to
symmetrical
responses
to
threat. Decision-makers
may
not
like
them,
but
this
may
21
This
assumption
is also
made
by
Smith
et
al.,
in
'Capital-Labour
Substitution
in
Defence Provision'.
22
The
following
discussion
draws
on
Robert
O'Connell,
Of
Arms
and Men
(New
York,
1989),
pp.
7-8.
23
Kenneth
Waltz,
Theory
of
International
Politics
(Reading, 1979),
p. 127;
quoted
from Matthew
Evangelista,
Innovation
and the Arms Race
(Ithaca, 1988),
p.
7.
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Dependent
state
formation
and Third World
militarization 329
be due
as
much
to
their cultural ideas
about what
a
military
should look
like,
as
well
as
to
the
perceived
political
costs
of
alternatives,
as
it
is
to
the
technological
virtues of
capital-intensive
armies. After
all,
labour-intensive militarization
also has
military
virtues,
albeit
different
ones
than
its
counterpart.24
This
suggests
that
even
in
cases
of
high
external
threat
we
need
to
address
the ends
and
preferred
means
of
national
security policy
in
terms
of which decision-makers
calculate the
costs
and
benefits of different
strategies.
Second,
the
primary security
threat
to most
Third World
states
is
internal rather
than
external,
from the 'masses'
who
might
try
to
change
the constellation of
societal interests
that controls
state
power
rather than from other
states. In
these
cases
capital-intensive
militarization
presumably
does
not stem
from
action
reaction
dynamics
in
the
states
system
but from its
superior ability
to
control
restive publics relative to a strategy of mass mobilization, which presupposes a
higher degree
of
state
legitimacy.
This
suggests
that,
whatever
the
ability
of
inter-state
competition
to
explain
military capitalization
in
the
North,
a
different
mechanism
may
explain
it
in
the Third
World,
one
that
might
not
exist
but for
the
factors
conditioning
the
nature,
and thus
security
interests,
of
the
Third
World
state.
The
aspect
of
state
formation
in
which
we are
interested is the
process
by
which
certain
societal interests
secure
state
power
rather than others. This
reflects
our
concern
with the
constitution of
'security'
in
countries where the
primary
threat is
internal.
Security
is
always for
someone or some
social order. In
a
world
of
purely
external
security
threats
this
might
be
the
polity
as a
whole,
in
which
case one
might legitimately speak
of 'national'
security.
In
a
world
of internal
security
threats, however,
the
question
of
who
controls
state
power
is
crucial
to
the
content
of
security
'threats'. The
Sandanistas
were a
threat
to
'Nicaraguan' security
during
the Somoza
regime,
but
not
after
coming
to
power;
similarly,
the United
States
threatened
'Nicaraguan'
security during
Sandanista
rule,
but
not
since.
The
definition of
security,
in
other
words,
is
always
relative
to
particular
interests,
the
dominance
of
which is
a
function
of
the
state
formation
process.
Our
counter
factual claim about Third World
militarization,
then,
rests
on
one
about Third
World
state
formation:
were
state-society compacts
better
solidified,
one
might
see
very
different definitions
of
security
and thus
different
patterns
of
militarization.25
State formation
is
typically
conditioned
by
both domestic and
systemic
factors.
The relative
significance
of these varies
across
time and
space,
and
they
may
interact.
We
do
not
address domestic determinants of
Third World
state
formation
in
this
paper,
however,
and
as
such
what
follows should be
seen as a
set
of
hypotheses
about
one
set
of
relatively neglected
mechanisms rather
than
as a
complete
theory
of militarization.
In
particular,
we
argue
that Third World state-formation has
often
proceeded
on
a
dependent
basis,
conditioned
by
relations of
economic,
political, and/or
cultural
24
For
a
useful
comparison,
see
Buzan,
'Security
Strategies
for
Dissociation',
pp.
412-13.
On the
limits
of
deterministic
arguments
for
high-technology
strategies,
see
George
Raudzens,
'War-Winning
Weapons:
The
Measurement
of
Technological
Determinism
in
Military
History',
Journal
of
Military History,
54
(1990).
25
Cf. Joel
Migdal,
Strong
Societies and
Weak
States
(Princeton, 1988).
