Showing papers on "Economic interdependence published in 2016"

Ocean Freight Rates and Economic Development 1750-1913

Abstract: REVOLUTIONARY developments in transport have been an essential feature of the rapid growth of the western world of the past two centuries. Reduction in the cost of carriage has enabled specialization and division of labor on a national and international basis to replace the relatively self-sufficient economies that predominated in the western world two centuries ago. The striking role of the railroad in the nineteenth century is well known. However, it was water transport in which the bulk shipment of commodities began, and it was the development of ocean shipping that was an integral aspect of the growing economic interdependence of the western world, the opening up of the undeveloped continents, and the promotion of the settlement of the "empty lands." The declining cost of ocean transportation was a process of widening the resource base of the western world. The agriculture of new countries was stimulated (and that of old countries at least temporarily depressed), the specter of famine as a result of crop failure reduced, and the raw materials were provided for industrialization. In short, the radical decline in ocean freight rates was an important part of the redirection of the resources of the western world in the course of the vast development of the past two centuries. This paper is in effect a progress report on a study I initiated two years ago at the National Bureau of Economic Research on the costs of ocean transportation between i750 and 1913. The initial statistical objective was to gather annual data on every major bulk commodity on every major trade route in the world over this period. Needless to say, this immodest objective was confronted with limitations of available data; yet I think it can be said with some confidence now that a fairly comprehensive picture of the costs of ocean transportation over this period will result. Most of the data have now been gathered and we now know where we can obtain the rates to fill in the gaps that remain. The data are, as yet, far from completely organized and analyzed, but the conclusions that have emerged already will, I believe, be of interest to you. What I propose to do in this paper is summarize and illustrate a few of these conclusions and go on to explore briefly

Multinational Firms and the Theory of International Trade and Investment

Abstract: tinational corporation in the arena of economic activity and political influence, trade theorists have either ignored it or expressed unguarded skepticism at the ability of the conventional trade models to successfully capture and analyze the features of this new phenomenon.' The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, by building upon the contribution by Richard Caves, we will show that the traditional trade models can be adapted in a way that preserves most, if not all, of the attributes introduced by international firms.2 Second, we will conduct a comparative statics analysis to explore the implications of tariffs and taxes for resource allocation and international capital movements. Our results here confirm what has already been well established in myriad empirical studies, that maturation of the international firm has vastly increased economic interdependence among trading countries, and that few nations can eschew the ripples caused by economic policies of other nations.3

The new interdependence approach: theoretical development and empirical demonstration

Abstract: Mainstream approaches to international political economy seek to explain the political transformations that have made more open trade relations possible. They stress how changing coalitions of interest groups within particular states and changing functional needs of states give rise to new international agreements. While these approaches remain valuable, they only imperfectly encompass a new set of important causal relations. We now live in the world that trade built – a world where greater interdependence has major consequences both for actors' interests and their ability to pursue those interests. A new body of work, which we have called the 'new interdependence' explains how these transformations are playing out. The new interdependence stresses a structural vision of international politics based on rule overlap between different national jurisdictions, which leads to clashes over whose rules should apply when. This not only generates tensions, but also opportunity structures that may help acto...

Turkey and Russia in a shifting global order: cooperation, conflict and asymmetric interdependence in a turbulent region

Abstract: The current global political economy is characterised by the intensifying economic interaction of BRICS and ‘near BRICS’ economies, with emerging powers increasing their influence in neighbouring regions. The growing partnership between Turkey and Russia constitutes a useful case study for examining this transformation, in which Western supremacy and US hegemony are under increasing challenge. Turkish–Russian relations shed light on broader themes in global political economy. First, significant economic interdependence may be generated among states with different political outlooks, in the form of loose regional integration schemes driven by bilateral relations between key states and supporting private actors or interests. Second, growing economic interdependence may coexist with continued political conflict and geopolitical rivalry, as indicated by the Syrian and Ukrainian crises. An important strategy that emerges is the tendency to compartmentalise economic issues and geopolitical rivalries in ...

