Dangerous Drafts? A Time-Series, Cross-National Analysis of Conscription and the Use of Military Force, 1946—2001

In: Armed forces & society, Band 37, Heft 1, S. 119-140

Abstract

Conscription has been claimed to both increase leaders' propensity to use military force abroad and constrain them from doing so. The author sheds new light on this longstanding controversy by presenting the first time-series, cross-national quantitative analysis of the impact that state military manpower systems (either conscription or volunteerism) have on the initiation of both traditional, belligerent military missions and "operations other than war" (OOTWs). Using negative binomial regression on 166 states from 1946 to 2001, the author finds that states with conscript militaries have a significantly higher propensity to use belligerent military force than states with volunteer armies. Countries that practice conscription are also more likely than countries with volunteer forces to launch a specific type of OOTW, military operations against nonstate actors such as rebels or terrorists. Neither form of military manpower system seems, however, to be significantly related to the initiation of humanitarian military operations.