Archives for the month of: May, 2011

Comparing Human Development Index with Military Spending (% of GDP) in the Middle East

05/29/2011 //

I would first like to note that this is not comparing the relative value of either indicator. What I mean is that instead of comparing the Human Development Index and military spending relative to other Middle Eastern countries, these values can be compared to any country for the year 2007. I found the data on spending from SIPRI and HDI values from several sources (for more on these look here and here). you can find both of these on really cool graphs on google’s public data explorer here and here. Secondly, I want to note that this map cannot conform to our previous definition of the Middle East due to a lack of complete data in several countries. The omitted countries are Iraq, Oman, and Lebanon.

This map is a little bit less intuitive as each index is measuring something different. The reason they matched up evenly was because excel used tenths for HDI (best value being 1.00) and hundredths for military spending (10% being the max)

This map blows away the notion HDI has anything to do with how much countries will spend on their military in the Middle East. It becomes clear that countries have different security strategies especially when you look at the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council). Smaller countries like Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait all spend a relatively low amount on their military. While Qatar dedicates the lowest amount (% of GDP) in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia spends the most; both in terms of percent of GDP and as an overall amount. These GCC countries all have a relatively high HDI values and nothing about Saudi Arabia or the UAE distinguishes their scores. Saudi Arabia’s military spending is puzzling for many reasons but lets look at some other observations before exploring this further.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East (only the Gaza Strip has scored lower on recent HDI scores) yet it dedicates more of its GDP than Egypt, Syria, or Iran on its military. Why is this? One possible explanation could be that in order to maintain a competent military organization one needs to spend a certain base amount. Yemen’s population is about the same size as Syria, but its GDP is ~45-60% the size (depending on whether you use Nominal or Purchasing Power Parity). So 4% of GDP means as little as half as much money spent for Yemen compared to Syria. To examine this idea further I used the SIPRI’s numbers for 2007. Yemen spent $1.2 billion on its military while Syria spent $2.1 billion. Does this mean that for a country w/ a population of ~22 million one can expect no less than ~$1 billion to maintain a credible military? well it get’s more complicated than that unfortunately.

The Middle East as a region spends an enormous amount of its GDP on military spending. The countries we list here average 4.6% of GDP on military spending, nearly double the world average of 2.4%.

It would be foolish to assume that every country in the Middle East was compelled by one reason to spend so much on the military. Iraq and Iran were at war for 8 years in the 80s, with over a million lives lost, Israel has been in over 5 interstate wars, Saudi Arabia owns 25% of the world’s oil. Instead I think it would be wise look at every country’s spending and ask this question: What strategy would do the most to preserve this state’s future? I’m not advocating for militarism just trying to explain the mindset that might motivate actors in the region to spend so much on their militaries.

Tags Development, map, middle east

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measuring regional power part 3: south asia

05/25/2011 //

What happens when we apply the same measurements to South Asia, where India and Pakistan have been long time rivals?

We see that unlike China in East Asia, the economic growth in South Asia has been fueled by India with only Sri Lanka keeping up pace. Like China (and perhaps other BRICs) India has seen its military spending come closer in line with its economic dominance of the region. It’s worth pointing out that Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been spending more on their military than their economies have grown. It really is worth noting that while East Asia has been dominated by China, South Asia is dominated more so by India. While China might carry nearly twice the share in miliary and economic dominance in East Asia, Japan lingers, maintaining at least half of what China has. Pakistan, on the other hand, hardly competes with India economically or militarily. India spent ~6.6x as much on its military in 2008 compared to Pakistan.

Shockingly, South Korea’s military and economic rivalry with China is more closely matched than Pakistan’s rivalry with India. But Pakistan continues to spend a higher percentage on its military despite its economic decline. Perhaps the conflict with change in the next decade, depending on how badly Pakistan feels threatened by India’s rise.

Tags asia, balance of power, BRIC, international relations, power

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Labor Force Participation Rate: comparing gender in muslim-majority countries and others

05/22/2011 //

Using Google’s Public Data Explorer lets take a look at labor force participation rates and gender. unfortunately I wasn’t able to upload the graphs to this blog directly, but you’re free to verify my findings here

contained in the data-set is this definition for Labor Force Participation Rate: “Percentage of the working-age population (ages 15–64) that actively engages in the labour market, by either working or actively looking for work. ILO (2010d). [“Key Indicators on the Labour Market: 6th edition”. Geneva: ILO.] Accessed June 2010.” they direct you to this link for further detail: http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/48906.html

I wondered how a selection of Muslim-majority countries would compare with non-Muslim majority ones, but wanted to retain some measure of development for fairness. I chose the latest UN report measuring the Human Development Index for 2010. The reason I chose to use HDI ranking was to prevent ridiculous scenarios like Afghanistan vs. France. While the HDI is not perfect, it should be sufficient for the task of roughly comparing levels of development.