Banking unconditionally: the political economy of Chinese finance in Latin America

Abstract: Globalization scholars have long-debated to what extent economic integration, and, specifically, mobile private capital, constrains national policy-making. With Western capital reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, state-owned capital made inroads globally. China, as the world's largest saver, expanded its cross-border lending, funneling almost US$300 billion to developing countries since the crisis. What are the implications for debtor governments’ room to maneuver? I contend that China's state-led capitalism is an important form of patient capital, characterized by a longer term horizon. I argue that its rapid global expansion has transformed the traditional relationship between economic interdependence and national policy autonomy. Without the market's threat of short-term capital withdrawal, national governments have considerably more room to maneuver. Given the recent emergence of Chinese financing, I employ a comparative case study analysis of two of China's largest debtors – Brazil and Ve...

The complex structure of commercial peace contrasting trade interdependence, asymmetry, and multipolarity

Abstract: Researchers continue to debate the impact of trade on interstate conflict. While many view trade as pacifying, others argue that dependencies increase friction and the risk of war. We provide a theory that explains how cross-border economic ties alternately enhance or impede international cooperation. Three main factors account for the heterogeneous effects of trade on conflict: interdependence, asymmetry, and multipolarity. Interdependence can act as a substitute for, or as a deterrent to, militarized violence. In the former case, interdependence actually increases more modest non-militarized conflict, while also discouraging militarized disputes. Asymmetry diminishes the conflict-inhibiting effect of trade ties, as dependency cannot simultaneously be used to coerce and to inform. Multilateral trade networks alternately moderate or enhance the bilateral effects of interdependence and asymmetry on interstate peace. Our theory and evidence reveal complex, cross-cutting consequences of economic interdepende...

“Oil above Water”: Economic Interdependence and Third-party Intervention

Abstract: We explore economic incentives for third parties to intervene in ongoing internal wars. We develop a three-party model of the decision to intervene in conflict that highlights the role of the economic benefits accruing from the intervention and the potential costs. We present novel empirical results on the role of oil in motivating third-party military intervention. We find that the likelihood of a third-party intervention increases when (a) the country at war has large reserves of oil, (b) the relative competition in the sector is limited, and (c) the potential intervener has a higher demand for oil.

The Sino–Japanese territorial dispute and threat perception in power transition

Abstract: A territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has gained a high profile in Sino–Japanese relations. Since the 2012 escalation of the territorial dispute, there is no sign of any de-escalation despite economic interdependence, which previously helped ease the tension. Drawing on the constructivist understanding of threat perception and power transition theory, this article analyzes the way in which the deepening of threat perceptions associated with a perceived regional power transition prevents Japan and China from working beyond their subjective conceptions of justice associated with boarders and history. Since 2012, the Sino–Japanese territorial dispute has increasingly fitted into a larger picture of power-political conflict taking place in a power transition in which both Japan and China aim to return to ‘normality’ by propagating their territorial claims, strengthening their military capabilities, and strategic realignment. To that end, this article first introduces a theoretical fram...

Sovereignty regimes in the South China Sea: assessing contemporary Sino-US relations

Abstract: This article outlines how a materialist understanding of foreign policy predicated on contrasting sovereignty regimes might be applied to current conflicts between China and the United States and its allies in the South China Sea. A stark divergence between liberal and realist commentary, policy prescriptions, and policy practices has emerged in both China and the United States. We provide a critical overview of the dispute before arguing that these disparities are, at root, symptoms of a material contradiction between the benefits and risks of economic interdependence and territorial expansionism. These symptoms are consequently founded upon a real-world paradox, refracted through fundamentally different modalities of practicing state sovereignty, and will ultimately be resolved politically. An intensification of interstate rivalry is fast becoming the outcome of a period of unprecedented economic interconnectedness, to which these variegated sovereignty regimes are contributing.

