Serfs, Soldiers, Citizens : Military Effectiveness and the Social Contract

Serfs, Soldiers, Citizens argues that democracies do not have monopoly on qualities or policies necessary to ensure high effectiveness in a military conflict. Under certain conditions, autocracies can have pronounced advantage over democracies in certain types of conflict, especially if the autocratic regime is recovering from a recent defeat.

Serfs, Soldiers, Citizens: Military Effectiveness and the Social Contract evaluates the democratic advantage theory of military effectiveness and advances a counterargument that military effectiveness is more closely related to patterns of wealth redistribution and social mobility. While these phenomena are often seen as inherent to democracies, in practice autocratic states can display those qualities, too. Additionally, both democracies and autocracies tend to change policies toward improving military effectiveness following wars that went poorly for them, and that shift does not always entail a move towards greater democracy. There are many instances of a country, following a defeat, adopting better policies on social mobility and wealth redistribution and yet become more autocratic, then displaying superior effectiveness in conflict in comparison with an earlier war. Autocratic states have an advantage of more rapid preparation for a war they anticipate, while democracies are better at improving their policies toward greater military effectiveness once engaged in a war.