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10/27
330 Alexander
Wendt and
Michael Barnett
Subordination
to
individual Great Powers
or
to
the
world-system
as a
whole.26 The
first
two
of
these
structures
enable
certain societal interests
to
achieve and
hold
state
power by
virtue
of
the external
resources
they
make
available
to
those
willing
to
accept
dependency,
interests which
might
otherwise be forced
to
make
significant
compromises
with
other societal
groups
or even
forced from
power
altogether;
to
that
extent
these dominance
structures
condition the
'ends' of Third
World
security.27
In
contrast,
the cultural dominance
structure
conditions
elites' ideas
about
what
constitutes
a
'modern'
army,
and
as
such affects their
'preferred
means'
for
achieving security.
It
too,
however,
is
part
of
state
formation,
which
includes
efforts
to
gain
legitimacy
and
status
in
the
society
of
states.
The world
economy
and the Third World
state
Whatever its limits
as an
analysis
of Third World economic
development
more
generally, analyses
inspired by dependency theory
continue
to
offer
a
systematic
framework
for
thinking
about the
impact
of
the
world-economy
on
Third
World
state
formation.28
This
impact
is
one
of
empowering
certain elite
groups
at
the
expense
of
others,
creating
'weak'
states29
to
which
significant
elements
of the
population
are a
security
threat,
and
thereby helping
to
create
a
demand for
capital-intensive
militarization. Since
our
argument
here is the
most
traditional of
the three
we
offer,
we
will be
brief,
beginning
with the
colonial
period.
Whether or not
explicitly
motivated
by
the
prospect
of economic
gain,
colonial
ism
almost
always
had
important
effects
on
the
development
of local
economies.
The
most
important
of these for
our
purposes
was
the
development
of
certain
sectors
of
the
local
economy
and their
integration
into the
metropolitan (and
indirectly
world)
economy.
This often created
a
situation of
disarticulation
or
dualism
in which the
local
economy
became divided into
a
modern and
a
traditional
sector,
the former linked
on
supply
and demand sides
to
the world
economy
and
producing
largely
for
export,
the latter
lacking
such
linkages
and
producing largely
for local needs.
26
We
adopt
this conventional
typology
because the three
do
not
seem
easily
reducible
to
one
underlying
structure.
We
doubt such
a
reduction
is
possible,
but
before it
could
occur
it
seems
that
theory
should
first work
to
identify
distinct mechanisms
on
the
assumption
that
they
are
relatively
autonomous,
and
then
try
to
assess
their
underlying
coherence. For similar
arguments
to
this
effect,
see
David
Rapkin,
'The
Inadequacy
of
a
Single
Logic:
Integrating
Political
and
Material
Approaches
to
the World
System',
in
William
Thompson
(ed.), Contending Approaches
to
World
System Analysis
(Beverly
Hills,
1983),
pp.
241-68,
and Nicos
Mouzelis,
'Political Transitions
in
Greece and
Argentina:
Toward
a
Reorientation of Marxist Political
Theory',
Comparative
Political
Studies,
21
(1989),
pp.
443-66.
27
The
basic
logic
of this
argument
is
nicely
laid
out in
Tilly,
Coercion,
Capital,
and
European
States,
especially
chapter
7.
28
There
are
various traditions
of
dependency scholarship;
our
own,
somewhat
eclectic,
discussion
draws on Johan
Galtung,
'A Structural
Theory
of
Imperialism',
Journal
of
Peace
Research,
8
(1971),
pp.
81-109,
Fernando Cardoso and Enzo
Faletto,
Dependency
and
Development
in Latin
America
(Berkeley,
1979),
Peter
Evans,
Dependent
Development (Princeton, 1979),
Clive
Thomas,
The
Rise
of
the Authoritarian State
in
Peripheral
Societies
(New
York,
1984),
and
Ronald
Robinson,
'The Excentric
Idea of
Imperialism,
with
or
without
Empire',
in
Wolfgang
Mommsen
and
J?rgen
Osterhammel
(eds.), Imperialism
and
After:
Continuities and Discontinuities
(London,
1986),
pp.
267-87.
29
On
the
distinction
between
strong
and weak
states,
see
Buzan,
'People,
States,
and
Fear',
and
Migdal,
Strong
Societies and Weak States.
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11/27
Dependent
state
formation
and Third
World
militarization
331
This
process
of
disarticulating
the colonial
economy
was
intimately
related
to
processes
of
colonial
state
formation.30 An
important
function of
the colonial state
was
to
facilitate the
penetration
of
foreign capital
into the
colonial
economy.