Investing in stability: Economic interdependence, coups d’état, and the capitalist peace

Abstract: The capitalist peace thesis argues transnational economic ties have a pacifying effect on interstate relations. An extension of this literature reports that economic ties can prompt belligerents in civil conflicts to peacefully resolve their disputes and can attract third-party intervention from states with strong economic ties. This pacifying effect of economic ties, we argue, is applicable in the context of coups d’etat: as a state becomes more economically interdependent with the rest of the world, the opportunity costs of domestic political disturbances are raised for both the targeted state and its financial partners. These costs – potential economic losses and a damaged economic reputation – influence belligerents in the state to use constitutional means to resolve their disputes while providing stronger incentives to foreign economic partners to influence the calculus of these belligerents as they consider the coup attempt. We test this argument quantitatively by investigating the influence of a do...

Banking Unconditionally: The Political Economy of Chinese Finance in Latin America

Abstract: Globalization scholars have long-debated to what extent economic integration, and specifically, mobile private capital constrains national policymaking. With Western capital reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, state-owned capital made inroads globally. China, as the world’s largest saver, expanded its cross-border lending, funneling almost US$300 billion to developing countries since the crisis. What are the implications for debtor governments’ room to maneuver? I contend that China’s state-led capitalism is an important form of patient capital, characterized by a longer-term horizon. I argue that its rapid global expansion has transformed the traditional relationship between economic interdependence and national policy autonomy. Without the market’s threat of short-term capital withdrawal, national governments have considerably more room to maneuver. Given the recent emergence of Chinese financing, I employ a comparative case study analysis of two of China’s largest debtors, Brazil and Venezuela, before and after the introduction of Chinese credit. I find that government budget deficits increase as Chinese state-to-state financing accounts for a larger share of total external public financing. These findings offer important new insights for the study of globalization, Latin American development, and China-Latin American relations, by helping explain the conditions under which nations veer from Western governance models.

How demographic patterns and social policies shape interdependence among lives in the family realm.

Abstract: textOur starting point is that a social psychological approach dominates the literature on interdependent or “linked” lives (Elder, 1994). We argue that interdependence is not only social-psychological, but is also structured on a macro-level. More specifically, we illustrate ways in which demographic change, such as increased co-longevity, creates different opportunities for interdependence for men and women. In addition, we draw attention to the role of national policies, distinguishing ways in which legislation mandates generational interdependence (e.g., legal obligations to provide financial support), blocks generational interdependence (e.g., grandparents not granted the right to raise grandchildren when parents cannot provide adequate care; migration laws not granting temporary visits to enable the provision of care), generates generational interdependence (e.g., daddy quota), and lightens generational interdependence (e.g., less reliance on grandparental care in Northern and Western Europe due to public support to parents of young children). We pay specific attention to childless men and women, questioning the primacy assigned to kinship ties in health care and long-term support policies. Gender receives consistent consideration throughout the paper.

