Regional Trade Agreements as Military Alliances

Abstract

Some alliances lead to militarized interstate conflict while others lead to peace (Gibler 2000). Liberal scholars argue that trade institutions minimize such hostilities. Trade institutions, however, can also be military alliances. Alliance commitments embedded in the treaties of regional trade agreements (RTAs) are an emerging phenomenon in international politics. Similar to Gibler's (2000) territorial settlement treaties, RTA military alliances serve conflict management functions. Their purpose is to prevent RTA members, who are trading enemies, from attacking each other or supporting coups against other members' governments. These commitments are supposed to send signals to deter external aggression. Since RTA military alliances are a little known fact in the study of international relations, their theoretical and policy implications are not well understood. Analysis of RTA military alliances will help shed light on when alliances lead to war and peace as well as have little influence at all.The purpose of this study is (1) to demonstrate that RTAs can be military alliances through alliance commitments stipulated in RTA treaties and (2) to provide an empirical test of RTA military alliance influence on the likelihood of militarized conflict involving dyad members. Findings suggest that RTAs with alliance commitments exist. Second, traditional allies are more likely to experience political hostilities than other states while RTA military allies are less likely. Neither relationship is statistically significant. When country pairs share membership in a traditional alliance and a RTA military alliance, the interaction enhances the conflict encourag-373 ing effect of shared traditional alliance as well as the conflict inhibiting influence of shared RTA military alliance membership. The interaction is statistically significant. African RTAs, dyads and militarized interstate conflict from 1950-1992 are the focus of this study.

International economic institutions: Formal mechanisms for dealing with resource conflict

“…Some REI water treaties, however, explicitly reference hostilities over water resources (e.g., ECOWAS treaty, SADC treaty). REI military forces are employed for such crises (Powers, 2001(Powers, , 2004. In theory, REIs provide credibility for use of force when tensions arise over violations of international water law (Hensel et al, 2005).…”

“…REIs stipulate rules for trade liberalization and economic development among a limited number of countries, which makes them discriminatory (Schiff and Winters, 1993;Powers, 2004). ''States grant each other greater access to their markets, other than [nonmembers] receive'' (Lazer, 1999;Mansfield and Pevehouse, 2000).…”

“…(1) DISPUTE ij =B 0 +B 1 REI water treaty ij +B 2 REI ij +B 3 Water treaty ij +B 4 Shared River basin ij +B 5 Trade ij +B 6 Contiguity ij +B 7 Capability ratio ij +e ij (2) DISPUTE ij =B 0 +B 1 REI water boundary treaty ij +B 2 REI ij +B 3 Water treaty ij +B 4 Shared River Powers (2004) for the list of sources used to collect this information. basin ij +B 5 Trade ij +B 6 Contiguity ij +B 7 Capability ratio ij +e ij (3) DISPUTE ij =B 0 +B 1 REI water treaty ij +B 2 Allies ij +B 3 (REI water boundary treaty ij *Allies ij ) +B 4 REI ij +B 5 Water treaty ij +B 6 Shared River Basin ij +B 7 Trade ij +B 8 Contiguity ij +B 9 Capability ratio ij +e ij…”

“…REIs in which states are the only members are the appropriate sample for this study because REIs including non-state actors do not incorporate alliance commitments into their treaties. See Powers (2004) for a more complete discussion. 8.…”

The Myth of the Positive Impact of Asymetric Economic Interdependence on National Security. The Case of the Sino-Japanese Conflict

“…Thus, suspiciousness among states is reduced and consequently, in case of disagreement there can be a peaceful resolution. For example, [13] has argued that Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) can operate as military alliances and therefore can decrease the likelihood of military actions. In addition, variables such as alliances, trade flows, Gross Domestic Product, contiguity as well as political regime have been the most common among others, used by the Liberals as observables factors.…”