At
the
same
time,
most
imperial
powers
wanted
to
maintain
their
empires
'on
the
cheap'.
This
meant
that
colonial
states
had
to
be
as
self-sufficient
as
possible
within
the
constraints of their
mission,
which
meant
collecting
taxes
locally
and
nego
tiating
with
local elites. The
most
important
of
these elites
were
those with
ties
to
the
modern
sector,
since
it
was
these which
enabled
that
sector
to
function
as a
source
of
capital
for
the
centre
and of
taxes
for
the
colonial
state.
This
arrangement
benefited local
elites
materially
and in
so
doing
created ties
to
the colonial state
(and
thus
to
the
centre
and
world-economy),
while
breaking
down ties
to
the
mass
population.
In
contrast,
other
social
classes,
especially
in
the
traditional sector
(except landed elites), were less important from the standpoint of administering
colonial rule
and thus less able
to
exploit
the
relative weakness
of
colonial
states.
As
a
result
they
did not
develop
interests
in
ties
to
the
centre
and,
indeed,
typically
became
victims of the
alliance
of
local
elites,
foreign capital,
and the
colonial
state.
The
formation of
disarticulated
economies and
weak
states
created
a
situation
in
which the
primary
security
threat
was
internal.
Colonial
military
and
bureaucratic
development
reflected
this
fact.
Lacking
political
legitimacy,
the colonial
state's
power
was
always
underwritten
by
the
actual
or
threatened
use
of
force.
Significant
military
resources were
typically
not
available from
the
centre,
however,
and
since
mass
mobilization
was
not
viable for
an
army
of
occupation,
colonial
states
tended
to militarize
coopted
groups
or ethnic minorities.31 A similar
process
occurred in
colonial
bureaucracies,
which
were
staffed
by
persons
with
a
vested
interest
in
upholding
the
authority
of
an
alien
state.
The
character of
colonial
military
and
bureaucratic
development,
in
other
words,
was
shaped by
the
security
needs of
foreign
actors
and their
domestic
clients rather
than of the
mass
population.
A
few
Third World
states
achieved
independence
by
mobilizing
the
masses
for
armed
revolt,
and
in
these
cases
the
constellation of
interests
that
had
benefited
from
the
structures
of
colonial rule
was
broken
down.32
In most
cases,
however,
decolonization
merely
handed the
reins of
power
over
to
the
local
elites
who
had
been
created
by
the
colonial
political economy,
and
in
these
cases
economic
disarticulation and
an
external-orientation have
continued
to
affect
the
definition
of
'national'
security
ends. Theses
effects tend
to
vary
with
the
type
of
economic
development
strategy
that elites
pursue,
however,
so
let
us
briefly
describe
two
stylized
cases.
30
On colonial
state
formation
see,
for
example,
Hamza
Alavi,
'The State in
Post-Colonial Societies:
Pakistan
and
Bangladesh',
New
Left
Review,
14
(1972),
pp.
59-82,
and
Crawford
Young,
'The
Colonial
State and the
Post-Colonial
Crisis',
in
Donald
Rothchild
and
Naomi
Chazan
(eds.),
The
Precarious
Balance:
State
and
Society
in
Africa
(Boulder,
1988),
pp.
25-66.
31
See
Cynthia
Enloe,
Ethnic Soldiers:
State
Security
in
Divided
Societies
(Athens,
1980).
32
Although
this by no means
guaranteed
the elimination of internal
security
threats,
since the
boundaries
inherited
from colonial
powers
often
contained
antagonistic
ethnic
groups.
The
role
of
the
states
system
in
upholding
these
boundaries
can
be
seen as an
external
empowerment
of
Third
World
states;
see
Robert Jackson and
Carl
Rosberg,
'Why
Africa's Weak
States
Persist',
World
Politics,
35
(1982),
pp.
1-24,
and
Jeffrey
Herbst,
'War and
the State
in
Africa',
International
Security,
14
(1990),
pp.
117-39.
Insofar
as
this
process
empowers
Third
World
states
against
the
security
of
societal
or
ethnic
groups
under
their
control,
however,
the
institution of
sovereignty
can
also be
seen as
a
fourth,
'heteronomous'
dominance
structure
in
the
international
system;
see
Nicholas
Onuf,
World
of
Our
Making (Columbia,
1989).
