Preview of Dissertation

In this chapter I have established the importance of reexamining the factors that lead states to adopt either volunteer or conscript recruitment systems, and have situated this study within the broader process of designing militaries in new states. In the next chapter, I review existing explanations for why some states rely on conscription, including those based on individual case studies, systematic cross-national study, and untested but hypothesized relationships. I argue that this literature fails to account for observed variation in recruitment, and moreover makes certain unfounded assumptions

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that are inappropriate with respect to the actual process of military design in new states. More specifically, the most widely accepted arguments downplay the functional

advantages of conscription even in the age of modern warfare, and assume too much domestic autonomy over military affairs. Instead, I argue that foreign powers often intervene in new state military design to implement or encourage the use of a recruitment system that suits their security interests.

I argue that military recruitment decisions result from one of three causal pathways. First, when there is a foreign military patron to guide recruitment decisions, states pursue the preferences of the patron, leading to emulation. When there is no patron, one of two things happens, depending on the external threat environment. In the second pathway, a low external threat environment and absence of a patron leaves states unconstrained in the recruitment options they can pursue. In these circumstances, the idiosyncrasies of historical experience, domestic politics, or leadership preference will dominate the policymaking process. In the third pathway, if there is a major external threat to the new state’s territorial integrity, it will usually conscript in order to ensure it can defend its borders, especially in consideration of the inability of new states to build effective volunteer forces.

Chapter 3 uses quantitative methods to systematically test the arguments I advance in Chapter 2. I collected original data on foreign intervention in new states, including the presence of military training and advisory missions, foreign contract

officers, and troop deployments. Logistic regression shows that indicators of foreign state intervention have a strong effect on military design. In addition, they show that external territorial threats exert a strong functional pressure on new states to adopt conscription, at

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least when states have no patron. This is true even when tests control for the cultural legacy or nature of foreign influence in new states. The findings in this chapter contrast with the expectations of many popular alternative hypotheses, and provide broad support for my argument.

Demonstrating my primary proposed mechanism, though—that foreign states actively intervene to enforce their preferences—requires further, in-depth analysis. The next three chapters examine the process of military design in specific cases, focusing on the debates—implicit or explicit—surrounding the use of conscription. Each one of these chapters process-traces the creation of the military in a different one of my causal

pathways. Chapter 4 describes the process of military recruitment policy development in a state with a powerful patron, Jordan. Chapter 5 demonstrates what happens when there is neither a foreign patron nor major external threat to constrain decision making, as was the case in Iraq during the inter-war period. Furthermore, these chapters offer a

comparison of Jordan and Iraq that can establish the causal role of British patronage through a most-similar cases research design. Both were strongly influenced by British military culture in the years after World War I, though they both had previously been under Ottoman control and had experience with conscription during that period. Additionally, both Jordan and Iraq envisaged the same types of threats—mainly, those arising out of weak domestic legitimacy and cleavages within society. However, whereas Iraqi domestic leaders strongly preferred to use conscription and implemented this system almost as soon as they were independent, Jordan continued to use a volunteer system. These chapters examine the reasons why despite these ostensibly similar contexts, British influence and a volunteer system prevailed in Jordan but not in Iraq. I argue and show

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that the reason is largely due to the difference in a British desire to intervene in military design across the two cases, and hence in the level of British intervention and patronage.

Chapter 6 illustrates the third causal pathway: no patronage in the context of high external threats. It also tests this theory in a more contemporary case of state formation and military design: Bosnia and Herzegovina during its post-independence statebuilding effort that began in 1995. The end of the Bosnian Civil War and the Dayton Accords resulted in a fractured Bosnian state under an international administration. However, the historic experience of Bosnia with conscription seemed to lead to institutional inertia, with all armed actors continuing to conscript despite international intervention and security guarantees. Beginning in 2002, though, the international community essentially enforced several rounds of defense reform on Bosnia. This defense reform concluded with the sudden and complete abolition of conscription at the end of 2005, despite similar levels of international presence and a largely unchanged international environment. I conducted interviews with American and Bosnian officials involved in the defense reform process to determine what changed between 1995 and 2005. This allows me to better understand whether local or international actors matter most for determining military design. It also demonstrates the applicability of my argument that international patrons matter most in different cultural and temporal contexts, including in modern instances of state creation and military design.

My final chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the dissertation’s findings for contemporary international relations theory and for policy practitioners. This research highlights the role of hierarchy and patron-client relations in international relations. It also provides insight for policymakers in government or elsewhere who work

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with other countries to support these security goals. It provides insight into how states define their security interests. For example, it is often assumed that militaries are designed to be experts in violence, so that states emulate best practices in military effectiveness. My research indicates that states may sacrifice military effectiveness for other goals, such as social integration, or because they lack the capacity to make an effective defense. By addressing the circumstances in which states prefer these goals, my research illuminates how states understand and respond to their strategic environments using military design. In turn, this provides advice for policymakers seeking to help states design their militaries.

This is especially relevant for new states or those restructuring their military after major regime change or civil war. These are unique opportunities to change military design and organizational culture, and consequently military effectiveness and regime stability. Thus, military training and power-sharing were integral to the peace process in Bosnia, and a failure to adequately rebuild Iraq’s army is often blamed for the rise of the Islamic State. My dissertation contributes to efforts to understand how to better design such post-conflict militaries to support peace, reconstruction, and broader security policies. By highlighting when and why states are likely to view conscripts as

contributing to security, I suggest what tools policymakers should focus on to achieve desired security goals.

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