Gartzke et al.: Investing in Peace

Gartzke, E, Q Li, and C Boehmer. 2003. “Investing in the Peace: Economic Interdependence and International Conflict.” International Organization 55:391-438.

“Research appears to substantiate the liberal conviction that trade fosters global peace” (391). These studies are limited. There is an overemphasis on trade, while other transfers are quantitatively larger. “Second, the manner in which economics is said to inhibit conflict behavior is implausible in light of new analytical insights about the causes of war” (391).

“Our quantities results who that capital interdependence contributes to peace independent of the effects of trade, democracy, interest, and other variables (391).

“We begin with a theory of disputes. A valid explanation for the effect of economics on peace must be placed in the context of an account of why most states occasionally resort to military violence” (392).

The authors explore different kinds of interdependence, monetary, trade, democratic, capital, and thoroughly explore the literature.

They use MID data.

Dismisses Barbieri’s findings as being flawed because of the author’s metric for determining economic interdependence: trade share.

“We have reviewed arguments for the effect of economic interdependence on peace. We show that existing accounts do not adequately explain why liberal economies are less likely to fight, but that a signaling argument is consistent with the observation of a liberal peace. We also expand interdependence to include financial and monetary integration, offering a set of variables that measure these processes” (418). They key finding is that increased interdependence reduces the vagueness of information transfers in bargaining between states.