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8/19/2019 1993 Militarization Ris
12/27
332 Alexander
Wendt and Michael
Barnett
Export-oriented
industrialization
is in
many
respects
a
continuation of
colonial
strategies
of economic and
political development.
Multinational
corporations
have
replaced colonial venture capital, and markets are no longer limited to those of the
imperial
centre,
but
the economic effect is
largely
the
same:
the continued
development
of the modern
sector
and its further
integration
into the world
economy,
and
relative
neglect
of the traditional
sector.
This
may
be
compatible
with
'development',
but it
is
a
dependent
rather than
self-sustaining
development,
and
in the absence of
strong
linkages
to
the
rest
of the
economy
its benefits
are
typically
poorly
distributed
in
society.
This has
a
dual effect
on
state
formation
processes.
On the
one
hand,
it
reproduces
the colonial situation
in which
a
large
class of
people
have little stake
in
the
existing
economic
order,
and thus
to
which
they
pose
a
potential
'threat'.
And,
on the other, it enables economic and political elites to consolidate their internal
security position
vis-?-vis
that threat
by
relying
on
the
revenues
provided by
external
economic
ties,
rather than
by bargaining
with the
masses,
as was
characteristic of
state
formation
in
the
West.33
This combination of redistributive demand from
the
bottom
and lack of need
to meet
it from the
top
reproduces
the
illegitimate regimes
inherited
from
colonialism,
and
induces local elites
to
follow
the colonial
path
of
securing
themselves
by capital-intensive
coercion rather than
consent.34
This
argument
might
also be stated
in counterfactual
terms:
in
the
absence of the
gains
accrued from
the world
market,
elites
might
have been forced
to
renegotiate
economic and
political
power
with the
masses,
in
the
process
constituting
very
different
definitions of
security
threat. This does
not
mean
that
in
the absence of
export-oriented
industrialization
we
would
see
liberal
democracy
in
the Third World
(which only emerged
in
the West
in
the twentieth
century),
but it does
suggest
that
the
process
of
state
formation would have had
a
broader
popular
basis.
The situation is
more
ambiguous
in the
case
of
states
that have
pursued policies
of
import-substitution
industrialization.
In
principle
such
policies
can
lead
to
a
more even
distribution
of the benefits of
development,
since insofar
as
they rely
less
on
external markets
they
must
cultivate demand and
supply-side
linkages
to
the
domestic
economy,
and this
may
in
turn
provide
the basis for
a more
inclusive
social contract. In practice, however, such policies have tended to focus on the
production
of
luxury goods
that
previously
had been
imported
for
consumption by
local
elites,
often
relying
on
imported technology
to
do
so,
rather than
on
redistributing
national income
in
ways
that would make
possible
a
truly
self
sustaining
economic base
geared
toward
mass
demand.
This failure
to
expand
the domestic
market has
typically
led
to
the eventual
'exhaustion' of
import
substitution
policies
and assertion of
military-bureaucratic
rule
to
deal with the
threat
of
pressure
for further
redistribution.35
Indeed,
the
wave
of economic
liberalization
in Latin America
during
and after
years
of
military
rule
suggests
that
33
See
Tilly,
Coercion,
Capital,
and
European
States,
pp.
207-8.
34
On
Third
World
states' lack of
legitimacy
and
recourse
to
coercion,
see
John
Saul,
'The State
in
Post-Colonial
Societies',
in David Held
et
al.
(eds.),
States and Societies
(New
York,
1983),
pp.
457-75,
Christopher
Clapham,
Third World Politics
(Madison, 1984),
and Eboe
Hutchful,
'The
Modern State
and Violence: The
Peripheral
Situation',
International Journal
of
the
Sociology
of
Law,
14
(1986),
pp.
153-78.
35
For this
argument,
see
Guillermo
O'Donnell,
'Comparative
Historical Formations of the State
Apparatus
and Socio-Economic
Change
in
the Third
World',
International Social Science
Journal,
32
(1980),
pp.
717-29.
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Dependent
state
formation
and Third World
militarization 333
when
faced
with
a
choice between
generating
new
revenues
through
a
renegotiation
of
the social
contract
or
through
a
new
dependency
on
external
demand,
Third
World elites tend to prefer the latter to the former.
In
sum,
the
availability
from the world
economy
of
external
sources
of
revenue
has
enabled elites
controlling
state
power
to
avoid
or
at
least
significantly
moderate
the
painful
process
of accommodation with
disenfranchised interest
groups
that
elites
in
the First World
experienced.
