Public opinion on trading with the enemy: Trade’s effects on the risk of war

Celeste Beesley and Eliza Riley Oak
Additional contact information
Celeste Beesley: Department of Political Science, Brigham Young University
Eliza Riley Oak: Department of Political Science, Yale University

Journal of Peace Research, 2025, vol. 62, issue 2, 328-343

Abstract: While studies show that the public disapproves of trade with adversaries, political discourse has historically used security rhetoric to both justify and oppose trade with threatening states. Does emphasizing the potential of trade to exacerbate or mitigate security risks sway public opinion? Is public opinion malleable regardless of the level of threat? These questions become increasingly important as security and economic interactions between states become more intertwined. In a 2019 survey experiment, Ukrainian citizens report more optimism about the effects of trade with Russia (engaged in conflict with Ukraine since 2014) when told that trade decreases security risks. They are more pessimistic when presented with information that trade increases the risk of conflict. In contrast, attitudes about trade with a non-threatening trading partner (the European Union) are unaffected. This study demonstrates that the security effects of trade can both improve and worsen attitudes about trade with politically salient adversaries, even in the context of actual conflict. However, security rhetoric is unlikely to change public opinion about trade with non-threatening states unless they are viewed as reliable allies. Public opinion about trade, thus, responds to rhetoric about security, rather than representing an inflexible constraint on firms’ and states’ trade with adversaries.

Keywords: commercial peace; public opinion; trade; Ukraine; war (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00223433231214406 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:joupea:v:62:y:2025:i:2:p:328-343

DOI: 10.1177/00223433231214406

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().