The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism

The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism PDF Author: I. Hossein-zadeh
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403983429
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary analysis blends history, economics, and politics to challenge the prevailing accounts of the rise of U.S. militarism. While acknowledging the contributory role of some of the most widely-cited culprits, this study explores the bigger, but largely submerged, picture: the political economy of war and militarism.

The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism

The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism PDF Author: I. Hossein-zadeh
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403983429
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary analysis blends history, economics, and politics to challenge the prevailing accounts of the rise of U.S. militarism. While acknowledging the contributory role of some of the most widely-cited culprits, this study explores the bigger, but largely submerged, picture: the political economy of war and militarism.

Militarism and International Relations

Militarism and International Relations PDF Author: Anna Stavrianakis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415614910
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Militarism and international relations in the 21st century -- Twenty-first century militarism : a historical-sociological framework / Martin Shaw -- Challenging cartographies of enmity : empire, war and culture in contemporary militarization / Simon Dalby -- Militarism, "new wars" and the political economy of development : a Gramscian critique / Nicola Short -- War becomes academic : human terrain, virtuous war and contemporary militarism: an interview with James der Derian / Anna Stavrianakis and Jan Selby -- From Oslo to Gaza : Israel's "enlightened public" and the remilitarization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict / Yoav Peled -- From political armies to the "war against crime" : the transformation of militarism in Latin America / Dirk Kruijt and Kees Koonings -- The global arms trade and the diffusion of militarism / David Kinsella -- Wilsonians under arms / Andrew J. Bacevich -- The political economy of EU space policy militarization : the case of the global monitoring for environment and security / Iraklis Oikonomou -- Producing men, the nation and commodities : the cultural political economy of militarism in Egypt / Ramy M.K. Aly -- The Chinese military: its political and economic function / Kerry Brown and Claudia Zanardi.

The Political Economy of American Militarism

The Political Economy of American Militarism PDF Author: Randy S. La Prairie
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Iraq
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Sociologists have paid little attention to the structural causes of American participation in wars. Consequently, the discipline offers few theoretical perspectives on American war making. Sociological theories that do exist fall under two headings: state-centric and Marxist theories. Both lack prima facie plausibility. In this dissertation, I advance a unique, alternative theoretical framework that I argue offers a more tenable theory of American militarism in the post-World War II period. The elite model of war mobilization, as I refer to it, consists of five interrelated structural causes of American participation in wars: (1) state-capitalist imperialism; (2) elite control of public policy; (3) imperial ideology; (4) elite control of the mass media; and (5) elite influence on academia. The foundations of the theory are a military-industrial complex theory and a power elite model of politics and culture. Most recent theoretical work on the causes of American militarism focuses on the 2003 Iraq War. In this study, then, I present a process tracing analysis of the invasion of Iraq that demonstrates that an elite model of war mobilization provides a fuller, more historically accurate explanation of the Iraq War than either state-centric or Marxist theories. The elite model suggests that two pressures for war emerge from the military-industrial complex: a drive for concentrated decision-making power in the executive branch, and profit-making opportunities for private defense firms. A major finding of this study is that the Bush administration’s internal reasons for invading Iraq correspond to these two imperatives. In turn, the power elite social status of key administration officials largely explains why they accepted and acted on these imperatives. A virulent form of imperial ideology also contributed to their decision to invade Iraq. As also predicted by the model, the Bush administration controlled the mass media marketing of their war campaign, successfully mobilizing public support for the war. And though the war was not widely accepted among academics, many prominent academics supported the war on the basis of neo-Wilsonian assumptions that were popular in the academy in the 1990s and which also informed the administration’s worldview and Iraq policy.

The New American Militarism

The New American Militarism PDF Author: Andrew J. Bacevich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199727147
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In this provocative book, Andrew Bacevich warns of a dangerous dual obsession that has taken hold of Americans, conservatives, and liberals alike. It is a marriage of militarism and utopian ideology--of unprecedented military might wed to a blind faith in the universality of American values. This mindset, the author warns, invites endless war and the ever-deepening militarization of U.S. policy. It promises not to perfect but to pervert American ideals and to accelerate the hollowing out of American democracy. As it alienates others, it will leave the United States increasingly isolated. It will end in bankruptcy, moral as well as economic, and in abject failure. With The New American Militarism, which has been updated with a new Afterword, Bacevich examines the origins and implications of this misguided enterprise. He shows how American militarism emerged as a reaction to the Vietnam War. Various groups in American society--soldiers, politicians on the make, intellectuals, strategists, Christian evangelicals, even purveyors of pop culture--came to see the revival of military power and the celebration of military values as the antidote to all the ills besetting the country as a consequence of Vietnam and the 1960s. The upshot, acutely evident in the aftermath of 9/11, has been a revival of vast ambitions and certainty, this time married to a pronounced affinity for the sword. Bacevich urges us to restore a sense of realism and a sense of proportion to U.S. policy. He proposes, in short, to bring American purposes and American methods--especially with regard to the role of the military--back into harmony with the nation's founding ideals.

