1993 militarization ris

8/19/2019 1993 Militarization Ris

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


2/27

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.


3/27

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.


4/27

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.


5/27

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.


6/27

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.


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


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.


9/27

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).


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.


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).


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.


13/27

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.


14/27

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.


15/27

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

1993 militarization ris

Documents