Abstract
This paper investigates how changes in governments in Western European parliamentary systems affect the size of the states' defense budgets. A model is presented that outlines how intraalliance political considerations may affect both (1) the size of a state's contribution to the alliance and (2) what political processes are involved in defense-allocation decisions. An argument is presented regarding the proper issue area into which the question of a state's defense policy can be placed. The issue-area perspective also allows the question of a potential guns-butter trade-off to be addressed more fruitfully. It is demonstrated that changes in governments in small allied states lead to changes in the defense budget, but such changes in large allied states have little effect.
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