Scholars have been studying civil-military relations (CMR) for a long time. However, we know very little about how international security agreements (e.g. alliance treaties, multilateral security platforms, bilateral defense cooperation agreements etc.) affect government-military rent sharing. International security agreements involve more than just the prospect of an ally coming to the incumbent's support during a conflict. They transfer resources, develop capacity and rearrange incentives of powerful domestic actors, including governments and their military. However, there is not much systematic understanding of their implications for domestic civil-military relations. 

This project endeavors to understand the international governance of civil-military relations. The starting point is to approach external security agreements as what I call "international security governance regimes" (ISGRs). Rethinking these agreements in this term allows for understanding how they matter not only as war-fighting or deterrence coalitions for unitary states, but also as international contracts that regulate and govern relationships of many domestic actors involved in the processes.

Institutionalized Defense Cooperation and Regime Security [under review]

I assess the effects of the institutionalization of cross-border security cooperation on government-military relations. I argue that international defense cooperation agreements (DCAs) lead to increased domestic regime security. The military intervenes in politics mainly because the government cannot credibly promise to share rents. DCAs help mitigate this challenge. They allow the government to outsource non-fungible resources for the military through long-term public international agreements, making its promise to share rents more credible. Using cross-national data for 160 countries for the period of 1980-2010, I show that states with DCAs experience significantly lower odds of military interventions in politics. The paper expands our understanding of the unique role that states play in managing domestic civil-military relations through international brokerage and cooperation.

Third-Party Subcontracting of Security and Military Interventions in Authoritarian Politics [under review]

Many authoritarian governments ally with an external power to enhance regime security. They may avoid empowering their own military which can pose a more immediate internal threat. But subcontracting security to an external actor can undermine the military's organizational interests and strain domestic civil-military relations. I argue that defense alliances by authoritarian governments incentivize their military to mount coups. Security subcontracting results in, to a great extent, the loss of the rent-seeking leverage that the military enjoys because of the government's continual dependence on the former as the sole security guarantor. The military is more likely to stage coups to insure their loss of leverage \textit{vis-à-vis} the government. Using cross-national analysis for the period of 1969-2003, I show that defense alliances strongly correlate with an increase in both attempted and successful coups against authoritarian leaders. The paper expands our understanding of how external security cooperation affects civil-military relations and domestic power struggles. 

The Political Economy of Peacekeeping: Civil-Military Resource Substitution-through International Brokerage [with Nazmus Sakib, forthcoming in Foreign Policy Analysis]

What effects does participation in peacekeeping operations (PKO) have on the participating countries’ civil-military resource allocation?  We argue that contributing states can substitute part of their domestic military expenditures with external resources. Governments act as brokers between domestic military interests and international sources of rent, a process that we call civil-military resource substitution through the international brokerage. By doing so, governments (i) reduce part of the bottom-up demands for increased military spending (i.e., salaries, allowances) and (ii) outsource critical resources to meet military organizational priorities (i.e., training, weapons, perks for the military elite, etc.). Using cross-national statistical analysis, we find that the UN PKO contributing states allocate fewer resources to the defense sector than the non-contributing states. The implications point to a much wider role of the UN peacekeeping missions than what is previously understood and demonstrate their impacts beyond the host countries.