An empirical evaluation of the impact of institutions on hard power

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5380/cg.v10i1.77293

Abstract

Would countries with stronger institutions and governance lead to less or more hard power? This article empirically analyzes this issue and corroborates the idea that countries with stronger institutions and good governance have a lower level of hard power, with it being understood here that hard power is basically symbolized by military spending. For this purpose, we used the World Bank’s database of World Governance Indicators and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) database for military spending, for a group of 153 countries. Estimates point to this relationship with some robustness through instrumental variable techniques, identifying, for example, that increased voice and accountability in countries would lead to lower military spending. Robustness tests using the cointegration technique corroborate the idea that more democracy leads to less hard power.

Keywords: institutions; voice and accountability; ordinary least squares; cointegration.

Author Biography

Sergio Rodrigo Vale, MB Associados

Economista-chefe da MB Associados, Doutor em Relações Internacionais pelo IRI-USP, Mestre em Economia pela Universidade de Wisconsin-Madison, EUA e Mestre em Economia pela FEA-USP

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Published

2021-04-27

How to Cite

Vale, S. R. (2021). An empirical evaluation of the impact of institutions on hard power. Conjuntura Global, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.5380/cg.v10i1.77293

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