Tyranny Comes Home

Tyranny Comes Home PDF Author: Christopher J. Coyne
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503605280
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Many Americans believe that foreign military intervention is central to protecting our domestic freedoms. But Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall urge engaged citizens to think again. Overseas, our government takes actions in the name of defense that would not be permissible within national borders. Emboldened by the relative weakness of governance abroad, the U.S. government is able to experiment with a broader range of social controls. Under certain conditions, these policies, tactics, and technologies are then re-imported to America, changing the national landscape and increasing the extent to which we live in a police state. Coyne and Hall examine this pattern—which they dub "the boomerang effect"—considering a variety of rich cases that include the rise of state surveillance, the militarization of domestic law enforcement, the expanding use of drones, and torture in U.S. prisons. Synthesizing research and applying an economic lens, they develop a generalizable theory to predict and explain a startling trend. Tyranny Comes Home unveils a new aspect of the symbiotic relationship between foreign interventions and domestic politics. It gives us alarming insight into incidents like the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and the Snowden case—which tell a common story about contemporary foreign policy and its impact on our civil liberties.

National Insecurity

National Insecurity PDF Author: Melvin A. Goodman
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872865959
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
"Mel Goodman has spent the last few decades telling us what's gone wrong with American intelligence and the American military, and now, in National Insecurity, he tells us what we must do to change the way the system works, and how to fix it. Goodman is not only telling us how to save wasted billions—he is also telling us how to save ourselves."—Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker Upon leaving the White House in 1961, President Eisenhower famously warned Americans about the dangers of a "military industrial complex," and was clearly worried about the destabilizing effects of a national economy based on outsized investments in military spending. As more and more Americans fall into poverty and the global economy spirals downward, the United States is spending more on the military than ever before. What are the consequences and what can be done? Melvin A. Goodman, a twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA, brings peerless authority to his argument that US military spending is indeed making Americans poorer and less secure while undermining our political standing in the world. Drawing from his firsthand experience with war planners and intelligence strategists, Goodman offers an insider's critique of the US military economy from President's Eisenhower's farewell warning to Barack Obama's expansion of the military's power. He outlines a much needed vision for how to alter our military policy, practices and spending in order to better position the United States globally and enhance prosperity and security at home. Melvin A. Goodman is the Director of the National Security Project at the Center for International Policy. A former professor of international security at the National War College and an intelligence adviser to strategic disarmament talks in the 1970s, he is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed The Failure of Intelligence.

Manufacturing Militarism

Manufacturing Militarism PDF Author: Christopher J. Coyne
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 150362837X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The U.S. government's prime enemy in the War on Terror is not a shadowy mastermind dispatching suicide bombers. It is the informed American citizen. With Manufacturing Militarism, Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall detail how military propaganda has targeted Americans since 9/11. From the darkened cinema to the football field to the airport screening line, the U.S. government has purposefully inflated the actual threat of terrorism and the necessity of a proactive military response. This biased, incomplete, and misleading information contributes to a broader culture of fear and militarism that, far from keeping Americans safe, ultimately threatens the foundations of a free society. Applying a political economic approach to the incentives created by a democratic system with a massive national security state, Coyne and Hall delve into case studies from the War on Terror to show how propaganda operates in a democracy. As they vigilantly watch their carry-ons scanned at the airport despite nonexistent threats, or absorb glowing representations of the military from films, Americans are subject to propaganda that, Coyne and Hall argue, erodes government by citizen consent.

Democratic Militarism

Democratic Militarism PDF Author: Jonathan D. Caverley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139917307
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Why are democracies pursuing more military conflicts, but achieving worse results? Democratic Militarism shows that a combination of economic inequality and military technical change enables an average voter to pay very little of the costs of large militaries and armed conflict, in terms of both death and taxes. Jonathan Caverley provides an original statistical analysis of public opinion and international aggression, combined with historical evidence from the late Victorian British Empire, the US Vietnam War effort, and Israel's Second Lebanon War. This book undermines conventional wisdom regarding democracy's exceptional foreign policy characteristics, and challenges elite-centered explanations for poor foreign policy. This accessible and wide ranging book offers a new account of democratic warfare, and will help readers to understand the implications of the revolution in military affairs.

The Economics of War

The Economics of War PDF Author: Imad A. Moosa
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788978528
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Bad things occur and persist because of the presence of powerful beneficiaries. In this provocative and illuminating book, Imad Moosa illustrates the economic motivations behind the last 100 years of international conflict, citing the numerous powerful individual and corporate war profiteers that benefit from war.

The Handbook on the Political Economy of War

The Handbook on the Political Economy of War PDF Author: Christopher J. Coyne
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1849808325
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 649

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Book Description
The Handbook on the Political Economy of War highlights and explores important research questions and discusses the core elements of the political economy of war.