This thesis will investigate the development of civil-military relations in Brazil since the democratization in 1985. The two most important previous studies, by Alfred Stepan and Wendy Hunter, will be presented and discussed. They where published in 1988 and 1997, respectively. There is therefore a need for a study that includes the development during the long period since these two books were published. The focus will be on three indicators, civilianization of government, how the role of the military has been defined, and military expenditures. The conclusions are that there are contradicting tendencies regarding the development of the civil-military relations, and that the strengthening of civilian institutions is paramount in order to consolidate democracy in Brazil.

The dissertation thesis deals with the relationship between military expenditures and economic growth. The data sample contains European countries and there are three growth models used in the thesis (the Feder-Ram model, the Augmented Solow-Swan model and the Barro model). Two hypothesis and one research question are set in the dissertation. The first hypothesis says that there is a relationship between military expenditures and economic growth. Consequently, the second hypothesis says that the relationship is positive in case of relatively richer countries and negative for relatively poorer countries. Turning to research question, it asks which model better describes the relationship (if it exists) between military expenditures and economic growth.

The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the degree of influence of the military-industrial complex on the foreign policy decision-making process of the state by examining the examples of certain countries with a large and developed defense industry. In terms of this thesis there were analyzed the contemporary trends in global military expenditures and the dynamics of the global arms transfers. A critical point is evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of the extensive investing in the military-industrial complex of state.

The defense spending plays a significant role in the decision-making process of setting up a defense policy. The economy of a state, its performance and development rank among the main factors that influence the size of this public expenditure. At a time of economic stagnation in the Western European countries, the ongoing public debt crisis affects to a ever growing extent all areas of public spending, including the defense. This work aims to contribute to the current knowledge in the field of defense economy and public finance by investigating the influence of the state debt on defense spending. The first part of the work is dedicated to defining the economy of defense and providing a brief summary of its historical development, followed by a discussion of defense as a pure public good. This chapter analyzes the issue of public debt and explains how the major schools of economic theory approach this problem. The second part outlines the previous research in the field of defense spending and debt, their development and the potential relationship with macroeconomic variables. The third chapter presents and discusses the results of empirical research that is based on the theoretical assumptions and models introduced in the first two chapters. The analysis was performed on time series from the period of 1978 to 2011 (34 years) for seven NATO member states: Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands, UK and USA. The empirical analysis was performed by the statistical methods of regression and panel regression. The primary hypothesis on the existence of a relationship between the public debt and defense spending was confirmed and the partial hypothesis that this relationship is negative was refuted.