The Liberal Peace: Interdependence, Democracy, and International Conflict, 1950-85

John R. Oneal, Frances H. Oneal, Zeev Maoz and Bruce Russett
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Frances H. Oneal: Department of Political Science, University of Alabama
Zeev Maoz: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University
Bruce Russett: Department of Political Science, Yale University

Journal of Peace Research, 1996, vol. 33, issue 1, 11-28

Abstract: The classical liberals believed that democracy and free trade would reduce the incidence of war. Here we conduct new tests of the `democratic peace', incorporating into the analyses of Maoz & Russett (1993) a measure of economic interdependence based on the economic importance of bilateral trade. This allows us to conduct a simultaneous evaluation of the effects of regime type and interdependence on the likelihood that a pair of states will become involved in a militarized interstate dispute. We control in all our analyses for a number of potentially confounding influences: growth rates in per capita income, alliances, geographic contiguity, and relative power. Our logistic regression analyses of politically relevant dyads (1950-85) indicate that the benefits of the liberals' economic program have not been sufficiently appreciated. Trade is a powerful influence for peace, especially among the war-prone, contiguous pairs of states. Moreover, Kant (1991 [1795]) was right: International conflict is less likely when external economic relations are important, executives are constrained, and societies are governed by non-violent norms of conflict resolution.

Date: 1996
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:33:y:1996:i:1:p:11-28

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