Political Economy and Militarism

Shortly after the demolition of the Berlin Wall, PS: Political Science & Politics published an article, “Socialism and Militarism,” which purported to demonstrate a positive causal relationship between socialism and militarism. Authors Thomas R. Dye and Harmon Zeigler (1989, 801) presented data and analysis leading them to conclude that “militarism is a much more pervasive characteristic of socialist nations than capitalist nations.” This finding is supportive of Payne (1989, 110) who, in Why Nations Arm stated, “the Marxist regimes are considerably more militaristic [than non-Marxist countries].” For their examination Dye and Zeigler employed the resource allocation measures of military spending as a percentage of gross national product and the number of military personnel per 1000 population as indicators of militarism, and the classification system of Gastil (cited in Dye and Zeigler 1989) in defining national political economy types. Using this information Dye and Zeigler generated four tables that ostensibly demonstrate that socialist countries are more militaristic than capitalist countries. It is arguable, however, that Dye and Zeigler's conclusions are dubious because of the definitions and measures they have chosen to use for both socialism and militarism.