The Military in Politics and Democracy: Its Impact on Government Spending for Education and Health

Abstract

ObjectiveThere is considerable debate over the determinants of government spending, but few studies have considered the impact of the military in politics. This article examines how the military in politics and democracy and the interaction between them might affect the allocation of government spending.MethodsI use a variety of econometric specifications, including pooled‐OLS, panel data with random effects and fixed effects estimation, and a panel data set of 129 countries from 1984 and 2013. Further, the SGMM estimator is used to check for robustness.ResultsThe empirical results show that the military in politics has a significant negative impact on education spending. The results also indicate that the interaction between the military in politics and democracy has a positive impact on government spending for education and health.ConclusionThe results suggest that policies to reduce military involvement in politics, combined with those to increase civilian control of the military, would have a considerable impact on social development.