Restricted access

Research article

First published online June 10, 2013

Request permissions

Putting our best boots forward: US military deployments and host-country crime

Michael A Allen and Michael E FlynnView all authors and affiliations

Volume 30, Issue 3

https://doi.org/10.1177/0738894213484055

Abstract
References

Abstract

The deployment of military forces abroad has been a major component of the US’s grand strategy since the beginning of the Cold War. However, some scholars have argued that the presence of US military personnel abroad creates a series of negative externalities afflicting local communities. We put some of these claims to the test by looking at the effect of US military deployments on crime rates in the host-state. Using cross-national crime statistics from the United Nations and data on US troop deployments, we examine whether US military deployments are associated with higher levels of criminal activity across a large subset of crimes. In aggregate, the mere presence of troops does not increase the criminal activity in a state; however, there is a conditional effect when we account for a difference in culture between the host-state and the US; the presence of foreign deployed troops is associated with higher levels of property-related crimes in a country. Consequently, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the impact that US military deployments, and US foreign policy more broadly, have had on other countries, and also enhances our understanding of the micro-level factors that might affect relationships between alliance partners

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Abouharb MR, Kimball AL (2007) A new dataset on infant mortality rates, 1816–2002. Journal of Peace Research 44(6): 743–754.

Allen WD (2007) The reporting and underreporting of rape. Southern Economic Journal 73(3): 623–641.

Avison W, Loring PL (1986) Population diversity and cross-national homicide: The effects of inequality and heterogeneity. Criminology 24(1): 733–750.

Baker AP (2004) American Soldiers Overseas: The Global Military Presence. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Bennett RR (1991) Development and crime: A cross-national, time-series analysis of competing models. The Sociological Quarterly 32(3): 343–363.

Blanton R, Mason TD, Athow B (2001) Colonial style and post-colonial ethnic conflict in Africa. Journal of Peace Research 38(4): 473–391.

Bollen KA (1989) Structural Equations with Latent Variables. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Brambor T, Clark WR, Golder M (2006) Understanding interaction models: Improving empirical analyses. Political Analysis 14(1): 63–82.

Cingranelli DL, Richards DL (2010) The Cingranelli–Richards (CIRI) human rights dataset (version 2010.08.15). Available at: http://www.humanrightsdata.org (accessed 4 November 2010).

Conant J, Miller M (1985) Scandal on the supply side. Newsweek, 5 August.

Cooley A (2008) Base Politics: Democratic Change and the US Military Overseas. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Deming A, Liu M, Barry J, Willenson K (1985) How vulnerable are the bases? Newsweek, 4 November.

Department of Defense (various years) Active duty military personnel strengths by regional area and by country. Technical report. US Department of Defense.

Dickey C, Barry J, Matthews O, Kohen S, Kaplow L, Kovach GC (2007) Iraq’s arms bazaar; How firearms intended for Iraqi security forces are winding up in the hands of extremists across the region. Newsweek, 20 August.

Diener E, Suh E (1997) Measuring quality of life: Economic, social, and subjective indicators. Social Indicators Research 40(1): 189–216.

Durkheim E (1964) The Division of Labor in Society. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.

Fearon JD, Laitin DD (1996) Explaining interethnic cooperation. American Political Science Review 90(4): 715–735.

Gartner R (1990) The victims of homicide: A temporal and cross-national comparison. American Sociological Review 55(1): 92–106.

Gibney M, Cornett L, Wood R (2010) Political terror scale. Available at: http://www.politicalterrorscale.org

Greene WH (2002) Econometric Analysis, 5th edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Groves BW, McCleary R, Newman GR (1985) Religion, modernization, and world crime. Comparative Social Research 8: 59–78.

Hawkins JP (2001) Army of Hope, Army of Alienation: Culture and Contradiction in the American Army Communities of Cold War Germany. Westport, CT: Praeger.

High SC (2008) Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, 1940–1967. New York: Macmillan.

Humphreys M, Weinstein JM (2006) Handling and mandhandling civilians in civil war. American Political Science Review 100(3): 429–447.

Humphreys M, Weinstein JM (2008) Who fights? The determinants of participation in civil war. American Journal of Political Science 52(2): 436–455.

