Political Military Competition and Size and Composition of Government

Abstract

This paper uses a formal model to analyze the effects of political military competition among states on the size and composition of state. Great economies of scale in warfare, even distribution of military capability among contestants and greater value of contested resources generate higher level of military capacity and growth of government. If there is decreasing return to scale in state revenue generating function and provision of public intermediate inputs, then there will be an increasing size of civilian public sector relative to that of military. The paper finally studies how waves of military revolutions affected international political military competition and the size and composition of government in history.

Keywords:

• Growth of government
• Public intermediate inputs
• Civilianization
• Economic performance
• Military technological revolutions

JEL Classification:

• D23
• D74
• H11
• H41
• H50
• H56
• N40
• O11
• O30

Acknowledgement

The useful comments and suggestions by an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

1 Refer to Waltz (1959, 1979).

2 Refer to Grieco (1988a, 1988b, 1990), Baldwin (1993), Gowa (1989, 1994) and Gowa and Mansfield (1993).

3 Refer to Hirshleifer (1995).

4 The Peloponnesian War (BC 431 to BC 404) was caused by the wary that Greek city states had about the ascendancy of Athenian power. Refer to Thucydides, Blanco and Roberts (1998).

5 Refer to Jones (1981) and Parker (1996).