Pentagon vs. Congress: The Political Economy of Military Base Closures During BRAC

摘要

This dissertation examines and analyzes economic and political forces that influenced military base closures under the Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) process of the late 1980's and early 1990's. The research utilizes a qualitative approach to outline the public good nature of defense and describes the rapid shifts in power and authority that were necessary for the formation of four 'independent' BRAC commissions. Win-set analysis demonstrates that outside forces played a large role in allowing self-interested politicians to relinquish control over pork-laden defense expenditures. A quantitative approach, based on logistic regression, is used to analyze the significance and magnitude of economic and political variables that influenced the Pentagon and the BRAC Commissioners. Empirical findings indicate that politics was not removed from the process and that political variables were important in determining the probability a particular military facility remained open.