China's Evolving Approach to Economic Diplomacy

Abstract: Although theorists of international relations have long regarded trade interdependence as pacifying,1 recent scholarship has arrived at a more ambivalent conclusion. In Transition Scenarios: China and the United States in the Twenty-First Century, David Rapkin and William Thompson cautioned against the expectation that trade interdependence would necessarily restrain competition between two great powers. They pointed out that in past instances in which an established system-leading power faced competition from a rising challenger, "competition and tensions have prevailed over the desire to prevent interruptions of commerce."2 The authors further noted that many of these tensions have stemmed from strategies employed by rising powers to "catch up" to the established powers. Rising powers have frequently adopted centralized strategies, including government intervention and protection, subsidies, and industrial policies, which countries favoring the status quo resent as unfair. Economic development has historically resulted in greater convergence in similar sectors and industries, fueling competition for markets. Convergence has also heightened competition for energy and other key resources.The deterioration in the U.S.-China relationship despite deep economic interdependence appears to conform to the pattern of interactions between rising and system-leading status quo powers outlined by Thompson and Rapkin. Tensions have risen sharply in recent years, despite the United States being China's top trade partner and China remaining the second-largest trade partner for the United States (after only Canada). Noting these trends, Thompson and Rapkin argue that economic interdependence will have "mixed effects" on the U.S.-China rivalry. While such interdependence may produce a pacifying process at the bilateral level, it will likely "increase competition and tension" at both the bilateral and systemic levels.3This article explores the role that changes to China's economic foreign policy may have played in exacerbating strategic competition with the United States. The inspiration for this research project drew from the observation that a general deterioration in relations between China and the United States starting around 2010 coincided with continued increases in bilateral trade and investment. In fact, some of China's economic policies, such as the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2013, appear to have heightened tensions. This development is striking when one considers the fact that economic relations have long been regarded as a stabilizing, constructive influence on the U.S.-China relationship.4To understand this paradox, this article traces official and academic treatment of three key Chinese terms related to the intersection of economics and foreign policy: economic diplomacy (jingji waijiao), strong trading power (maoyi qiangguo), and economic security (jingji anquan). Economic diplomacy concerns both the economic dimension of foreign policy and the strategic dimension of economic policy. China's effort to transform itself into a strong trading power capable of greater international economic leadership requires the implementation of tools and ideas associated with economic diplomacy. Finally, the increasing importance placed by senior leaders on the idea of economic security reflects, in part, Chinese anxieties about the political and strategic perils that threaten China's development into a strong trading power.Analysis of these ideas and their associated policies reveals a fundamental ambivalence on the part of Chinese authorities regarding the existing international economic order, an ambivalence that appears to be growing over time. Chinese thinkers and officials appreciate the opportunities offered by the global system of trade, but they have also long regarded this system as unfairly privileging Western countries and thus in need of reform. While initially designed to facilitate the country's integration into the existing economic order, China's approach to economic diplomacy evolved as its power grew and its needs diverged from those of its chief competitor, the United States. …

Complex governance and the new interdependence approach (NIA)

Abstract: Existing models that aim to explain the effects of economic interdependence on global politics do not adequately capture transnational politics and the production of new modes of governance. The new interdependence approach (NIA), defined and illustrated in this symposium, exemplifies new modes of cross-border complex governance. Complex governance is defined by its disruption of the dominant role of national governments in global and regional governance. National governments have become only one set of actors in among a heterogeneous group of participants in global governance, agents who collaborate across type to produce more informal and less legalized governance outcomes. Complex governance and the NIA approach appear to have both functional limits (more apparent in issue-areas new to the global agenda) and spatial limits (gradually extending beyond the industrialized countries to the developing world). National governments and politics remain influential in a world of complex governance. A fi...

Open economy politics and international security dynamics: Explaining international cooperation in financial crises

Abstract: Why do states cooperate during international financial crises? A prominent account of such phenomena is provided by the Open Economy Politics approach, which advocates a methodological reductionism that focuses on domestic interests and institutions as explanatory drivers of foreign economic policy. I argue that the appropriateness and utility of this approach diminishes in two important contexts: when levels of economic interdependence and international institutionalization are both high; and when international insecurity is rising. Since the second condition has greater generality in international relations, I test it by focusing on a period when international economic institutionalization was much lower than today: the pre-1914 gold standard system. I show that as levels of interstate rivalry and insecurity rose in the years before 1914, so too did the role of strategic considerations in the international financial policies of the major European powers. The utility of the Open Economy Politics approach for explaining foreign financial policy is therefore contingent on an evolving international context. The argument is of considerable relevance to the contemporary era, when a rapidly evolving international political environment is again reshaping international financial policies.

