Trade and War, Revisited

This study revisits the question of the nexus between economic interdependence and militarized interstate disputes. Despite deepening ties between countries through trade and investment after the Second World War, the number of militarized interstate disputes has not decreased. Incorporating the political regimes of trade partners into analyses and addressing a potential methodological issue in the literature, this study finds that the stronger the trade ties between a pair of countries, the less likely they are to enter militarized interstate disputes. A trade-peace nexus exists for pairs of democracies. The nexus is weakened or almost nonexistent when one of the pairs is an authoritarian regime.