Dependent state formation and Third World militarization

Abstract

The relationship between militarization and state formation in the West has been the subject of considerable scholarship,1 and there is thus some temptation to simply transfer concepts and arguments from that domain to the study of Third World militarization. Yet state formation dynamics in the two contexts were and are quite different, with important implications for the nature of national security threats. In the West threats tended to be external, rooted in anarchical competition between relatively equal states possessing domestic legitimacy, which meant that militarization could be understood primarily in terms of the political realist focus on security dilemmas and action-reaction dynamics. In contrast, Third World state formation has occurred in a largely dependent context in which relative external security contrasts with domestic insecurity.2 In this case the external environment, rather than being a source of threat, becomes a source of opportunities for elites lacking domestic legitimacy to gain support against internal security threats. In short, national security problems look very different in the First and Third Worlds because of different trajectories and contexts of state formation. Very different mechanisms may therefore account for militarization, suggesting the need for concepts and theories different than those that dominate security studies in the West.