Does mandatory military service build nations?

Many governments today are revisiting national service programmes. Some hope that bringing young people together in shared public service can strengthen social cohesion, reduce polarisation, and foster civic responsibility. This debate echoes older arguments about how mass institutions shape modern states. During the first half of the twentieth century, around 80% of countries relied on conscription, and more than one-third still do today (The Economist 2021). Recruiting, training, and maintaining large numbers of conscripts required substantial fiscal and administrative capacity, and historians have long argued that these demands contributed to the consolidation of national states (Tilly 1990).

What remains less clear is whether compulsory military service also contributed to nation-building by shaping citizens’ attitudes and behaviours in ways that support social integration and state functioning. While previous research has studied conditions within the military that foster national affiliation among some conscripts but not others (Cáceres-Delpiano et al. 2021, Bagues and Roth 2022), there is little causal evidence on whether and how conscription itself (i.e. conscripts relative to non-conscripts) affects beliefs and attitudes conducive to and consistent with nation-building. 

Our recent research (Ronconi and Ramos-Toro 2025) studies this question using the case of Argentina, where conscription was in place for almost a century and assignment to service was determined by lottery (Galiani et al. 2011). We examine the impact of conscription on two dimensions of behaviour that are conducive to nation-building: social integration and behaviours in line with the state’s functionality (Hippler 2005). These two dimensions do not necessarily move together. For example, universal schooling has been shown to increase civic engagement and political participation, but its effects on national identity are less clear (Bandiera et al. 2019). Conversely, shared cultural institutions may strengthen identity without changing how citizens interact with the state.

Why Argentina is a useful case

Argentina introduced compulsory military service in 1901 and maintained it until 1994. Men were required to serve during the year they turned 21, later lowered to 19. Importantly for research, assignment to service was determined by a lottery based on the last three digits of the national identity number.

Each year, men with lottery numbers above a cutoff were required to serve, while those below were exempt. Since the lottery numbers were effectively random, men above and below the cutoff were similar in all respects except for their probability of serving in the military, which allows us to estimate the causal effects of conscription. We thus collected original survey data on more than 3,000 Argentine men born between 1944 and 1975, covering 29 cohorts exposed to the draft. We measured a wide range of attitudes and behaviours related to national identity, social integration, civic values, and institutional trust, several decades after their potential service.

What military service changed, and what it did not

The clearest effects of conscription appear in measures of national identity and social integration. Former conscripts are more likely to say they are proud of their nationality and that their country is the best place to have been born. They also report feeling socially similar to a larger share of other Argentines, even when those others are randomly selected and unknown to them. In addition, we find that military service reduced the likelihood of rejecting neighbours who are outgroups. These effects are not short-lived – we observe them decades after service, among men who served under democratic governments as well as under military regimes.

By contrast, conscription has no detectable effect on civic behaviours or institutional trust. Former conscripts are no more likely to vote, no less likely to justify tax evasion, and no less likely to endorse taking the law into one’s own hands when the state fails to punish criminals. They also do not express greater trust in institutions, such as the courts or even the armed forces themselves. We also find no meaningful effects on education, labour market outcomes, family formation, religiosity, or generalised pro-social preferences such as altruism or reciprocity. In complementary work, we show that military service can nevertheless promote upward inter-generational mobility, although only among men from low socio-economic backgrounds (Ramos-Toro and Ronconi 2025).

In short, military service made people feel more part of the nation and closer to fellow citizens, but it did not make them more civically engaged or more trusting of the state.

How did these effects arise?

Why would conscription shape identity but not civic behaviour? We examine two main mechanisms: value inculcation and intergroup contact. First, we asked respondents to describe, in their own words, what values they believed were transmitted through military service. Using text analysis methods on these open-ended responses, we find that former conscripts are much more likely to mention themes related to national pride and social integration. By contrast, civic values are rarely mentioned. This suggests that the military explicitly emphasised national and social values, but not behaviours related to citizenship in a democratic sense.

Second, we examine whether exposure to diverse peers contributed to these outcomes. Military units often mix individuals from different regions and social backgrounds, which could foster tolerance and shared identity through contact (Bazzi et al. 2019). We do find that effects on social integration are stronger among those who served with more socially diverse peers or who were deployed outside their home region. However, even conscripts who served with relatively similar groups or in their home region show stronger national identity than non-conscripts. This indicates that interpersonal contact reinforces, but does not drive, the effects. 

An institutional analysis shows that conscripts tended to adopt the values promoted by the government they served under. Moreover, those who served during wartime or non-democratic regimes showed weaker civic values than those who served in peacetime or democratic regimes. This provides further evidence of the role of value transmission in the military as an intervening mechanism.

Implications for national service programmes today

What lessons does this offer policymakers considering military or civilian national service programmes?

1. Shared service can foster social integration and national identity, even many years later. This may be valuable in societies facing fragmentation along regional, ethnic, or socio-economic lines, or where national cohesion is fragile.
2. Social integration does not automatically translate into civic engagement or stronger state capacity. Feeling part of the nation does not necessarily mean trusting institutions, paying taxes, or participating politically. These behaviours appear to respond to different incentives and socialisation processes.
3. What institutions teach matters. In Argentina, the military transmitted narratives centred on unity, discipline, and national pride, but not on democratic participation or legal norms. Other institutions, such as schools or civilian service programmes, may emphasise different values and thus generate different long-term outcomes. This suggests that governments interested in strengthening civic behaviours should pay close attention to the content of service programmes, not only to participation itself.
4. There are potential risks. Service under authoritarian regimes or during conflict may undermine civic values, even if it strengthens identity. This underscores that compulsory service is not a neutral tool and can transmit both positive and negative norms depending on the broader political environment.

For countries considering national service programmes, this means being realistic about what such programmes can achieve. They may help people see themselves as part of a shared national project. But if the goal is to increase civic responsibility or improve trust in public institutions, complementary reforms are likely needed. Nation-building, in this sense, is not a single ladder but several parallel paths.

References

Bagues, M, and C Roth (2022), “Interregional contact and the formation of a shared identity,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 15: 322–350.

Bandiera, O, M Mohnen, I Rasul, and M Viarengo (2019), “Nation-building through compulsory schooling during the age of mass migration,” Economic Journal, 129: 62–109.

Bazzi, S, A Gaduh, A D Rothenberg, and M Wong (2019), “Unity in diversity? How intergroup contact can foster nation building,” American Economic Review, 109: 3978–4025.

Cáceres-Delpiano, J, A-I De Moragas, G Facchini, and I González (2021), “Intergroup contact and nation building: Evidence from military service in Spain,” Journal of Public Economics, 201: 104477.

Galiani, S, M A Rossi, and E Schargrodsky (2011), “Conscription and crime: Evidence from the Argentine draft lottery,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 3: 119–136.

Hippler, J (2005), Nation-building: A key concept for peaceful conflict transformation?, Pluto Press, Chicago.

Ramos-Toro, D, and J P Ronconi (2025), “Moving up the ranks: Conscription and intergenerational mobility,” Unpublished manuscript.

Ronconi, J P, and D Ramos-Toro (2025), “Nation-building through military service,” Journal of the European Economic Association, jvaf064.

The Economist (2021), “The military draft is making a comeback.”

Tilly, C (1990), Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990–1990, Blackwell.