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?