Political Economy of Security

My particular area of interest in the topic of the political economy of security centers on the politics of defense industries in the US, the EU, and beyond. I focus on the relative impact–over time, and across countries–of private defense interests on public policy, from EU security policy (in my 2017 book), to innovation policies, arms export policies, and other national and international security policy areas.

“Internal Defense R&D: The Privatization of Government Risk and Capability Planning” in progress.

measures the phenomenon of defense firms (US + European) using their own profits to invest in defense R&D prototypes. Findings demonstrate both variation over time, with private R&D overtaking US public defense R&D in the 1990s, as well as a countercyclical relationship, where firms spend more on R&D during public spending downturns, reflecting either intentional or unintentional coordination over future defense technology in a ‘military industrial complex’.

“Defense Industrial Innovation and Overcapacity” with Florian Bodamer, under review.

First paper in a research agenda on the comparative political economy of defense industrial bases. It is inspired by an empirical puzzle, specifically why states appear to be protecting their domestic arms markets while international arms markets are becoming increasingly globalized and interdependent. The paper argument harnesses the developmental state literature to create an explanatory framework based on variation in state-society balances of power and relative bureaucratic centralization. Our paper finds that domestic responses to defense supply-chain globalization produces defense protectionism, often resulting in state industrial policy supporting arms exports for the sake of relieving defense industrial overcapacity, because domestic demand does not match supply. We link domestic structure and state strategies to subsequent international phenomena: state structure and state-society relations produce different industrial strategies for managing international interdependence, but state strategies for supporting defense industries also produce arms export patterns, which, may, in turn, fuel global arms proliferation. In sum, state industrial strategies for pursuing autonomy may have unintended international consequences that ultimately fuel interdependence and further undermine state autonomy.