http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5167-6591
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ABSTRACT
We examine the validity of the guns-versus-butter hypothesis in the pre-Arab Spring era. Using panel data from 1995 to 2011 – the eve of the Arab uprisings – we find no evidence that increased security needs as measured by the number of domestic terrorist attacks are complemented by increased military spending or more importantly ‘crowd out’ government expenditure on key public goods such as health care. This suggests that both expenditure decisions were determined by other considerations at the government level.
Acknowledgement
Thank you to our two reviewers for the excellent suggestions. We also thank Dr Sophie Roborgh, University of Cambridge and personal contacts in United Nations and donor agencies for helpful comments and suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data can be accessed here.
Notes
1. The observation on sequential spending is also attributed to British Prime Minister Thatcher regarding the U.S.S.R. and has subsequently been adopted by authors such as Reeves and Stuckler (Citation2013) in their assessment of Israeli public spending priorities.
2. Within the broader literature on the role of military expenditure, mixed evidence is found about the role of military expenditure and economic growth (Dunne Citation1996; Dunne, Smith, and Willenbockel Citation2005; Dunne and Tian Citation2015; d’Agostino, Dunne, and Pieroni Citation2017).
3. Reeves and Stuckler (2013: 1).
4. Reeves and Stuckler (2013: 1).
5. Reeves and Stuckler (2013: 3).
6. Reeves and Stuckler (2013: 3).
7. ‘Governments have focused almost exclusively on their own survival instead of the well-being of their own populations’ (UN-ESCWA Citation2013: 16).