Keeping the Schools Open While the Troops are Away: Regime Type, Interstate War, and Government Spending

How and why do regime type and interstate war affect government spending? We argue that a political leader allocates scarce resources between social and military expenditures as a function of their relative efficiency in securing her political survival. We derive four hypotheses concerning how mobilization for and demobilization from interstate war affects government spending differently in democratic and autocratic regimes. Compared to democracies, autocracies should increase military spending to a greater degree during wartime and decrease military spending to a greater extent following a war. Autocracies also should cut social spending more during an interstate war and increase social spending more during the process of demobilization from war than democracies. Our analyses of all states in the international system from 1950 to 2001 yield support for our hypotheses.

政权类型与国家间战争如何以及为何会影响政府支出？本文认为，政治领导人会根据各项举措在巩固其政治执政地位方面的相对效率，在社会支出与军事支出之间分配稀缺资源。据此，本文提出四项假说，探讨国家间战争的动员与复员阶段，为何会在民主与威权政权中对政府支出产生差异化影响。相较于民主政权，威权政权在战争期间会更大幅度地提升军事支出，且在战后也会更大幅度地削减军事支出。同时，相较于民主政权，威权政权在国家间战争期间会更多地削减社会支出，而在战争复员阶段则会更多地增加社会支出。本文对1950年至2001年间国际体系内所有主权国家的数据分析结果，验证了本文提出的各项假说。