Zeng Yuleng
Department of Political Science, University of Salzburg.
J Peace Res. 2024 Jul;61(4):659-672. doi: 10.1177/00223433231153902. Epub 2023 Apr 16.
Strong commercial ties promote peace as states shun the opportunity costs of economic disruption. However, trade also enriches and empowers states, rendering them more capable of enforcing long-term settlements. Given economic disruption does not last forever, countries can be incentivized to trade short-term economic losses for long-term political or territorial gains. This trade-off can restrict or even reverse the pacifying effect of commerce as it renders states incapable of committing to existing peaceful deals. I argue the scope condition hinges on the existing power imbalance and the security externalities of trade, defined as states' abilities to translate trade gains into (potential) military power. For countries where the existing power gap is not extreme, the impact of bilateral strategic trade is contingent upon a country's trade externality relative to its opponent's. Although increased bilateral trade can be peace-promoting when the relative externality is small, the pacifying effects can dissipate as a relatively weaker state becomes more capable of exploiting trade gains. Building on recent work in network analysis, I propose a new measurement of trade externalities to test the above theory and find supporting results.
强大的商业联系促进和平，因为各国会回避经济中断带来的机会成本。然而，贸易也会使各国富裕并增强其力量，使其更有能力执行长期解决方案。鉴于经济中断不会永远持续，各国可能会受到激励，用短期经济损失换取长期政治或领土收益。这种权衡可能会限制甚至扭转商业的和平效应，因为它使各国无法遵守现有的和平协议。我认为范围条件取决于现有的权力不平衡和贸易的安全外部性，贸易的安全外部性定义为各国将贸易收益转化为（潜在）军事力量的能力。对于现有权力差距不太极端的国家，双边战略贸易的影响取决于一个国家相对于其对手的贸易外部性。当相对外部性较小时，双边贸易增加虽然可以促进和平，但随着相对较弱的国家更有能力利用贸易收益，和平效应可能会消失。基于网络分析的最新研究成果，我提出了一种新的贸易外部性衡量方法来检验上述理论，并得到了支持性结果。
