Crime Control or Power Projection? Explaining the Contemporary Militarisation of Nation States’ Coercive Apparatus Between 2011–2021

This study examines the predictors of varying levels of militarisation of nation states’ coercive apparatuses from 2011 to 2021. It tests two competing explanations: the first posits that militarisation is a ‘natural’ progression in the professionalisation of security forces in response to new forms of crime and security threats; the second argues that it is driven by economic, political, and social crises. Drawing on cross-national longitudinal data covering 161 countries, we estimate six linear panel regressions with country fixed effects and robust standard errors clustered by country on a multiply imputed dataset that ensures the inclusion of developing states in the analysis. We employ three distinct measures of militarisation and find that, contrary to prevailing assumptions, these do not correlate with crime or security threats. Instead, political stability emerges as the strongest predictor of levels of militarisation. These results challenge functionalist accounts of militarisation, suggesting that it may function, at least in part, as a political strategy—providing a veneer of stability, restoring public confidence in ruling parties’ ability to maintain control during crises, and reflecting a wider logic of control in which elites expand coercive capacity to deter dissent and project authority—rather than operating solely as a direct security measure. In this light, the militarisation of the coercive apparatus may serve as a mechanism for power projection.