I like pictures of flags so I created an image of my word table to retain them 😀

I tried to break down countries by region, using neighboring non-Muslim countries when I could*. I included several Middle Eastern countries that did not have current HDI information just for comparison’s sake. HDI ranking is on the left while the female/male participation ratio is on the right. Red indicates comparisons where Muslim-majority countries have more female participation in labor than their non-Muslim counterparts.

There are several interesting things we find here. Overall, higher HDI ranking does not imply female participation, in Muslim and non-muslim countries. For example, the US has a ratio of 85% female participation vs. men, while Cambodia has 88% female participation!

At the same time, it would be remiss not to point out that the majority Muslim countries had a lower female participation than their similarly developed non-Muslim counterparts. out of 25 comparisons only 5 showed higher female participation in Muslim countries. In other words, 80% of the Muslim countries had a lower rates of female participation in the labor market.

What’s notable, is that of the five exceptions, all come from former communist states! even Turkey, which has been hailed for its secularism, had a considerably lower rate of female participation. Also notable is the outcome for Bangladesh. Even though it scored lower than Nepal, it ended up beating out a much bigger competitor in India! I didn’t use India as a comparison because the HDI difference was too high, but its worth pointing out that despite its higher development, India’s female participation is very low, at just 42.2%. India was also featured on an earlier list on female literacy. The Economist has an article on sexist attitudes in India that sheds some light on this.

In the Middle East (as defined by an earlier post) the picture more negative than in Bangladesh. Only two Muslim countries there reach 50% female participation and in eight have a 3rd or less participating. Even in oil rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain where per capita income is high and their HDI is comparable to European countries women are a marginal part of the labor force. The good news is that in many of these countries the rate of female participation is increasing; but unfortunately this trend is not uniform in the region. notably, Egypt, with its recent revolution has gone from having the best levels of female participation in 1980 (ahead of even turkey) to having a below-average participation ratio.

Perhaps more insight could be gleaned from the former communist exceptions in this table as well as Bangladesh.

*there is only one non-Muslim majority country in the middle east and it’s HDI rank is also considerably higher so I didn’t use it for any direct comparisons)

Tags Development, gender, middle east, religion

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measuring regional power part 2: east asia

05/21/2011 //

Sadly, the results for East Asia aren’t quite as exciting, or especially validating of my hypothesis. I should note that poorer countries like Mongolia and N. Korea didn’t have complete data so I had to limit my list of countries.

It is interesting to note that SIPRI’s list shows a dramatic climb in China’s military spending over the past 10 years, in 1999 they spent less than a 3rd what they do now. Using http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact99/5.htm I will show the change 11 years has brought East Asia:

Surprisingly, China’s relative economic growth has been minimal, changing just 5% relative to the rest of East Asia. The notable exception of Japan might cause you to wonder do these numbers really add up? They mostly do. The reason China hasn’t improve more is because its own growth has been matched economically by Taiwan and South Korea. But militarily, China now matches its economic might with the majority of all military spending in East Asia. My hypothesis could work, perhaps there was a threshold in individual income in China that passed in the last decade, while the government in Japan saw the national debt and increasing cost of an aging population as a bigger threat than military ones.

I think I’m probably wrong though; there are likely better explanations for relative military spending than GDP per capita alone. for instance, in 1996 the third taiwan strait crisis took place, possibly driving the government in Taipei to continue spending a large amount on its military. In 1998 South Korea began the so-called Sunshine Policy with North Korea, easing tensions in the region as a result. Finally, China itself has seen its direction of trade expand in the past decade; numerous shipping routes have become essential to its globalized economy. Perhaps the relative leap in China’s military spending is mostly an outcome of its increasing trade. In the US the war of 1812 is often hailed by historians as an early example of US economic policy shaping its military and foreign policy perhaps the three fold increase in military spending by China is similar.

Tags asia, balance of power, BRIC, china

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measuring regional power part 1: middle east

05/20/2011 //

One way scholars try to measure power using the Realist paradigm is by focusing on relative power. in these graphs I will be using two metrics: military spending and gdp (ppp).

What becomes puzzling is that some countries have large shares of the GDP yet spend less on their military. Here is my hypothesis (which I will try to resolve later): countries with a high GDP per capita are able to tax their populations/dedicate oil revenues towards military expenditures more because individuals can withstand the cuts in income better. For example, Egypt’s per capita GDP is only $6,200 in 2010, while Israel and the UAE had an income of $29,500 and $40,200 respectively. For some countries, the numbers may not tell the whole story. In Iran there are at least 3 organizations who could be counted under military expenses: the IRCG, the Baseej, and finally their traditional military. SIPRI may have only counted the latter.

Note: I didn’t include Turkey because: a) they haven’t been involved in any interstate conflicts in the middle east in the past 65 years and b) their placement in the middle east isn’t entirely agreed on by middle east experts. (they would also fuck everything up by having an enormous economy/share of military spending).

Tags balance of power, international relations, map, middle east, power

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