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AbstractWhat explains the existence of humanitarian concerns in decisions involving arms transfers? This paper examines the potential influence of democratization and civil society activities on arms transfer policies and practice through a case study on Brazil. Brazil's re-democratization in 1985 provides an opportunity to test whether a change of regime type influences arms export behavior and whether civil society groups can influence it in newly democratized countries. Based on evidence collected mainly through archival research at Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and semi-structured interviews, this paper argues that transitioning to democracy had an immediate effect on arms transfer policies and practice in Brazil. After the end of Brazil's military regime, arms export policies and practice changed due mainly to reputational concerns: a stricter arms control could provide reputational gains to Brazil in an international norm environment where liberal values were perceived to be cascading. In addition to this immediate effect, democratic institutions created better conditions for the emergence of civil society groups campaigning for a stricter arms control, which emerged in the late 1990s. The paper studies a campaign and network led by the civil society group Viva Rio, which led to the introduction of a stricter policy on arms sales to most Latin American and Caribbean countries. These findings imply that democratization has both short- and long-term effects on arms transfers and that democratic institutions can influence state behavior regarding arms transfers even in countries with little tradition of civil society groups working with arms control.

This paper proposes an index to measure the extent to which governments authorise arms transfers to places in which human rights are violated. Levels of democracy in the purchasing country are used as a proxy for that country's degree of respect for human rights. The paper then applies this index to test whether Robin Cook's 'ethical dimension' in foreign policy was applied to British arms transfers, and concludes that this was indeed the case, although its legacy did not survive to the end of Tony Blair's government. This index should be useful for academics, civil society groups, government departments and international organisations working with human rights or arms transfers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether international transfers of military equipment are predominantly motivated by economic or political reasons. Eight countries were selected to be individually analyzed: the USA, Russia, France, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan. Although all of them consider both political and economic dimensions on their decisions to supply military equipment, the predominance of one of these dimensions - or the balance between them - can be identified for each country. Then they were separated into three groups: the USA, Sweden and Japan, which emphasize the political dimension; France, the UK and Russia, which give more importance to the economic dimension; and Switzerland and Germany, who which consider both dimensions equally important. The analysis concludes that the eight countries consider both dimensions in their decisions, even though in six cases there is a predominance of one of them. The reasons for the prioritization of the political or the economic aspects, however, are different for each country.

This article examines the world military expenditures in the period 1991-2009, based on an exploratory analysis about the institutional and economic factors that affected the defense budgets in the countries with the largest military expenditures in the world. Furthermore, there is a comparative analysis of the composition of military expenditures in Brazil and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries in the 2000s, expounding differences on the proportions of resources allocated for weapons purchases and payment of personnel. Finally, the article analyzes the different degrees of investments on capital intensity in these countries' militaries, stressing their differences in comparison with the United States.