Jaggers K, Gurr TR (1995) Tracking democracy’s third wave with the Polity III data. Journal of Peace Research 32(4): 469–482.

Johnson CA (2004) The Sorrows of Empire. New York: Verso.

Kalish CB (1988) International crime rates. US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Kane T (2004) Global US troop deployment, 1950–2003. Center for Data Analysis, 44.

Kick EL, LaFree GD (1985) Development and the social context of murder and theft. Deviance 8: 37–58.

Kirk G, Okazawa-Rey M (2000) De-militarizing security: Women oppose U.S. militarism in East Asia. In: Waller M, Rycenga J (eds) Frontline Feminisms: Women, War and Resistance. New York, NY: Garland Press, pp. 159–171.

LaFree GD (1999) A summary and review of cross-national comparative studies of homicide. In: Smith MD, Zahn MA (eds) Homicide: A Sourcebook of Social Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 124–148.

Marshall MG, Jaggers K, Gurr TR (2003) Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2007. The Center for Systemic Peace. Available at: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm

Mercier R (1997) Way off base. On the Issues 6(1): 29–31.

Merton R (1949) Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.

Messner SF, Rosenfeld R (1997) Political restraint of the market and levels of criminal homicide: A cross-national application of institutional-anomie theory. Social Forces 75(4): 1393–1416.

Moon KHS (1997) Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S. New York: Columbia University Press.

Neapolitan JL (1994) Cross-national variation in homicides: The case of Latin America. International Criminal Justice Review 4: 4–22.

Neapolitan JL (1997a) Cross-National Crime—A Research Review and Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

Neapolitan JL (1997b) Homicides in developing nations: Results of research using a large and representative sample. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 41(4): 358–374.

Neapolitan JL (1998) Cross-national variation in homicides: Is race a factor? Criminology 36(1): 139–156.

Nelson DJ (1987) Defenders or intruders? The dilemmas of US forces in Germany. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Neumayer E (2003) Good policy can lower violent crime: Evidence from a cross-national panel of homicide rates, 1980–97. Journal of Peace Research 40(6): 619.

Nijman T, Verbeek M (1992) Nonresponse in panel data: The impact on estimates of a life cycle function. Journal of Applied Econometrics 7(3): 243–257.

Sang-Hun C (2009) Ex-prostitutes say South Korea and US enabled sex trade near bases. New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/asia/08korea.html?pagewanted=all

Sarkees MR, Wayman F (2010) Resort to War: 1816–2007. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Sarkees MR, Wayman F, Singer JD (2003) Inter-state, intra-state, and extra-state wars: A comprehensive look at their distribution over time, 1816–1997. International Studies Quarterly 47(1): 49–70.

Sieberg KK (2005) Criminal Dilemmas: Understanding and Preventing Crime. New York: Springer.

Simbulan RG (2009) People’s movement responses to evolving US military activities in the Philippines. In Lutz C (ed.) The Bases of empire: The Global Struggle against US Military Posts. New York: New York University Press, pp. 145–180.

Singer JD, Bremer S, Stuckey J (1972) Capability distribution, uncertainty, and major power war, 1820–1965. In: Russett B (ed.) Peace, War, and Numbers. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 19–48.

Tomz M, Wittenberg J, King G (2001a) CLARIFY: Software for interpreting and presenting statistical results. Available at: http://gking.harvard.edu

Tomz M, Wittenberg J, King G (2001b) Making the most of statistical analyses: Improving interpretation and presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44(2): 347–361.

UNODC (2010) United Nations surveys on crime trends and the operations of criminal justice systems (CTS). Available at: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/United-Nations-Surveys-on-Crime-Trends-and-the-Operations-of-Criminal-Justice-Systems.html (accessed 4 November 2010).

UNODC (2011) Crime and criminal justice statistics. Technical report. United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.

Wayman FW, Singer JD, Goertz G (1983) Capabilities, allocations, and success in militarized disputes and wars, 1816–1976. International Studies Quarterly 27(4): 497–515.

Weinstein JM (2007) Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Williams LS (1984) The classic rape: When do victims report? Social Problems 31(4): 459–467.

Wooldridge JM (1995) Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

World Bank (2010) World development indicators, the World Bank. Available at: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator (accessed 9 November 2010).

Yeo A (2011) Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

|

You currently have no access to this content. Visit the access options page to authenticate.