abstract: 'This article seeks to analyze the political economy of military

  conscription policy and its relationship with a country''s external

  security environment. National security is modeled as a non-rivalrous

  and non-excludable public good, whose production technology consists of

  either centrally conscripted or competitively recruited military labor.

  Conscription is construed as an implicit discretionary tax on citizens''

  labor endowment. Based on this, I propose a simple political economy

  model of pure public goods provision financed by two policy instruments:

  a lump-sum income tax and a conscription tax. Constraint optimization of

  a quasi-linear utility function gives rise to three general classes of

  preferences: high- and low-skilled citizens will prefer an all-volunteer

  army, albeit of different size, whereas medium-skilled citizens will

  favor positive levels of conscription. These derived preferences allow

  me to tease out an explicit relationship between military manpower

  procurement policy, a country''s level of external threat, and its

  pre-tax income inequality levels. One of my key findings is that more

  egalitarian countries are more likely to use conscription as a military

  manpower procurement mechanism.'
affiliation: 'Konstantinidis, N (Corresponding Author), IE Univ, Sch Global \& Pubic
  Affairs, C Pedro de Valdivia 21, Madrid 28006, Spain.

  Konstantinidis, Nikitas, IE Univ, Sch Global \& Pubic Affairs, C Pedro de Valdivia
  21, Madrid 28006, Spain.'
article-number: 0951629819895595
author: Konstantinidis, Nikitas
author-email: nikitas.konstantinidis@ie.edu
author_list:
- family: Konstantinidis
  given: Nikitas
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1177/0951629819895595
earlyaccessdate: JAN 2020
eissn: 1460-3667
files: []
issn: 0951-6298
journal: JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS
keywords: 'Military conscription; national security; public goods; income

  inequality; conscription tax'
keywords-plus: DRAFT; PARTIES; SUPPORT; MODEL; ARMY; END; WAR
language: English
month: APR
number: '2'
number-of-cited-references: '42'
orcid-numbers: Konstantinidis, Nikitas/0000-0002-3132-1216
pages: 312-347
papis_id: 82b51cee0e74e584b0a1f9771f5807c0
ref: Konstantinidis2020militaryconscription
researcherid-numbers: 'Baltutyte, Gerda/AGH-5630-2022

  Konstantinidis, Nikitas/P-6869-2016'
times-cited: '0'
title: 'Military conscription, external security, and income inequality: The missing
  link'
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000510412700001
usage-count-last-180-days: '3'
usage-count-since-2013: '8'
volume: '32'
web-of-science-categories: Political Science
year: '2020'