Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Economic Interdependence and Interstate Conflict

建立在国际贸易和金融基础上的经济相互依赖对各国的冲突行为有安抚作用还是加剧作用--或者根本没有影响？最近的研究得出了相互矛盾的推论；结果似乎取决于研究的国家和年份，以及使用的分析技术。政策制定者越来越多地断言，经济上的相互依存促进了国家间的和平与合作。但很少有政策制定者或学者提供理论和经验上的理由。本文的研究对贸易和金融影响冲突的国内和国际条件提供了洞察力。要研究的主要机制是社会中特定群体的经济成本和利益与他们的外交政策偏好以及他们影响国家外交政策选择的能力之间的联系。本论文的研究将：(1)提供更完整的经济相互依存的概念化和可操作性；(2)通过可检验的因果过程，构建一个将经济相互依存与国家间冲突(战争、军事化的州际争端、较低水平的冲突行为形式)联系起来的理论；(3)调查将国际贸易和金融与国家间冲突联系起来的国内经济和政治条件；(4)收集和汇编必要的数据，对从该理论得出的假设进行跨国和纵向检验；以及(5)统计分析和实质性评估该理论的表现，同时控制合理的替代解释。

Does economic interdependence based on international trade and finance have pacifying or exacerbating effects on states' conflict behavior - or no effects at all? Recent research yields contradictory inferences; findings seem to depend on the countries and years studied, and the techniques of analysis used. Increasingly, policy makers assert that economic interdependence promotes interstate peace and cooperation. But rarely is a theoretical and empirical justification provided by either policy makers or scholars. This dissertation research provides insight into the domestic and international conditions under which trade and finance affect conflict. The primary mechanism to be studied is the linkage from the economic costs and benefits to particular groups in society to their foreign policy preferences, and their ability to affect states' foreign policy choices. This dissertation research will: (1) provide a more complete conceptualization and operationalization of economic interdependence; (2) construct a theory connecting economic interdependence to interstate conflict (wars, militarized interstate disputes, lower-level forms of conflictual behavior) via a testable, causal process; (3) investigate the domestic economic and political conditions linking international trade and finance to interstate conflict; (4) collect and compile the data necessary to conduct cross-national and longitudinal tests of hypotheses derived from the theory; and (5) statistically analyze and substantively evaluate the performance of the theory while controlling for plausible alternative explanations.