Suchergebnisse

Israel has one of the highest defense burdens in the world because of security threats and the related need for domestic defense production in the face of uncertain suppliers. Its vote-conscious leaders also react to the domestic political implications of economic performance. Leaders must maintain a healthy growth rate while guarding against inflation. This milieu of sometimes competing phenomena operates in one of the most volatile regions in the world. Prior to the wars in 1967 and 1973, economic growth was healthy and the defense burden was much lower. Economic growth has since rebounded but not to pre-1967 levels. There are competing explanations of the effect of the Israeli defense sector on growth. I consider the determinants and potential effects of Israeli defense spending and then test a three-sector production function model sensitive to the effects of increases in civilian technology and defense and non-defense externalities. The results suggest that when controlling for technological growth, short-term increases in defense spending diminished growth. Non-defense spending fostered growth. I discuss the implications for the much-anticipated `peace dividend' in the Middle East. Based on the empirical findings of the model tested, the policy implication for long-term Israeli defense planning is that eventual savings from peace would be best used for non-defense spending on infrastructure and private investment.

This study ascertains the extent to which domestic politics and the state of the national economy are relevant factors to U.S. presidents faced with the decision to use force during international crises. The author tests a diversionary theory of the use of force that treats the relationship between politics and the use of force as nonrecursive and that considers both the incentives and the constraints faced by the president. To analyze the political economy of the use of force from 1949 to 1984, the author uses a simultaneous equations model specified with force and presidential approval as the endogenous variables. This design taps the interdependence between politics, the economy, and the decision to use force, and allows the author to assess the direct and indirect effects of the economy on uses of force. The author finds an indirect link between the economy, politics, and the use of force.

Research on the nexus between defense spending and economic growth in the Third World has generated discrepant findings. This debate takes on added relevance in the wake of recent substantive moves toward peace in the Middle East. This study considers the relationship between defense spending and economic growth over time in the Middle East. It also addresses the externality effects defense spending has on the economies. Contextual factors such as aims production and regime type of Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria are put forth as possible explanations of the disparate findings to date. The findings suggest that the potential for peace dividends in Egypt and Syria is contingent upon increases in allocations to non-defense government spending. For Israel defense cuts alone may actually hinder growth in the short run. In Jordan, the defense sector is shown to be surprisingly productive and therefore any potential peace dividend must rely upon cooperative regional ventures, and not defense cuts.