This
has
helped
reproduce
problems
of
political legitimacy
inherited
from
colonialism,
and
thereby
helped
constitute the
typical security
threat
as
an
internal
one
requiring
a
capital-intensive
response.
The
fact
that
Third World
states
often face internal
security
problems,
in
other
words,
should
not
be
explained
simply
in
terms
of
their
being
'weak'.
Such weakness
is
itself
an
artifact of the
narrow
constellation
of
societal interests
that
are
often
embodied in such states, and which is in part created by a world economy that
empowers
certain
groups
at
the
expense
of others.
Informal
empire
and the
hegemonic
constitution
of security
The
interest of
Third
World
states
in
capital-intensive
militarization
may
also be
conditioned
by
dominance
structures in
the
states
system.
This
mechanism differs
from
the
first in
that it
concerns
relations between
states
rather than
between
states
and
the
world
economy,
but
is similar
to
the
first and different
from
the
third
in
that it also affects the constitution of national security ends by creating an external
base of
support
for
local elites that
distorts
the
state
formation
process.
Dominance
structures
in
the
states
system
have received
comparatively
little
attention
from
either
radical theorists of Third
World
militarism
or
neo-realist
theorists of
international
politics. Neglect
from
the former
may
stem
from
an
often
neo-Marxist
theoretical
orientation,
which discounts the
importance
or
at
least
relative
autonomy
of
political-military
relations
compared
to
economic
ones.
We
believe such
economism is
a
mistake. The
institutional
separation
of the
states
system
from the
world-economy
is
not
an
ideological mystification
the
dynamics
of
which
can
be
subsumed under the
'single
logic'
of the
global
mode of
production:
it is a real feature of the
contemporary
world-system
that
generates
a distinct
logic
of
interaction,
and which
needs
to
be
analyzed
as a
sui
generis
determinant of
Third
World
military development.36
Neo-realists,
of
course,
would endorse this
argument,
but
in
studying
Third
World
militarization
they
have tended
to
focus
on
the role of
competition
rather
than
hierarchy
between states.37 This
may
stem
from
their
commitment
to
the
36
Cf.
Christopher
Chase-Dunn,
'Interstate
System
and
Capitalist World-Economy:
One
Logic
or
Two?',
International Studies
Quarterly,
25
(1981),
pp.
19-42.
Our
own
emphasis
on
the
relative
autonomy
of the states
system
within
the
world-system
is
indebted
to
Aristide
Zolberg, 'Origins
of
the
Modern
World-System:
A
Missing
Link',
World
Politics,
33
(1981),
pp.
253-81,
and
Rapkin,
'The
Inadequacy
of
a
Single Logic'.
37
See,
for
example,
Edward
Kolodziej,
'National
Security
and
Modernization: Drive
Wheels
of
Militarization',
Arms
Control,
6
(1985),
pp.
17-40,
Robert
Rothstein,
'The
Security
Dilemma
and
the
Poverty
Trap
in
the
Third
World',
Jerusalem
Journal
of
International
Relations,
8
(1986),
pp.
1-38,
and Robert
Rosh,
'Third World
Militarization',
Journal
of
Conflict
Resolution,
32
(1988),
pp.
671-698;
on
neo-realism
more
generally,
see
Waltz,
Theory
of
International
Politics. For
a
neo-realist
analysis
of
systemic
hierarchy
much
closer
to our
own
argument,
see
John
Ikenberry
and Charles
Kupchan,
'Socialization and
Hegemonic
Power',
International
Organization,
44
(1990),
pp.
283-316.
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334
Alexander Wendt and Michael
Barnett
principle
of
anarchy
as
the
constitutive basis
of
the
states
system
and the
resulting
tendency
to
treat states
as
spatially
differentiated 'billiard
balls',
which
tends
to
produce
an
exchange-theoretic analysis
of
political-military dependency
as a
func
tion of
bargains
between
free
actors
with
exogenously
and
independently
given
ends. We believe this obscures the
extent to
which Great Power
authority
penetrates,
and
thereby
constitutes,
Third World
states.
We
call these hierarchical
structures
'informal
empires'.38
An
informal
empire
is
a
socially
structured
system
of interaction
among
juridically sovereign
states in
which
one,
the 'dominant'
state,
has
a
significant
degree
of de
facto
political
authority
over
the
security policies
of
another,
'subordinate',
state.
