TY - JOUR
T1 - Military westernization and state repression in the post-Cold War era
AU - Swed, Ori
AU - Weinreb, Alexander
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Inc..
PY - 2015/9/1
Y1 - 2015/9/1
N2 - The waves of unrest that have shaken the Arab world since December 2010 have highlighted significant differences in the readiness of the military to intervene in political unrest by forcefully suppressing dissent. We suggest that in the post-Cold War period, this readiness is inversely associated with the level of military westernization, which is a product of the acquisition of arms from western countries. We identify two mechanisms linking the acquisition of arms from western countries to less repressive responses: dependence and conditionality; and a longer-term diffusion of ideologies regarding the proper form of civil-military relations. Empirical support for our hypothesis is found in an analysis of 2523 cases of government response to political unrest in 138 countries in the 1996-2005 period. We find that military westernization mitigates state repression in general, with more pronounced effects in the poorest countries. However, we also identify substantial differences between the pre- and post-9/11 periods.
AB - The waves of unrest that have shaken the Arab world since December 2010 have highlighted significant differences in the readiness of the military to intervene in political unrest by forcefully suppressing dissent. We suggest that in the post-Cold War period, this readiness is inversely associated with the level of military westernization, which is a product of the acquisition of arms from western countries. We identify two mechanisms linking the acquisition of arms from western countries to less repressive responses: dependence and conditionality; and a longer-term diffusion of ideologies regarding the proper form of civil-military relations. Empirical support for our hypothesis is found in an analysis of 2523 cases of government response to political unrest in 138 countries in the 1996-2005 period. We find that military westernization mitigates state repression in general, with more pronounced effects in the poorest countries. However, we also identify substantial differences between the pre- and post-9/11 periods.
KW - Arab Spring
KW - Arms sale
KW - Civil-military relations
KW - Military professionalism
KW - State repression
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84934921647&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.06.004
DO - 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.06.004
M3 - Article
C2 - 26188453
AN - SCOPUS:84934921647
SN - 0049-089X
VL - 53
SP - 270
EP - 287
JO - Social Science Research
JF - Social Science Research
ER -