Weapons for Peace? The Unexpected Benefits of UNSC
MembershipAnirudha Vaddadi and Josi Sinagoga
The Study
• Research Question: Do countries leverage their political importance for weapons imports?
• Specifically: Do countries on the United Nations Security Council as rotating members receive more arms imports from Germany?
• Results: Our analysis finds a robust relationship between UNSC membership and the importation of German arms
Background
The International Arms Trade
• Cold War Era
• Post-Cold War Era
Background, contd.
Why Germany?
• Position in Arms Market
• Political System
• Exclusion from the P5
Methodology
• Dependent Variable: Heavy arms imports from Germany, measured by Trend Indicator Value (TIV) - general arms imports are also used as a comparison
• Independent Variable: UNSC Membership - dichotomous indicator
• Controls: year of election into UNSC, ln(GDP per capita), ln(population), war, political regime, trade with Germany, German colony
Methodology, contd.
• Country and year fixed-effects
• Clustered errors
• Focusing regression analysis on Africa due to its unique UNSC selection process
• Regressions on individual countries
Results
Results
ResultsCountries with statistically significant
relationships:Country UN Regional Group
Austria Western European and Others
Bangladesh Asia-Pacific
Brazil Latin American and Caribbean
Hungary Eastern European
Ireland Western European and Others
South Africa African
South Korea Asia-Pacific
Concluding Remarks
• “Power Resources”
• Buying Peace with Weapons
• Future Research?