Despite the vast number of studies of the guns-butter tradeoff, we still do not know whether guns come at the expense of butter. In this article we attempt to clarify some of the major conceptual, measurement and statistical problems associated with this line of research. Copyright 1992 by The...

The relationship between domestic and international conflict serves as the primary focus of this article. A research approach is used that is different from that found in most previous studies. We use the international system as the unit of analysis and employ a dynamic time series research...

Following the conceptual framework proposed by Slater and Nardin (1973) for identifying and judging a military-industrial complex, this article addresses the major features of the Israeli complex (its components, scope of activity, roots, autonomy, motivation, and transition patterns among its...

This article attempts to explain the decision to use force against Iraq using a noncompensatory theory of decision making. Rather than choosing an alternative that maximizes utility on the basis of a holistic comparison process as suggested by the expected utility model, or selecting an...

Building upon the work of Maoz and Russett, Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman, and Morgan and Campbell, the authors evaluate the “democratic peace†phenomenon in an experimental setting. They first introduce the “political incentive†explanation of why democracies don't fight each...

Despite the proliferation of studies on the impact of military spending on economic growth, it is still not known whether defense spending hinders or promotes growth. Most analysts attribute the lack of consistent/robust findings to three problems: the lack of a sound theory of defense-growth...

A model of military spending in Israel from 1960-1983 is developed. Domestic expenditures, U.S. military aid to Israel, and Israeli foreign defense purchases comprise the three main components of the model. Security concerns vis-a-vis the Arab states, war involvement, inflation, and election...

Evidence from Israel suggests that economic growth may benefit from increased investment rates and cuts in defense spending - in other words, an economic `peace dividend'. Recent scholarly work, however, focusing on short-term, direct impacts, has provided little evidence for the existence of...

Poliheuristic theory (PH) bridges the gap between cognitive and rational theories of decision making. PH postulates a two-stage decision process. During the first stage, the set of possible options is reduced by applying a “noncompensatory principle†to eliminate any alternative with...