Oneal, Oneal, Maoz and Russett: The Liberal Peace

Oneal, JR, FH Oneal, Z Maoz, and B Russett. 1996. “The Liberal Peace: Interdependence, Democracy, and International Conflict, 1950-85.” Journal of Peace Research 33:11.

Classic liberals believed that interdependence rooted in trade as well as similar political systems based on majority rule would lead to increased levels of international peace. This article uses economic interdependence variables to augment the democratic peace studies of Maoz and Russett (1993). “Our logistic regression analyses of politically relevant dyads…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…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” (11).

There is initially a very thorough review of literature relating to trade, liberalism, peace and international interdependence.

The research operationalization follows closely that of Maoz and Russett (1993) and is an attempt to quantify the variables identified by Kant. They look at “major powers” as defined by the Correlates of War project. Use MID data for dependent variable and a variety of independent variables. “Our logistic regression analyses of politically relevant dyads…indicate that the pacific benefits of interdependence have not been sufficiently appreciated. This is especially apparent in the analyses of contiguous pairs of states, where the potential for conflict is greatest. Countries that share a border have more issues, particularly territorial, over which to fight; and their proximity makes armed conflict feasible. Economic interdependence significantly counteracts these influences” (23).