The Post-Coup Military Spending Question Revisited, 1960-2000

Abstract

Do military regimes spend more on the military than other regime types? All leaders cater to their winning coalition. For military leaders, core supporters are other members of the military. To solicit support from this group, first, leaders are persuaded to spend more on the military to ensure their political survival, while other autocratic leaders tend to view the military as a competing power center. Second, the cost of repressing challenges from the public in military regimes is cheaper than in other regimes; therefore, leaders in military regimes allocate more resources to the military to satisfy them. We test this argument by examining military spending in different regime types for 1960-2000. The empirical results from Prais-Winsten regression with panel-corrected standard errors indicate that military regimes allocate more, on average, to the military than other regimes and that military rulers brought into power through military coups or who have experienced military coup attempts against them increase their military resource allocation.