Arms Transfers and the Logic of Political Efficacy

Arms transfers are deemed to be mechanisms of control; those who import weapons are, by reason of those imports, supposed to have forfeited a measure of autonomy. It is this proposition, constant amid the changing currents of transfer policy over the last quarter century, that bears close examination. This paper attempts to do just that. The inquiry proceeds by: (1) providing an overview of extant arguments about arms transfers; (2) constructing a model of political efficacy; (3) deriving theoretically based measures of the various concepts involved; and (4) testing the model empirically and estimating the efficacy of arms transfers as determinants of politically desirable outcomes. (Author)