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Economic Interdependence And World Peace In Globalized Era

Posted on:2009-05-19Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y X KuangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360245986235Subject:International relations
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The issue of how economic interdependence influences world peace is one of the most debated one in the field of international relations. Different theories vary on its answer. The liberals tend to believe that eoncomic interdependence will lead to peace. The realists are prone to believe that economic interdependence will lead to more conflicts. Why do different theories come to contray conclusions? This paper argues that the reason lies in the fact that most extant studies see this issue from a static perspective and ignore both the overall situations of world economy and the changes of economic interdependence, so that ignore how the two factors influence the pacific effects of economic interdependence.In order to solve the debate on the effects of economic interdependence on international politics and get a thorough and scientific view on this issue, This paper argues that we have to explore the pacific effects of economic interdependence from a dynamic perspective.Based on the overall situations of world economy and the debate, this paper tries to answer the following three questions:(1) Does economic interdependence have pacific effect? (2)Is the pacific effect of economic interdependence fixed? (3)Has the pacific effect been accelerated or decelarated since 1990? The conclusions are as following: economic interdependence has pacific effect but the pacific effect is contingent; the economic interdependence varies according to the level of economic interdependence; the pacific effect is accelerated since 1990.Based on the James D. Fearon's"rationalist explanation of war", the paper argues that economic interdependence has pacific effect because of the following three reasons:(1)the economic exchanges can bring benefits to the concerned states, thus raise the costs of conflict; (2)economic interdependence is an effective way to send credible signals,thus ruduce the information asymmetry and uncertainty; (3)economic interdependence can benefit some substate actors, thus raise the credibility of commitments.But the pacific effect of economic interdependence is constrained in two aspects: (1)it is constrained by the suroundings where economic interdependence is embedded in. In a anarchic international society, with the states as sovereign and self-help actors, states may attach great importance to relative gains, because economic interdependence constrains states'sovereignty. Under this cirucumstance, the pacific effect of interdependence is more likely to be pressed; (2)the pacific effect is also influenced by the level of economic interdependence. When the level of economic interdependence is low, the pacific effect is weak; but when the level of economic interdependence increases, the pacific effect becomes stronger.Since 1990s, economic globalization become a unavoidable trend. With trade globalization,production globalization and monetary globalization being the three most important momentums, the level of economic interdependence has been increased greatly. Higher level of economic interdependence is more conducive to world peace because: (1)it changes the game surounding between countries, which is conducive to overcome the constraints imposed on the pacific effect of economic interdependence by relative gains problem;(2)with the deepening of interdependence,the pacific effect of economic interdependence becomes stronger. The statistical model show evidence that the pacific effect of economic interdependence is much stronger during the 1990-2001 period than during the 1980-1989 period.In additional, based on a simple evolutionary game, this paper finds that the pacific effect of economic interdependence is not fixed and the relation between economic interdependence and conflict is curvilinear.
Keywords/Search Tags:Globalization, Economic Interdependence, World Peace, Evolutionary Game
PDF Full Text Request
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