Suchergebnisse

Gartzke & Li's 'Measure for Measure' usefully clarifies the mathematical relationships linking trade dependence, openness, and trade share. Oneal and Gartzke & Li agree on allmajor points: (1) high trade dependence, indicated by the lower bilateral trade-to-GDP ratio in each dyad, reduces the likelihood of violent interstate conflict; (2) openness, measured by the total trade-to-GDP ratio for the same state, also has important pacific benefits; and (3) trade share, the ratio of bilateral to total trade, is not a good measure of economic interdependence, because it does not capture the economic (and hence political) importance of states' bilateral trade. The substantive benefits of both trade dependenceand opennesscan easily be shown. Oneal analyzes militarized interstate disputes using the best available data for trade and conflict and controls for duration dependence. With all dyads included, a one standard-deviation increase in dependencelowers the risk of a fatal dispute by 62%; such an increase in opennessreduces it by 25%. These results are consistent with more than 30 published or forthcoming studies that show that economic interdependence reduces the likelihood of interstate conflict.

Examines US public support for use of the armed forces to resist aggression versus use to engineer internal change in other countries; based on 38 major US uses of military force, 1950-88.

Analyzes and compares the flow and profitability of US direct investment in developed democracies and in autocracies, 1950-85.

Mancur Olson's theory of collective action is tested using pooled cross-sectional and time-series regression analyses of the defense burdens (military expenditures/gross domestic product) of fifteen NATO countries for the years 1950-1984. The influence of four factors is assessed: relative economic size, the intensity of the Cold War, the pursuit of private benefits by three countries in exceptional circumstances, and increased cooperation among the European allies. The results indicate that the alliance is still best characterized as a uniquely privileged group seeking a relatively pure public good: collective security through deterrence. Disaggregated analyses show that, consistent with this conclusion, the United States and its allies differ in theoretically predictable ways not only in the magnitude of their defense burdens but in the influences that shape their military allocations.

Mancur Olson's theory of collective action could account for much of the variance in the defense burdens of the allied nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the early years of the Cold War, but the association between economic size (gross domestic product, or GDP) and defense burden (the ratio of military expenditures to GDP) has declined to insignificant levels. Two influences are shown to be important in producing this change: the increased pursuit of private goods by Greece, Turkey, and Portugal and the growing cooperation among the other European allies. Since cooperation in the military realm has not provided the Europeans with credible means of self-defense, it appears to be a consequence of the general growth of interdependence in Europe during the postwar period. NATO is still essentially a uniquely privileged group producing a relatively pure public good. Accordingly, the theory of collective action continues to provide valuable insights into the operation of the alliance.