IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/intorg/v44y1990i03p379-402_03.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The theory of collective action and burden sharing in NATO

Author

Listed:
  • Oneal, John R.

Abstract

Mancur Olson's theory of collective action could account for much of the variance in the defense burdens of the allied nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the early years of the Cold War, but the association between economic size (gross domestic product, or GDP) and defense burden (the ratio of military expenditures to GDP) has declined to insignificant levels. Two influences are shown to be important in producing this change: the increased pursuit of private goods by Greece, Turkey, and Portugal and the growing cooperation among the other European allies. Since cooperation in the military realm has not provided the Europeans with credible means of self-defense, it appears to be a consequence of the general growth of interdependence in Europe during the postwar period. NATO is still essentially a uniquely privileged group producing a relatively pure public good. Accordingly, the theory of collective action continues to provide valuable insights into the operation of the alliance.

Suggested Citation

  • Oneal, John R., 1990. "The theory of collective action and burden sharing in NATO," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 379-402, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:44:y:1990:i:03:p:379-402_03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0020818300035335/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tony Addison & Mark McGillivray & Matthew Odedokun, 2004. "Donor Funding of Multilateral Aid Agencies: Determining Factors and Revealed Burden Sharing," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 173-191, February.
    2. Todd Sandler, 1993. "The Economic Theory of Alliances," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(3), pages 446-483, September.
    3. Benjamin Zyla, 2018. "Beyond the 2% fetishism: studying the practice of collective action in transatlantic affairs," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-11, December.
    4. Douglas M. Gibler & Scott Wolford, 2006. "Alliances, Then Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(1), pages 129-153, February.
    5. William Gates & Katsuaki Terasawa, 2003. "Reconsidering publicness in alliance defence expenditures: NATO expansion and burden sharing," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(5), pages 369-383.
    6. Todd Sandler & James C. Murdoch, 2000. "On sharing NATO defence burdens in the 1990s and beyond," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 21(3), pages 297-327, September.
    7. Bruce Linster & Richard Fullerton & Michael Mckee & Stephen Slate, 2001. "Rent-seeking models of international competition: An experimental investigation," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 285-302.
    8. Boadway, Robin & Hayashi, Masayoshi, 1999. "Country size and the voluntary provision of international public goods," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 619-638, November.
    9. Minoru Okamura, 2022. "Identifying the public goods allocation process: case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 1707-1726, September.
    10. Steven D. Roper & Lilian A. Barria, 2010. "Burden Sharing in the Funding of the UNHCR: Refugee Protection as an Impure Public Good," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 54(4), pages 616-637, August.
    11. Matthew Fuhrmann, 2020. "When Do Leaders Free‐Ride? Business Experience and Contributions to Collective Defense," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 416-431, April.
    12. Renaud Bellais & Martial Foucault & Jean-Michel Oudot, 2014. "Économie de la défense," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01052607, HAL.
    13. Glenn Palmer & J. Sky David, 1999. "Multiple Goals or Deterrence," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 43(6), pages 748-770, December.
    14. John R. Oneal, 1990. "Testing the Theory of Collective Action," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(3), pages 426-448, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:intorg:v:44:y:1990:i:03:p:379-402_03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/ino .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.