China and Southeast Asia: Asymmetry, Leadership and Normalcy

Abstract: has been unusually successful in its relations with Southeast Asia during the reform era, and its success has been due primarily to the quality of its diplomatic leadership. Diplomacy involves more than the tactics and style of pursuing national interests. Although China's diplomacy has involved dominant personalities like Deng Xiaoping and skilled statesmen like former foreign minister Qian Qichen, the key element of successful leadership has been China's reassessment of its interests and goals vis-a-vis Southeast Asia. Of course, a successful relationship requires cooperation on both sides, and Southeast Asian diplomacy, both as practiced by individual states and collectively through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) , has played an essential role. Nevertheless, it is argued here that China's diplomacy was a key factor, and that neither the constellation of power in the region nor the increasing economic interdependence could explain China's success. Although leadership usually draws attention because of its activity during crises, the creation of a mutually acceptable and sustainable relationship despite vast changes in relative capacities is at least an equally important achievement. Success has not been easy. Relations with Southeast Asia have been through two stages since the Chinese reform era began in 1979. The first stage was defined by China's hostility towards Vietnam. Since the six members of ASEAN1 at that time also opposed Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia, China was able to improve its political and economic relations in the region. However, the region remained concerned about Chinese willingness to intervene in Indochina, and ASEAN moved more rapidly than China to improve its relations with Vietnam. The second stage was defined by the

South Korea’s Strategy toward a Rising China, Security Dynamics in East Asia, and International Relations Theory

Abstract: This article contends that South Korea’s behaviors toward China since 1992 can be fully understood when the structural variables of the strategic environment—i.e., economic interdependence, the US-centered hub-and-spoke system, and the North Korean threat—are combined with the domestic variable of Seoul’s leadership change and its perception of threat.

China’s Global Energy Diplomacy: Behavior Normalization Through Economic Interdependence or Resource Neo-mercantilism and Power Politics?

Abstract: The magnitude of China’s energy needs and global energy acquisitions, and their recent emergence as key features of the international system, raise many sensitive questions: will China adapt to or reshape the international system as historically defined by the hegemonic West, and what is the role of its energy policy, politics, and resource nationalism in a possible new Great Game? While much of the current literature posits an either/or approach (China adapts to energy market or tries to redefine them as a part of a wider political plan), our hypothesis is that China is essentially a pragmatic actor who reacts to the forces in presence, rather than a revisionist power with a grand plan to realign the world order to suit its needs and satisfy some kind of pre-established grand vision. We posit that China goes beyond conformity with or resistance to the established energy market and the power relations they underpin: While local circumstances may be considered variables, its fixed objective is a stable international order and the pragmatic satisfaction of its energy needs in order to insure continued economic growth and general stability at home.

China–Australia strategic partnership in the context of China’s grand peripheral diplomacy

Abstract: Alongside its rise, China has intensified its relations with countries on its periphery by adopting a “dual-core” strategy in order to create a “Community of Common Destiny”. In this context, China has upgraded its relationship with Australia from “commercial” to “strategic” levels. China’s “dual-core” strategy and the China–Australia strategic partnership reveal not only China’s desire for intensifying its economic interdependence with countries on its periphery, Australia included, but also China’s strategic intention of creating its own sphere of influence in the form of a “Community of Common Destiny”. China wishes to sustain its economic and social progress by restoring the past glory of “Fuqiang” (wealth and power) as it enhances both its “hard” and “soft” power. The intensified economic interdependence may persuade countries on its periphery to avoid being involved in any attempt by China’s competitors to contain its rise.

The Political Economy of an “Asian” Mega-FTA: The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Abstract: Like other proposed mega-FTAs, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is intended to address twenty-first-century trade issues. The attributes of the RCEP negotiations are unique, however—being shaped by the dominant political interests in its member states and by the particular character of economic interdependence in the region.

