Determinants of War: To What Extent do Political and Economic Freedom Determine Military Effectiveness?

Abstract

Much of the literature focusing on peace and conflict studies has been severely limited in both scope and depth. This paper extends the previous research and looks to political and economic freedom as a cause of determining military effectiveness. Data of Military Interstate Disputes from the Correlates of War Project is used from the period of 1950 to 1992, over a large sample of countries to assemble an accurate and reliable foundation to test the effects of several liberal variables on military effectiveness. Two different models are used, first a simple logistic regression, followed by the more complex multinomial logistic regression. The results are found to generally support the hypothesis, that to some extent political and economic freedom can determine military effectiveness.