Name: Lulu Mokwena Title: The Determinants of Military Spending in South Africa Supervisor: Prof. Eftychia Nikolaidou

Name: Lulu Mokwena
Title: The Determinants of Military Spending in South Africa
Supervisor: Prof. Eftychia Nikolaidou
Background
South Africa has had a volatile history with regards to military expenditure. This is partly owing to global factors such as the Cold War and various economic fluctuations, as well as region and country specific factors, including The United Nations (UN) Arms embargo in 1997, changes in regime after the apartheid era (Batchelor, Dunne and Lamb, 2002), and a deep national history of corruption. Data on military expenditure from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institution (SIPRI) shows that South Africa consistently increased military spending from 1999 to 2019. The South African defence spending accounted for 2.8% of the national budget in 2019. Moreover, SIPRI 2020 found that of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa had the highest military spending in 2019. Inconstant dollar terms, South Africa’s
$3617 million in military spending accounts for 19.9% of the Sub-Saharan total. This study aims to add to existing literature on the South African case study. (Batchelor, Dunne and Lamb, 2002) found a model that included various non-economic catalysts performed well. However, these variables are limited, and it would be interesting to seethe effect of including more variables. Variables to consider may include the R billion South African arms deal in 1999, which was ruled to be highly against public interest (Crawford-Browne,
2004) and the establishment of Armaments Corporation of South Africa (Armscor), which started producing weapons for South African military use in 1968 in response to the UN trade embargo. Armscor is now the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) sole arms procurement contractor and in
2001 a 15% increase in the defence budget attributed to South Africa’s ongoing arms procurement (Skons
et al., 2002). One may further explore the inclusion of global determinants, such as the Great Recession, as well as the inclusion of more extensive social and economic indicators, where possible.