Borrowed Power
Debt Finance and the Resort to Arms
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3399249 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Branislav L Slantchev (0000-0003-3404-5242, University of California San Diego, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 106 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 787-809 |
| Publication date | 2012-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0003055412000378 |
| OpenAlex | W2139100129 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 29 |
| References cited | 43 |
Military expenditures are often funded by debt, and sovereign borrowers are more likely to renege on debt-service obligations if they lose a war than if they win one or if peace prevails. This makes expected debt service costlier in peace, which can affect both crisis bargaining and war termination. I analyze a complete-information model where players negotiate in the shadow of power, whose distribution depends on their mobilization levels, which can be funded partially by borrowing. I show that players can incur debts that are unsustainable in peace because the opponent is unwilling to grant the concessions necessary to service them without fighting. This explanation for war is not driven by commitment problems or informational asymmetries but by the debt-induced inefficiency of peace relative to war. War results from actions that eliminate the bargaining range rather than from inability to locate mutually acceptable deals in that range
Bargaining power · Debt · Debt service coverage ratio · Economics · Economy · External debt · Inefficiency · Internal debt · Market economy · Microeconomics · Negotiation · Political science · Power (physics · Service (business · Shadow (psychology · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Finance · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
Weak sovereignty and interstate war
The Fiscal Autonomy of Deciders
Regime Type and Interstate War Finance
Economic Inequality, War Finance and the Pursuit of Tax Fairness
The bargaining framework and Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Preventive war and sovereign debt
Self-interest, partisanship, and the conditional influence of taxation on support for war in the USA
Borrowing Trouble
Money Talks
Coalition Politics and War Termination
Intrastate Conflict, War Finance, and the Expropriation of Foreign Firms
When Prospective Leader Turnover Promotes Peace
The Political Cost of War Mobilization in Democracies and Dictatorships
Guns, Butter, and Growth
Borrowing Support for War
War and Default
Stall Wars
Government Choices of Debt Instruments
The Domestic Politics of Strategic Retrenchment, Power Shifts, and Preventive War
Central Banks at War
Shock the system
Beyond the “Sinew of War
Rebel Strategies and the Prospects for Peace
Is there a relationship between wartime violence and postwar agricultural development outcomes? The case of concessions and community grants in Mozambique
Central banks and civil war termination
Evaluating the scope and intensity of the conflict trap
Guns, butter, and debt
Political Parties at War
Loans of the revolution
In the Shadow of Power
The Causes of War
Economic Systems and State Finance
States of Credit
Military Threats
The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200–1815
Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990-1992
The French Revolutionary Wars
Birth of the Leviathan
The Economics of World War I
War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450-1620
The Thirty Years War
The Sinews of Power
The Cost of Empire. The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule
The Thirty Years' War
The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West, 800–2000
Constitutions and Commitment
Regime change and debt default
Resource mobilization for World War II
Confidence and Gold
The Responsibility of the Successor State for War Debts
Conflict without Misperceptions or Incomplete Information
Does Private Information Lead to Delay or War in Crisis Bargaining
Rationalist explanations for war
Feigning Weakness
War as a Commitment Problem
Bargainingtheory Andinternationalconflict
The Armed Peace
Mutual Optimism as a Rationalist Explanation of War
Uncertainty and Incentives in Crisis Bargaining
A Tale of Two Currencies
Revolution, Restoration, and Debt Repudiation
The King's Debts
Guns, Butter, and Anarchy
Military Coercion in Interstate Crises
Blood and Debt
| Unique citing works | 29 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 29 |