We analyze the politics of the U.S. defense budget from 1953 to 1992. Institutional factors make it impractical for the president to use aggregate defense spending politically. For this reason, we focus on defense prime contract awards (PCA) because they are removed from public opinion, do not require congressional approval and can be precisely timed. We assess differences in contracting behavior between presidential administrations. The model we specify posits that government policies are reflective of approval ratings and that the president uses defense contracts to counter sagging approval and/or a weak economy. A statistical model is tested using pooled time-series analysis that allows us to assess variation between and within administrations. Controlling for presidential administrations, war and Soviet crisis behavior, our analysis reveals that significant differences in defense contracting exist between administrations and that presidential approval, war, the electoral cycle, and unemployment are significant determinants of defense contracting.
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