Military expenditure, institutional quality and the Sustainable Development Goals : Insight into the dynamics of a large-scale attempt at Sustainable Development

Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate whether institutional quality modulates the impact of military expenditure on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Contemporary research has suggested that military expenditure impedes progress towards the goals while institutional quality facilitates progress. In order to assess how these phenomena might interact with one another, two hypotheses were constructed based on their premises, the first one stipulating that military expenditure would be associated with lower progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, and the second one concluding that institutional quality would modulate this relationship. Using regression analysis for assessing the hypotheses, it was found that military expenditure did not impact progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, and that this result remained unchanged in the presence of institutional quality. Instead, institutional quality appeared to directly contribute to progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Two control variables, inequality and history of armed conflict, displayed a negative correlation with progress towards the goals. The findings concluded within this paper thus suggest that military expenditure does not seem to markedly influence countries’ progress towards the goals; instead, institutional quality, the degree of inequality as well as armed conflict may be more substantial determinants of the extent to which a jurisdiction is able to effectively implement the goals.