Multiplex Relations between States: Coevolution of Trade Agreements and Political Alliances

Yi Yi Mon, Seunghoo Lim and Makoto Kakinaka
Additional contact information
Yi Yi Mon: Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8529, Japan
Seunghoo Lim: Graduate School of International Relations, International University of Japan, Minami-Uonuma 949-7277, Japan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 14, 1-24

Abstract: The nature of interdependence between states encourages them to establish cooperation in different fields, leading to multiple relations. The policy alignments of states on trade and political relations can be regarded as the most critical agenda in a globalized world. Accounting for the linkages between economic and political issues, this study focuses on the two relational ties, (i) free trade agreements (FTAs) as economic cooperation and (ii) political alliances (PAs) as political cooperation. In addition, it evaluates the coevolution of FTAs and PAs by employing a multiplex stochastic actor-oriented model with longitudinal data of 160 countries during the period from 1990 to 2012. The results show that the presence of a PA inspires the formation of an FTA, but present no clear evidence that the presence of an FTA promotes the formation of a PA. Our analysis also shows that a state prefers to form both FTAs and PAs with trade hub partners that have more FTAs but prefers to form only PAs with political hub partners that have more PAs. This study argues that such asymmetric effects between FTAs and PAs emphasizes the preferences of states for liberalizing trade and connecting with partners that have many FTAs.

Keywords: coevolution; multiplexity; trade relations; political relations; policy alignment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3911/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3911/ (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:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:14:p:3911-:d:249408

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().