On Wednesday, 15th of May 2024, the Research of the University of Bucharest organizes the conference “What Do Romanians Think about Defense Spending? Results from a Survey Experiment”, presented by Eoin Lazaridis Power, Fulbright Research fellow at ICUB. The event will take place in the Council Room, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work (Schitu Măgureanu) between 18:30-20:00.
About the event: When countries buy defense equipment, they often require foreign suppliers to re-invest in the buying country’s economy – in Romania, the Piranha V infantry fighting vehicle, manufactured in a joint venture with Uzina Mecanică București, is a good example. These requirements – known as offsets – are commonly thought to increase popular support for costly defense transactions, by promising to bring economic benefits, too. But this proposition has rarely – if ever – been empirically tested, and in general political science has largely ignored offsets. Here, I present the results of a survey experiment conducted in Romania that addresses this, and other, questions: how do offsets affect public opinion about defense spending? How do Romanians view tradeoffs between security and economic development? With the war in Ukraine, ongoing multi-billion-dollar investments in defense modernization, and a pledge to spend 2.5% of GDP on defense, these issues have never been more relevant.
Eoin Lazaridis Power is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Texas at Austin. For the 2023-2024 academic year, he is a Fulbright Research fellow at ICUB. His dissertation is on the political economy of defense and maritime security institutions in Europe; other work addresses field experiments and international financial regulation, with a regional focus on Eastern Europe. Previously, he worked as a management consultant, primarily serving clients in aerospace and defense. He holds a BA from Middlebury College in political science and philosophy, and an MA from the University of Michigan in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
The moderator of the event will be Professor Marian Zulean, PhD.
