Economic Change as a Cause of International Conflict

Bruce Russett
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Bruce Russett: Yale University

Chapter 9 in Peace, Defence and Economic Analysis, 1987, pp 185-205 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract This chapter reviews various hypotheses about the relation between economic change and governments’ readiness to participate in international conflict. It develops a theoretical model with hypothesised linkages from economic difficulty, to governments’ efforts to contain domestic political discontent stemming from that difficulty, through militarisation to participation in militarised international disputes. It also develops a hypothesis that democratic governments may respond to economic difficulty in a way that is systematically different from that of non-democratic governments. It then tests these hypotheses on two large bodies of cross-temporal and cross-national political and economic data. The results suggest some tendency for democratic governments to engage in international conflict more often after economic downturn, and for non-democratic governments to do so after economic expansion.

Keywords: Gross Domestic Product; Political System; Economic Change; Economic Downturn; International Conflict (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:intecp:978-1-349-18898-7_9

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18898-7_9

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