Research

From producing consumer goods to managing clubs, banks, and other for-profit firms, many militaries generate revenues that are not part of the military budget and are far removed from the realm of military affairs, and have adverse consequences for societies. Despite their significance, causes and consequences of such activities are largely unexplored. This article investigates the impact of military economic activities on propensity for coups. It argues that as the military expands its role in the economy, it gains both the incentives and opportunities to stage coups. However, this effect varies by rank. Military-run enterprises function as a double-edged sword: while they provide rent-seeking opportunities that reduce the likelihood of rebellion among mid- and low-ranking officers, they also embolden senior officers, for whom economic control becomes a political stake. Leaders may use economic privileges to co-opt mid and lower-ranking officers, but as military builds more economic capital, senior officers become less dependent on civilian leadership and more likely to stage coups. Using an original dataset of over 2,800 economic enterprises owned/run by militaries for all countries from 1950–2020, I show that coup risk significantly increases as military economic involvement increases and such coups are primarily led by senior officers.

Military involvement in the economy is a crucial aspect of civil-military relations. However, the impacts of economic ventures on the rank-and-file has not been examined empirically. In this article, we demonstrate that military economic involvement decreases the risk of mutinies by providing private goods that promote rent-seeking behavior among lower-ranking soldiers. Through military-owned enterprises, soldiers access jobs, benefits and off-book revenues (tax breaks, subsidies, favorable contracts, etc.) that are unavailable to civilians. Further, military elites may use these resources to subsidize military budgets and ameliorate economic grievances in the lower ranks. Using original, cross-national data on military involvement in the economy and information on about 2,500 military-run firms, we show that militaries with a greater stake in the economy are less likely to experience mutinies than countries with no and lower rates of economic involvement. Similar patterns hold for risk of mass defection.

Why does the military in some countries get involved in the economy by running profit-making enterprises and what leads governments to permit such involvement? Running household appliance factories, transportation agencies, banks, hotels, etc., are indeed unrelated to national security and are far removed from the regular roles assigned to militaries. Such involvement has further implications for both politics and the economy. I argue that the process of military involvement in the economy functions as a survival strategy for leaders and a profit-making scheme for the military. Using original cross-national data on the emergence of military involvement in the economy, this research demonstrates that militaries are more likely to get involved in the economy when the military’s institutional interests are at risk and when the government has to rely on the military to maintain power. Leaders allow the military to benefit financially through economic activities in order to stay in power.

In this article, we present the novel M3-dataset. This global dataset brings together 30 existing and newly developed indicators and a total of 140,000 observations on three dimensions of material, political, and societal militarization from 1990 to 2020. We introduce a novel, multidimensional concept of militarization, explain the construction of the dataset, data-collection process, and the measures taken to ensure the validity and reliability of the data. We illustrate the usefulness of the dataset for researchers by analyzing for the first time the impact of military policing as one aspect of societal militarization on violence and human rights violations at the global level. We conclude by discussing the significance of the M3 dataset and outlining how scholars in different fields and with various research interests, including (de-)democratization, armed conflict, and human development, can benefit from incorporating this dataset into their studies.