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The impact of military research and development priorities on the evolution of the civil economy in capitalist states

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Barry Buzan  and
Gautam Sen
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Extract

The objective of this paper is to identify the process by which military research and development (R&D) priorities affect the evolution of major sectors of the civil economy in capitalist states. Military priorities channel a significant proportion of the resources that capitalist societies devote to R&D: for the United States in the period 1982–4, military R&D amounted to 28.9 per cent of gross domestic expenditure on R&D. The nature of military priorities favours some areas of technological development over others, and when these favoured areas are opened up for military purposes, it is often possible to build a major civil industry on the resultant technology. Examples of this process include nuclear power, civil aviation, space satellites and computers. Some, though by no means all, of the commanding heights of civil economies are thus powerfully shaped by the opportunities created by specifically military R&D.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 321 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1990

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