Sometimes called
spheres
of influence
or
systems
of
patron
client
relations,39
the three
principal
informal
empires
in
the
contemporary
states
system have been those of the US in the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent, South
America,
parts
of the Middle
East,
and assorted Asian
states;
of
France
in West
Africa;
and
until 1989 of the USSR
in
Eastern
Europe;
more
localized but
(arguably)
structurally
similar
relationships
are
dominated
by
Middle Powers
like
Vietnam,
South
Africa,
perhaps Nigeria
and
Brazil,
and
so on.
Apart
from the lack
of
legal
recognition,
the
authority
relations characteristic
of
informal
empires
differ
from those
of
formal
empires
in
that the influence
of
dominant
over
subordinate
actors
is concerned
primarily
with
security (although
this
may
include economic
arrangements),
and
as
such does
not
involve
day-to-day
administrative control.
Informal
empires
have their
roots
in
the interests and
practices
of
dominant
states
and the local
actors
willing
to
act
on
their
behalf.
Dominant
states
are
likely
to
have
one
or
both
of
two
basic
motivations in
trying
to
create
an
informal
empire:
(1)
a
desire
to
create
the
political
basis for economic
expansion
overseas,
in
which
case
structures
of informal
empire
will
be articulated
with
(though
not
reducible
to)
dominance
structures in
the
world-economy,
and
(2)
a
desire
to
block
the
penetration
of Great Power
rivals into
geopolitically
sensitive
areas.
Apart
from
overt
military
intervention,
the
principal
mechanism
by
which
they
pursue
these
objectives
is
provision
of
'security
assistance',
defined
broadly
as
military
and
security
relevant economic
aid,
to
groups
that
will
pursue
domestic
and/or
foreign
policies that reflect dominant state security interests.40 This 'arms for influence'
enables these
groups
to
acquire
state
power
rather than
others,
thereby altering
the
38
On informal
empire,
see
Michael
Doyle, Empires (Ithaca,
1986),
and
Robinson,
'The
Excentric Idea
of
Imperialism';
the
following
discussion
is
elaborated
more
fully
in
Alexander
Wendt,
'The States
System
and Global
Militarization',
unpublished
PhD
dissertation
(Minneapolis,
1989).
39
On
spheres
of
influence,
see
Paul
Keal,
Unspoken
Rules and
Superpower
Dominance
(New
York,
1983),
and
Jan
Triska
(ed.),
Dominant Powers and Subordinate States
(Durham, 1986);
on
patron-client
relations
in
world
politics,
see
Michael
Handel,
'Does the
Dog
Wag
the Tail
or
Vice-Versa?
Patron-Client
Relations',
Jerusalem
Journal
of
International
Relations,
6
(1982),
pp.
24-35,
and
Christopher
Shoemaker and
John
Spanier,
Patron-Client
Relationships:
Multilateral
Crises
in
the Nuclear
Age
(New
York,
1984).
We
prefer
'informal
empire'
because it
emphasizes
what
we
believe
is
a
central
aspect
of
such
systems
that is
downplayed
in
other
formulations,
namely
that the
relationship
between
dominant
and subordinate
states
is
one
of
authority (see
below).
40
Note
that
not
all
military
and economic aid constitutes
'security
assistance'
in this
sense,
despite
the fact that
it
may
ultimately
have similar effects.
Security
assistance
is defined
by
its
relationship
to
Great Power
influence
over
state
formation and
national
security;
Swedish
arms
sales
to
India
are
not
part
of
such
influence and
thus fall outside
our
argument
here.
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Dependent
state
formation
and
Third World militarization
335
definition
of national
security
ends
in that state.41
The
postwar
regimes
in much of
Latin
America and
Eastern
Europe,
for
example,
were
in
important
part
created
and sustained by security assistance from the United States and Soviet Union; this
assistance
constituted
communism
as a
security
threat
to
the
former,
and
capitalism
to
the latter.42
The
recent
collapse
of Soviet
clients
in
Eastern
Europe,
in
turn,
evokes the
counterfactual
claim
implicit
in
this
argument.
In the absence of external
security
assistance
the constellation
of societal interests
represented by
the sub
ordinate
state
would
either
not
have
come
to
dominance
in the first
place
or
would
at
least
have been
forced into different
bargains
with
other
interest
groups?either
of
which
would have
yielded
different
state structures
and thus