China's Troubled Waters: Maritime Disputes in Theoretical Perspective

Abstract: How are China's ongoing sovereignty disputes in the East and South China Seas likely to evolve? Are relations across the Taiwan Strait poised to enter a new period of relaxation or tension? How are economic interdependence, domestic public opinion, and the deterrence role played by the US likely to affect China's relations with its counterparts in these disputes? Although territorial disputes have been the leading cause for interstate wars in the past, China has settled most of its land borders with its neighbours. Its maritime boundaries, however, have remained contentious. This book examines China's conduct in these maritime disputes in order to analyse Beijing's foreign policy intentions in general. Rather than studying Chinese motives in isolation, Steve Chan uses recent theoretical and empirical insights from international relations research to analyse China's management of its maritime disputes.

East and South China Seas Maritime Dispute Resolution and Escalation: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Abstract: Our assumptions about the nature and conduct of contemporary international politics deeply impact how we view maritime disputes plaguing the East and South China Seas. In this article, our analysis of the push and pull factors that influence the extent and possible resolution of maritime disputes in East Asia reveals that war is neither opposed in principle nor completely forbidden as an alternative. Amid heightening maritime tensions in the region, we argue that the underlying forces sustaining complex interdependence are what prevent rival states from engaging into a realist-inspired, zero-sum warfare. However, this is not to suggest that economic interdependence creates an absolute power that completely eradicates these flashpoints, and neither do we imply that it faithfully reflects East Asia’s maritime political reality. Although East Asian countries (particularly the more powerful ones) may think that open war can be justified, as a matter of practical utility, avoiding it is likely to be more effec...

Trade Interdependence and the Use of Force: Do Issues Matter?

Abstract: In this project, we investigate the relationship between the use of military force and trade interdependence, suggesting that the influence of trade on militarized conflict varies based on the issue under dispute. For some issues, trade is likely to attenuate the chances that states escalate a dispute to the use of military force, while for others trade can intensify disputes so that military conflict is more likely. Specifically, we hypothesize that greater trade interdependence decreases the probability of military conflict over realpolitik issues like territory. On the other hand, greater trade interdependence increases the probability that states use military force when the issue under dispute concerns the regime, policies, and conditions in the target. To test our hypotheses, we employ new data on dyadic uses of force from the International Military Intervention data set that records the initiator’s reason(s) for using force against the target. The statistical tests support our hypotheses; tr...

Trade and peace: the EU and Gaddafi's final decade

Abstract: This article examines the effectiveness of the EU's use of trade to induce peace in Libya during Gaddafi's final ten years in power, between 2001 and 2011. During this period, the EU implored and reiterated through rhetoric, policy and the exchange of goods and services that trade was to be used as a tool to maintain peace and prevent conflict. Indeed, this peace-through-trade assumption is at the heart of the EU, which was founded on the notion that economic interdependence ameliorates potential causes of conflict. Initially, this article embeds its argument in the theory concerned with the relationship between trade and peace, followed by tracking the development of the EU's policy. The main body of the article then provides evidence which goes against the assumption that the trade–peace relationship is positively correlated. Specifically, it is argued that the EU's peace-through-trade policy failed in this instance due to the fact that it failed to take into account the Libyan context: namely, the Middle Eastern state's ethnographic and historical makeup; the weapons of mass-destruction programme and the subsequently induced sanctions; Gaddafi's rule and attempts at reform; as well as the 2011 conflict. All these factors amalgamated to ongoing conflict in Libya during Gaddafi's final decade in power despite EU–Libyan trade continuing to take place during this timeframe.

The Violence of Work: Revisiting South Africa’s ‘Labour Question’ Through Precarity and Anti-Blackness

Abstract: A normative association of waged work with ideas of dignity and personal responsibility was central to the elaboration of the ‘labour question’ by the institutions of white rule in early 20th-century South Africa. Colonial work ethic sustained representations of the ‘native’ as a productive agent for whom promises of progress and modernisation (deriving from economic interdependence) contrasted with the deepening of political subjugation and racialised despotism. The respectability that was putatively linked to working for wages served to define the ‘native’ in opposition to what the white state perceived as a more threatening blackness, averse to wage labour and incompatible with the country’s colonial situation. Nascent African nationalism articulated its claims (albeit with significant ambiguities), against the background of such ideational oppositions. Ideals of productive Africans as virtuous subjects of the white-ruled polity simultaneously disguised and underpinned modalities of structural violence...

