Armed & DangerousPolitical Importance and Arm Imports

Anirudha Vaddadi & Josi Sinagoga

Introduction

Inspiration Literature▪ Kuziemko, Illyana, and Erik Werker. “How Much is a

Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations”. Journal of Political Economy 114, no. 5 (October 2006): 905-930

▪ Dreher, Axel., Jan-Egbert Sturm, and James Raymond Vreeland. “Global horse trading: IMF loans for votes in the United Nations Security Council”. European Economic Review 53, no. 7 (October 2009): 742-757

Research Question

Variables Independent: UNSC non-permanent

membership (dichotomous) Dependent: volume of arms imports,

measured by Trend-Indicator Value (TIV) The Question:

Does political importance increase arms imports to a given country?

Our Hypothesis: Positive relationship between arms imports

and political importance.

Methodology

Data Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

(SIPRI) World Bank Vreeland, James Raymond, and Axel Dreher. Money and

Politics on the International Stage: The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council: Money and Influence. New York, NY: Cambridge UP, 2014. Print.

World Data vs. Top Exporter Data Regressions

Linear Country-fixed Effects

Graphs

Not on the UNSC On the UNSC 0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

Effect of UNSC membership on volume of arms imports

SIPRI Trend Indicator

Value (TIV)(Measured in millions)

Graphs, contd.

USA Germany UK China

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Effect of UNSC Membership on Arms Imports, by Country of Origin

Not on the UNSCOn the UNSC

Country of Origin

SIPRI TIV

Results

Confounding Variables:▪ Population▪ GDP ▪ GDP per capita▪ War

Origin-specific Results▪ Germany▪ UK

Results, contd.

Country of Origin

All countri

esUSA Germa

ny France UK Italy

Recipient

Countries

Hungary

✔ ✔

Italy ✔ ✔

Jordan ✔ ✔ ✔

New Zealan

d

✔ ✔ ✔

South Africa

✔ ✔ ✔

Sweden ✔ ✔ ✔

Conclusion (if we have one)

Story for the Results The Take-Away