The Decline of Ministries of War and the Rise of Ministries of Defense

• In Event: Analytical Frames in International History and Politics

Abstract

A century ago, most states had ministries of “war.” Today, none do. Most have ministries of “defense.” What explains this global transformation in domestic politics? According to the received wisdom, governments abandoned war denominations to conform to law and norms relating to the outlawry of war following the two world wars. This paper evaluates this proposition, integrating insights from new data on ministerial portfolio titles from 1900 to 2020, and case studies.

The evidence lends qualified support to the conventional wisdom. First, war ministries indeed lost majority status only in the interwar period, while defense ministries indeed acquired majority status only early in the postwar period. However, war ministries also persisted decades after the Second World War. And some states fluctuated between war and defense denominations, particularly in the interwar period.

Second, concerns about the impropriety of war denominations indeed motivated many changes from war to defense denominations. However, governments also replaced war with defense denominations for other reasons, having nothing to do with the pejoration of war denominations. The findings throw new light onto an old question, and advance scholarship on organizational isomorphism and the legacies of the outlawry of war.

Author

• Alexander de la Paz, Boston University