Suchergebnisse

What causes peace? Dale Copeland's detailed and ambitious book, Economic Interdependence and War, has an answer. At least under certain conditions, the ties that bind nations together in webs of commerce can lead them to prefer to avoid, or at least delay, active conflict. The basic claim of a commercial peace is hardly new. Scholars like Montesquieu and Smith detailed this connection at the dawn of the commercial age. Two features make the book distinctive and might be said to advance this timely and important research agenda. First, Copeland sets out to integrate ideas of a negative commercial peace that originated in liberal internationalist theory into a Realist neoclassical framework. Two lines of thinking about world affairs that were dialectical may perhaps have reached a synthesis. To achieve this synthesis, Copeland emphasizes prospective thinking about commerce by leaders in evaluating their nations' foreign security policy: It is the anticipation of trade, rather than its mere concurrence, that Copeland deems critical in achieving major power peace. Second, the book is broad and ambitious in its empirical scope as well as its theoretical domain, offering panoramic analyses of eras more akin to period narratives than to the narrowly focused vignettes that are common in the social sciences.

Cyberwar has been described as a revolution in military affairs, a transformation of technology and doctrine capable of overturning the prevailing world order. This characterization of the threat from cyberwar, however, reflects a common tendency to conflate means and ends; studying what could happen in cyberspace (or anywhere else) makes little sense without considering how conflict over the internet is going to realize objectives commonly addressed by terrestrial warfare. To supplant established modes of conflict, cyberwar must be capable of furthering the political ends to which force or threats of force are commonly applied, something that in major respects cyberwar fails to do. As such, conflict over the internet is much more likely to serve as an adjunct to, rather than a substitute for, existing modes of terrestrial force. Indeed, rather than threatening existing political hierarchies, cyberwar is much more likely to simply augment the advantages of status quo powers.

Growing interest in the social consequences of climate change has fueled speculation that global warming could lead to an increase in various forms of political violence. This article examines the effects of climate change on international conflict subsequent to the onset of European industrialization. Surprisingly, analysis at the system level suggests that global warming is associated with a reduction in interstate conflict. This naive relationship is suspect, however, as the increased consumption of carbon-based fuels is itself associated with changing patterns of politics and prosperity. In particular, economic development has been viewed as a cause of both climate change and interstate peace. Incorporating measures of development, democracy, cross-border trade, and international institutions reveals that systemic trends toward peace are actually best accounted for by the increase in average international income. The results imply that climate change, which poses a number of critical challenges for citizens and policymakers, need not be characterized as fundamentally a security issue, though climate change may have important security implications on the periphery of world politics. The analysis here also suggests that efforts to curb climate change should pay particular attention to encouraging clean development among middle-income states, as these countries are the most conflict prone. Ironically, stagnating economic development in middle-income states caused by efforts to combat climate change could actually realize fears of climate-induced warfare.

If the transition to a new power structure is abrupt or uneven, or if it is difficult for leaders to ascertain what exactly has come to pass, then the risk of conflict will increase.

It is widely accepted that democracies are less conflict prone, if only with other democracies. Debate persists, however, about the causes underlying liberal peace. This article offers a contrarian account based on liberal political economy. Economic development, free markets, and similar interstate interests all anticipate a lessening of militarized disputes or wars. This "capitalist peace" also accounts for the effect commonly attributed to regime type in standard statistical tests of the democratic peace.