Military expenditure is difficult to define. Major issues are functional versus institutional approaches to defense, indirect and intangible costs and benefits and current versus comprehensive accounting. Authoritative institutions have adopted standard definitions but national governments are...

In this paper, I explore the applicability of sociological institutionalism for the analysis of security and the military. Based on cross-sectional data from 50 countries, I show how values linked to the nation state and security are related to world cultural ideas and the diffusion of...