Political economy theories in the context of defence industry

Abstract

Due to the increasing expenditures in the defence sector on the world wide scale there might be a need for states to reassess the impact of national defence industries on national economies, security, defence and foreign politics. Existing different theoretical approaches could be used to develop a research design for that particular case. This article reconsiders the importance of political economy theories in this context and investigates the methodical side of their practical applicability and finally revisitsthe results of similar analysis. Research reveals a phenomenal linkage of new political economy approaches to "grand" theories, concludes that proper methodology does not guaranty the reliability of research results, outlines the fact that numerous studies that focused on defining the impact of the military spending and developing own defence industry to local and state economies, do not provide a clear evidence that military spending is likely to have a negative economic effect on the state