Economic Interdependence And International Conflict New Perspectives On An Enduring Debate

Abstract: Thank you for reading economic interdependence and international conflict new perspectives on an enduring debate. As you may know, people have look numerous times for their chosen readings like this economic interdependence and international conflict new perspectives on an enduring debate, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some harmful bugs inside their desktop computer.

It's Not the Economy Stupid! Is Russia-US Trade Really Underdeveloped? A Test Using Gravity Models

Abstract: Politicians, pundits and experts in both Russia and the US frequently bemoan the "underdevelopment" of US-Russia trade, arguing that political factors have inhibited the development of economic ties. It is also often argued that political relations between the two countries would also be more cooperative and less conflictual if these ties developed up to their full potential. The paper seeks to test the conventional wisdom that the US-Russia trade is underdeveloped by employing a standard gravity model to measure where trade between the two countries "should" be. We find no evidence that the US-Russia trade is underdeveloped. In terms of its ability to live up to the predictions of the model, trade between the two countries is predicted by the standard determinants of trade, suggesting that there is nothing erratic about the US-Russia trade and it behaves like any average country pair. These findings suggest that US-Russia trade relations actually live up to their economic potential and that the commonly held idea that political relations between Russia and the US can be dramatically improved by tapping into the "unfulfilled" promise of improved trade relations is unfounded. Moreover, our analysis demonstrates that the sectorial structure of the two economies, factor endowments and comparative advantages do not seem to indicate that there is significant potential for increased trade, as the conventional wisdom would suggest. The conventional view argues that poor political relations have impeded the development of economic relations between the two states. But, in fact, the opposite may be true: relations between the US and Russia are characterized by rivalry and conflict because there is little solid economic grounds for more pacific relations.

Global Production Sharing and Asian Trade Patterns: Implications for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

Abstract: This paper documents and analyzes emerging trade patterns in Asia, with special reference to the implications of global production sharing with a view to informing the policy debate on forming the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The analysis reveals that the degree of dependence of RCEP countries on this new form of global division of labour is much larger compared to Europe and North America. Global production sharing has certainly strengthened economic interdependence among the countries in the region, but the dynamism of the regional cross-border production networks depends inexorably on global, rather than regional, trade in final goods. The findings of this paper make a strong case for a global, rather than a regional, approach to trade and investment policy making.

Is China destined to play high-politics in East Asia?

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to project China’s emerging trend towards high-politics in East Asia that is ostensibly generated by regional geopolitical dynamics Hegemonic transition, replacing hegemonic stability, may seemingly be activating the dynamics There is almost an inexorable move towards high-politics due mainly to presence of issues that are likely to trigger conflict, possibly a limited war These issues range from flash points to populist nationalism, economic interdependence, and a competition for supremacy in the Western Pacific The paper concludes by highlighting likely resultant hi-politics, action-reaction cycles, polarizations and alignments by arraying of forces, probability of a limited war, mutual deterrence, and projecting overall power relations

Trade Expectations and Great Power Conflict—A Review Essay

Abstract: Whether economic interdependence is a cause of war or peace constitutes a central debate in international politics. Two major approaches advance diametrically opposed claims: liberal theory holds that interdependence between states promotes peace by increasing the costs of war; realist theory argues that interdependence is just another word for vulnerability, a condition that states may try to escape by seizing the resources and markets they need for self-sufficiency. Considerable evidence supports both of these claims. In Economic Interdependence and War, Dale Copeland proposes to resolve this stalemate by showing that interdependence promotes peace when states expect mutually beneficial trade to continue, but creates incentives for war when at least one of the states expects that trade trends will leave it dangerously vulnerable. Notwithstanding this book's major theoretical contributions and its impressive historical research, it leaves open several important questions about how to move forward with it...