The Global Militarization Index (GMI)
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About
The Global Militarization Index (GMI) depicts level of global militarization today and the development since 1990. The GMI evaluates the development orientation of states and analyzes regional militarization. The GMI was created in 1996 and updated ever since on an annual basis by the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC).
In many countries, excessive militarization hinders the necessary structural change of the economic and social framework conditions and enforces development deficits in its industry and agriculture. On the other hand, a low degree of militarization can also be problematic by hampering development as it can point to fundamental deficits in the security sector. A weak or not functioning security sector cannot prevent violence and conflicts which negatively affect the population and human development as it cannot successfully enforce and uphold a monopoly of violence. One result is often fragile and weak states in which economic growth and development cannot prosper. These examples illustrate the dilemma of the debate. The GMI is attempting to dispel the wide assumption that a high level of militarization is bad and a low level per se good, and to contribute to a new approach on studying militarization.
GMI values can be interpreted as the percentage change in the levels of military expenditures, armaments, armed forces and employment in arms production between the average level around
the end of the Cold War (1985-1993) and the GMI index end year. A positive value of the index is associated with disarmament while a negative value reflects increases in armaments. The
index ranges from +100 percent which means total disarmament and -100 percent – i.e. total rearmament.
The GMI uses mostly data of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute SIPRI, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and BICC. The ranking shows the militarization of 161 states since 1990. The GMI is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).[1]
Indicators
The Global Militarization Index (GMI) represents the relative weight and importance of the military apparatus of a state in relation to society as a whole. For this, the GMI investigates a number of
indicators in three overarching categories (expenditure, personnel and heavy weapons) to represent the level of militarization of a country
- Military spending in relation to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and health services;
- The ratio of (para)military personnel, reserve forces and physicians;
- Heavy weapons in relation to the population.
Methodology
In order to increase the compatibility between different indicators and preventing extreme values from crating distortions when normalizing data, in a first step every indicator is represented in a logarithm with the factor 10. Second, all data is normalized using the formula x=(y-min)/(max-min), with min and max representing , respectively, the lowest and the highest value of the logarithm. In a third step, every indicator was weighted in accordance to a subjective factor, reflecting the relative importance attributed to it by BICC researchers (see Table 3). In order to calculate the final score, the weighted indicators were added together and then normalized one last time on a scale ranging from 0 to 1,000. For better comparison of individual years, all years were finally normalized.
Results
The GMI shows that the Middle East is the highest militarized region in the world. Individually, in 2009, Israel, Singapore, Syria, Jordan, Russia, South Korea, Cyprus, Greece, Kuwait and Belarus were on the top 10 of the GMI. Marked increases in military expenditure can be observed in emerging and threshold economies. Military expenditure in Brazil rose between 2000 and 2009 by 38 percent; those of India by 67, and China by 216 percent. Still, the share in military expenditure in relation to GDP and in health spending have only changed marginally in these countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, most post-conflict countries show a slight decrease in militarisation which can be attributed to disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration processes. Exceptions are Angola, Mauretania, Djibouti, Chad, and Nigeria. [2]
Interactive Map
See also
Climate change, conflict and fragility
References
- ↑ Bonn International center for Conversion, "BICC Index analyzes global miliatrization: Middle East on top position", Press Release, 28 February 2011. Retrieved on 27 June 2011 from: http://www.bicc.de/uploads/pdf/press/2011/press-release-2011-02-28-GMI_eng.pdf
- ↑ Bonn International center for Conversion, "BICC Index analyzes global miliatrization: Middle East on top position", Press Release, 28 February 2011. Retrieved on 27 June 2011 from: http://www.bicc.de/uploads/pdf/press/2011/press-release-2011-02-28-GMI_eng.pdf
External links
Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC)
The Global Militarization Index - interactive map
