The nexus between asylum seekers and defence spending in European NATO member states: a quantitative study of securitisation dynamics

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between the defence spending of European NATO members and their exposure to asylum seekers. While research shows that threat perceptions and domestic politics partly determine the defence spending of a state, the effect of migration has so far not been studied. This is remarkable because migration is increasingly framed as a security threat, also by NATO and European Union member states. Using a panel analysis, this paper explores the relationship between the defence spending of 23 European NATO members and the number of asylum seekers they register each year between 2000 and 2020. Results show a positive and significant relationship between the number of asylum seekers registered in a country and its overall military expenditure relative to GDP, equipment spending, and infrastructure spending. These findings shed new light on the origins of defence spending in collective security alliances, at a time when transatlantic burden sharing is at the centre of societal and academic debates.

KEYWORDS:

• NATO
• defence spending
• migration
• asylum seekers
• threat perception
• burden sharing

Acknowledgments

The helpful feedback from Dr. Yf Reykers and members of the panel Defence Cooperation and Military Assistance at the 2022 European Initiative for Security Studies conference were highly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data availability statement

The author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

Notes

1 At the time of writing, Finland had not yet become a NATO member. Therefore, Finland is not included as an observation in the analysis.

Additional information

Funding

The finalisation of this paper was funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation [Grant for project AZ 12/KF/22].

Notes on contributors

Daphné Charotte

Daphné Charotte is a PhD candidate on civil society and miltiary transparency at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University.