Sveriges vapenexport : En studie om målkonflikter med Sveriges biståndspolitik och humanitära ideal

• Main Authors: Håkansson, Caroline, Salu, Kristin
• Format: Others
• Language: Swedish
• Published: Linköpings universitet, Nationalekonomi 2019
• Subjects: Economics; Nationalekonomi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-157659

Background: Sweden is one of the largest exporters of military equipment in the world. Despite many restraining laws and guidelines, Sweden export military equipment to dictatorship and non-democracies. It’s of significant importance to examine what it would cost Sweden to abstain from export of military equipment in those cases where arms trade creates a conflict of interest. The dilemma for Sweden is choosing between the benefits of long-term financial interests that arms export provides and the morality issues that they entail. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate what it would cost Sweden to refrain from exporting arms to countries where the trade creates conflict of interests between financial gains and the Swedish foreign aid policy along with humanitarian ideals. Method: To analyze and evaluate the cost of reduced arms exports, a quantitative and qualitative literary analysis study is used along with the collection of secondary data. A custom developed index is created in order to estimate each country’s humanitarian ideal. Conclusions: Refraining from the export of arms to countries where conflict of interests are created with the Swedish foreign aid policy and humanitarian ideals would result both in lost income and saved costs for the Swedish arms industry. Swedish exports of military equipment contribute positively to the Swedish economy, international co-operations and technical knowledge. Exports are a necessity for maintaining the competitiveness of the Swedish arms industry. Abstaining the export of arms would result in lost revenue of approximately 4,8 billion Swedish kronas in 2013, 1,4 billion in 2015, 4,6 billion in 2016 and 6,2 billion in 2017. Reduced export would result in varying effects on the industry ́s economic expense, depending on the production costs. Due to confidentiality, the data necessary to estimate the total cost of reduced arms exports to countries where conflict of interests is not available. The study therefore estimates what the total cost would be for Sweden to reduce the arms exports through combined analytical and measurable effects.