Dissertation
Patrons and Personnel: Military Recruitment in New States
The design and organization of a state's armed forces affects a variety of social, political, and military outcomes, including conflict initiation, military effectiveness, and identity formation. One of the most basic and salient aspects of military design is the method by which states recruit their manpower: will they accept only volunteers, or will they use some form of conscription or compulsory service? Few studies have attempted to explain cross-national variation in recruitment preferences. I improve on existing approaches to this question by focusing specifically on the determinants of recruitment decisions at the moment of independence, when states must design their military for the first time. This novel approach takes into consideration the empirical observation that institutional incentives make changes in recruitment system a difficult process and rare occurrence. Thus, my argument isolates the factors that lead a state to prefer its initial recruitment method. Existing research on conscription tends to attribute its determinants to domestic factors specific to each state such as their culture or colonial legacy. I argue that international actors have a profound effect on the recruitment practices of new states, which tend to emulate practices of stronger states that influence them. In the absence of influential patrons, new states are more likely to use conscription when they face major territorial threats.
The design and organization of a state's armed forces affects a variety of social, political, and military outcomes, including conflict initiation, military effectiveness, and identity formation. One of the most basic and salient aspects of military design is the method by which states recruit their manpower: will they accept only volunteers, or will they use some form of conscription or compulsory service? Few studies have attempted to explain cross-national variation in recruitment preferences. I improve on existing approaches to this question by focusing specifically on the determinants of recruitment decisions at the moment of independence, when states must design their military for the first time. This novel approach takes into consideration the empirical observation that institutional incentives make changes in recruitment system a difficult process and rare occurrence. Thus, my argument isolates the factors that lead a state to prefer its initial recruitment method. Existing research on conscription tends to attribute its determinants to domestic factors specific to each state such as their culture or colonial legacy. I argue that international actors have a profound effect on the recruitment practices of new states, which tend to emulate practices of stronger states that influence them. In the absence of influential patrons, new states are more likely to use conscription when they face major territorial threats.